Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Wild Barts Can't Be Broken With Will Sloan

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

This mash-up of baseball and musicals is cause for the return of Will Sloan, the cohost of podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael And Us! After celebrating the local sports team, Homer gets the kids a harsh curfew, and that somehow leads to lengthy parodies of Village of the Damned AND Bye Bye Birdie! Listen now for the lesson that kids never learn! 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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Made you go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's real easy, man. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that's more fun than the game of Lent. I'm your host, the midriff monitor, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with us today?

Henry Gilbert in this podcast, Snap, Crackles, and Pops. And who do we have on the line? Your metabolism will change someday too, young man. I'm Will Thone. And today's episode is Wild Barts Can't Be Broken. First pitch of the game. That's a rotating cup. His career's over. I'm gonna warm up the car. But there's only been one pitch.

And it sucked. That was gruesome uh today's episode aired on january 17th 1999 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby super smash brothers comes out on the nintendo 64 in japan varsity blues debuts at number one in the box office and in the nfl playoffs the winners are the denver broncos and the atlanta falcons excellent line reading there yes but we'll learn more about that uh in super bowl 33 next episode or actually two episodes of this podcast very very soon the dawn of family guy will be upon us yes but uh yes uh super smash

brothers the start of an empire for nintendo and i remember when that game came out and was being previewed people the reaction was what the hell is this this is very stupid what are they thinking but now it is one of their biggest games oh yeah i mean it's got to be bigger than mario uh yeah as a franchise it sells like more than just about anything that is a Pokemon. And it was ahead of the curve on the Marvel movie mashup of just like it's every character together in months from Nintendo history. And not to ruin the beginning of this podcast with gamer chat, but the most exciting thing now is thinking about what characters will be next. Yeah, we've gotten so many of the predicted characters. This is the good ready player one.

Super Smash Brothers. I'm surprised to hear it was controversial at the time. It was a very big hit on my schoolyard when I was 10. I heard no dissenting voices. We're a little older. So I think the teen gamers were, you know, playing Quake and the Dooms and the many gory shooters

and tomb raiders so a lot of them looked down upon this kiddie fighting game but it was lots of fun wow that's why we've got to break down those barriers between high and low uh and i remember seeing varsity blues as uh as a teen that it was one of those films made for surly teens of our generation. And I remember in the movie, like James Van Der Beek, he does not say football player to me, but he's okay. And I remember that to show that he's a smart guy, not some dumb jock, he reads Kurt Vonnegut. And everybody's like, what are you reading? Was that his 10th grade reading assignment? I'm kidding. I love Kurt Vonnegut, but it's often assigned to high school students.

I think the one thing in that movie that was the draw for teenage boys was the whipped cream bikini scene. But you saw that in trailers and commercials. There's no more than that, is there? You might get eight more seconds. Yeah. That's kind of it. It's the promise of the removal of whipped cream, which is not going to happen. That does not happen.

Exactly. Not on the screen anyways. I've still not seen Varsity Blues, but I've been hearing a lot of people, because it's been 20 years since 1999, talk about what a great year for movies 1999 was. You know, you had like The Matrix, Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, many sort of era-defining movies,

Magnolia, and, you know, I'm glad that I'm here the week you talk about Varsity Blues. Well, this is like the January dumping ground. Yeah. I connect the release of that movie with having school canceled for two weeks because of a huge blizzard in the Northeast. So right after Christmas break, school's out for even longer, and I was just wallowing in video games and cartoons and Simpsons reruns.

So it was a good time for me to be alive. Not seeing Varsity Blues. Not seeing Varsity Blues. The roads were treacherous. And Eyes Wide Shut, you know, he tried to warn us. Kubrick tried to warn us. Yeah, just like with the moon landing 20 years before. Friend of the show, Jack Allison on Twitter, I saw him joking of like,

that if you believe Eyes Wide Shut was him warning us about Epstein things, then you have to follow that down the rabbit hole to saying like, then the moon landing was fake and Kubrick was warning us. I read an interview with Pauline Kael that came out shortly after Eyes Wide Shut was released and Pauline Kael really hated it. And she said, I don't get why so many people were willing to cut him so much slack in that movie. I mean, those orgy scenes, they were ridiculous. Who would bankroll those things?

They look so expensive. And, you know, I think time has rendered Pauline Kael a bit of a fool. That reminds me too, Will, your recent tweets of Pauline Kael, the influencer, were very funny. Well, thanks very much well i mean we are recording this as the toronto international film festival is happening so if you're like me your twitter feed is probably full of a lot of tweets like that it's a weird mix of that and tokyo game show tweets so yeah for us high and low culture once again. Meeting on Twitter. Juan Will, welcome back. Thanks. You're a host of a couple podcasts.

It's going to be me and Bob. One of our favorites, the Michael and Us podcast with Luke Savage. Yeah, thanks very much. And glad to be back here on season 10, for God's sake. I mean, it's very, you know, we're at the season. I'm glad to be here because we're at the season that I was finally old enough to watch them as they were first airing and and i say that but it's not like i have any particular nostalgic attachment to the episode we're watching today does anybody really um not to spoil anything i think i was enjoying just the uh the high of snow days so everything was good

i do remember watching this episode and thinking, what is this weird kind of Nickelodeon kid power message in this episode? Because I had just grown out of Nickelodeon and I distanced myself from that. I'm like, I'm a grown up man of 16. I'm ready to be an adult and I don't like kids anymore and their power. This is where the age difference between us comes in because I was 10 years. And I remember watching this episode and feeling sort of empowered by it. I very much liked the idea when I was 10 of kids identity politics. I remember like, you know, we had a there was a teacher strike at my school. And then after that, a lot of us, a lot of us kids thought, well, what would it be like if we had a kid's strike? And we started thinking about like what the logistics of that and the grounds for what a kid's strike would be, would be, you know, too much homework or, you know, we don't want to go to school, should be longer recess, that sort of thing. You know, adults are unfair. And as I was watching this episode, I was remembering how sort of radicalized it made me feel as a 10-year-old.

I think it's safe to say that I don't have those feelings anymore. Though your leftism was already coming out in thinking of this organized action. I guess, but it would be flattering me to say that it was leftism exactly. I would say it was rather more narcissistic than that. Well, you know what? Nickelodeon was a powder keg on cable. They were an important player in the kids' rights movement, which has not really made much progress. But now, upon thinking about it, so, I recently just started watching through all of Bob's Burgers.

I'm mostly through it now. I started maybe like eight months ago. This kind of feels like a Bob's Burgers episode, almost, with a focus on just the kids. The kids' shenanigans is a little Bob's Burgers. Yeah. In the past, I've used Rugrats as a pejorative on here, though this is actually more of like a Hey Arnold episode. Yeah, you can go there.

It's a weird mix of references as well, because it's like you have them watching the Village of the Damned, and it ends with a Bye Bye Birdie song. It starts at a baseball game, and then also they kind of take inspiration from a plot of an episode of Leave It to Beaver. Like it's

all over the place. Apparently it was heavily rewritten. There are obviously a lot of lines that were ADR'd after the fact including one very obvious one that always irritates me. But I guess for as troubled as it was in production, I don't think it's a bad episode.

It just is a little all over the place and the ending is strange. I think they needed to get out, but we can talk about that when we get to it. I didn't consider that it was a troubled production because it sort of comes across that way to me. I feel like you were mentioning all the various parodies or the references that it had

and looking back at a better earlier simpsons it feels like there's a little more specificity to the satire or there's i don't know maybe i'm just making this up but all the references seem very kind of haphazard uh in this i i see that there i think that that comes from the sweatiness of a late rewrite on something too. Like that, that kind of comes through. There's, there's some funny stuff on the commentary with the writer, Larry Doyle. This is another of his that he, he talks about how he wanted to name a character after a relative and then the, everybody fought him on it. And they were like, well, why? He's like, well, if you say in the writer's room you care about anything,

you'll be attacked by every other writer. Yeah, I guess it was an uncle who was sick at the time. Based on the tone in the commentary when he mentioned him, it sounds like he didn't make it. I think so. Yeah. And there's another person that's named in this episode, too, the technical director of the baseball broadcast,

which is also somebody that he knows. So two oddly named characters in the beginning of uh this first act i just love doyle airing the dirty laundry of the writer's room of just like you if you dare to show weakness you will be pounced upon but uh it was i mean it was a very jocular writer's room then of like i believe the only woman in there was julie thacker that was mike scully's wife is mike scully's wife so i think that led to some of the uh the boys club ishness of that i would imagine pretty white also right uh yes oh yes yeah not until no definitely not a black guy in the room this time no i think in season four a freelance one was written by an African-American. Michael Carrington.

Yeah, Michael Carrington. I can't think of anybody else up to this point. Yeah, I don't think anybody up to this point. And they all went to Harvard, too. So actually, this is the lesser Harvard season than usual. There's a Harvard brain drain. They all went to Futurama. Yeah, all the Harvard guys.

And that's 95% Harvard. It was kind of a joke on our other podcast series like guess where this new writer went to school and they're all harvard buddies now it's more like uh well is this futurama writer from the class of 86 or 89 like but this opening of the episode here feels very similar to the um dancin homer episode as well yeah there were a few season two callbacks at least that's how i saw them in this episode a lot of episodes i've seen start with a sports game this is a bit of a simpsons trope isn't it oh yeah yeah and it's also they're long on ramp to the real story so act one is basically completely unrelated to everything that happens just getting homer drunk

yeah i'm excited to see a bit of an expansion of the simpsons diegesis here because we learn about a new sports team i mean i'm always amazed by how many different things are in springfield have we ever seen the minor league baseball team the isotopes before this yes they were in dancing. Okay, okay. They've appeared a couple times, but it's been a little while since we got into the Isotopes game. I apologized to all the hardcore Simpsons fans for missing out this important part of the mythology. I'm sure they've been back before this. Last reference I can remember was in Lemon of Troy.

It's like, you're going to win a game this year? Going to try. And he throws the ball directly in front of him. Yes. But yeah, Isotopes. I had a local minor league team i went to in jacksonville the jacksonville suns went to a few games of theirs it's it it's fun at minor league games they try hard to get you there like they it's just about like giveaways

you know free baseballs and hats and whatnot it's not like the um incredibly expensive experience of going to a san Francisco Giants baseball game. That's what baseball is all about, in my opinion. It should be having fun, not caring too much in the warm weather. In case you don't know, I think I might have mentioned this on an old, old podcast. But so these are the Springfield Isotopes. And in the future, there'll be an episode called Hungry, Hungry Homer, where they move to Albuquerque. And because of that, Albuquerque's minor league baseball team is named the Isotopes because fans voted for it. That's cool.

Yeah, pretty cool. I found out that my local team has changed their name, too. I didn't realize that in 2016, the Jacksonville Suns have become the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimps. Yeah, I don't like it. That's not intimidating. I'm not sure I could tell you who my local minor league team is. I'm very ashamed.

I think mine is the Scrappers because Youngstown's just a hell world of scrap metal abandoned everywhere. Scrapping guys, scrapping things. Gotta scrap what's left of the... Hey, how did you guys like the Cindy Lauper cameo? It was weird. It felt inexplicable. I didn i didn't get i mean i know what the joke is but i don't know why i guess that's what i want to say i would say that that more or less sums up my reaction to most of the pop culture

gags in this episode yeah they just seem uh not rooted in anything and i don't know what cindy lopper was doing in 1999 98 i don't know if she was having a resurgence or anything it was just like oh oh she's here i mean the animation is good on her it's very expressive but uh no one seems upset by what she's doing what exactly is the gag on her that she sings too long or that she um uh manipulates the star spangled banner into her own style too much. Like, what are we supposed to kind of take away? What's the satiric point being made about Cyndi Lauper here?

I don't, I mean, she does turn it into girls just want to have fun. But I guess the better joke was Bloody Gems Murphy going on way too long with all the flourishes and everyone falling asleep and multiple cuts within that same song. It was a very funny joke. Yeah, so maybe that was like they thought they were just going to do another. Maybe in the writer's room they pitched like, the gag is the person who overindulges on a saw on the national anthem.

And then somebody alerted them like, well, we did that. And nine seasons go up. Well, what if it was Cyndi Lauper that did it? And the embellishment is she sings it like girls just want to have fun also very funny to me that for some reason cindy lauper is performing at this minor league isotopes game in springfield yeah and it's her it's really her doing it which that yeah that feels so odd that they're like it it seems like a diss on Cyndi Lauper. Also that they designed her to look like how she looked in 1984, which is not how she looked in 1999. That's true.

So I looked this up now. She had a new album out in 1998. It must have been. Then she must have said yes to it just as like promotional thing or whatever. And that is her first holiday album, christmas ellipses have a nice life so the ellipses are the dot dot dot okay uh that's not actually written in text but uh yeah that would be her only holiday album i think which i've never heard and uh cindy lopper is still with us at 63 and we're being extra cautious these days so i'm sure she is in wonderful health but i'm

still gonna play the anti-death jingle just to be safe here. James Pudgert, I ain't dead yet! But all the wrestlers she hung out with, unfortunately. Boy, they actually are all dead. Everyone in the Goonies video is dead now. It's true. You know what? Actually, no.

Iron Cheek's in that, and he's still alive, if you call that living. You know, Cyndi Lauper i i love her she's like a friend of the gay community which i've always liked she i think i saw her drive by at a san francisco pride parade once and she was like one of the celebrity guests and and also as a wrestling nerd i i really liked her too like a big secret of her is that she's there wouldn't be a wrestlemania without cindy lopper that's right like she yeah she is the uh the kindling that started it well not even that like she's more that that almost is too small for her so uh short version is there was a pro wrestler lou albano who she knew growing up you mean yes yeah. Yeah, the only Mario to me. Yeah. Well, but before that, he was a pro wrestler. And when she grew up in the 70s in the New York market, he was one of her favorite bad guys.

So when she's making the Girls Just Want to Have Fun video, she asks him to be the guest, just to play the dad. And it's supposed to just be an in-joke. That was one of the most popular music videos ever at the time. And so he became a giant star, not as the cheating pro wrestling manager, but as Cyndi Lauper's dad. And so WWF at the time, they got hyper involved with her. They're like, you know what? If you want to make that Goonies music video, we'll give you every pro wrestler. They're going to come in and do it.

All of them will be here. They then talked her into doing a storyline where she gets attacked by Roddy Piper. And that attack then leads Hulk Hogan to defend Cyndi Lauper and fight Roddy Piper, which then creates the main event for the first WrestleMania, which she is in attendance at. And that caused a huge crossover with the MTV audience. And so, without Cyndi Lauper wanting to put Lou Albano in that

music video, there would be no WrestleMania. Wow. And no modern wrestling. So she lent them so much credibility. Yeah. And she's not even in their Hall of Fame. Fucking Donald Trump is, but not her. That's my Cyndi Lauper. I'm glad to know this.

I'm glad to know this. Also, Henry Taylor, the tape time. Oh, no. Are we getting to the final tales of the tape? I don't think I'll have too many more. Okay, savor everyone out there, everyone. But this is not my fault in the recording this time this was another time where in my local market for whatever reason the cindy lopper song was cut off until she says bret ave and then the episode started

is that because she disrespected the national anthem my personal belief is that my local broadcaster in jacksonville censored it to not show such an un-American thing as me singing the song. But yeah, so I didn't hear this joke until the DVDs of it. My tapes didn't have her singing it. Well, I hope it was worth the wait. Now these days, I've been to some baseball games and I am tempted to stay seated during anthems but i seriously am fearing being physically attacked while i if i were to sit down so my friend and i once went to a local wrestling show just of random local wrestlers and the show was about to start so we got up to get a beer

because everyone was sitting down while we're getting a beer the national anthem doesn't start but i'm proud to be an american starts and everyone stands up and puts their hand over their hearts and we're walking back with beer and getting sneered at like how dare you man that song's terror that's not the anthem no it's not it's not even better i will admit it's catchier i love that stand up part oh yeah when you hear that part you're like that's why you stand during i guess you're like, I'll proudly stand up next to you and Defender still today. Hypothetically, I am a troop via the power of the song. We're all troops.

Actually, that song is easier to sing than the Star Spangled Banner. So, I mean, listen, it's your country. You can choose whatever you want. But I would frankly go with the later song. I would go with the Hulk H hogan theme uh another wwf fact uh vince mcmahon also hates the anthem he thinks it's not a good song so he starts uh wrestlemania's with america the beautiful ah which you know that's a good i think that's a better song too than all the the ramparts we watched gallantly streaming at boring boring stuff do all the verses do you think vince mcmahon ever looks at trump and thinks why him not me oh

every day absolutely yeah i've uh i've said this before but they they are the same person like they're the the exact same person uh slightly different builds yeah well that's the thing vince mcm McMahon is obsessed with exercise While Donald Trump is the opposite of that But they're the same like They're within a year of the same age They're the sons of rich guys Who act like they're self-made men

They're both the sons of fathers Who brutally hated them And treated them awfully And also we can't get away from The children of vince mcmahon either just like you know another difference is vince mcmahon actually uplifted his wife and let her do the political uh campaigning instead of doing it himself she failed twice to be senator in connecticut she uh i think they lost like 40 million dollars on that

which that's nice that's awesome yeah but anyway so this episode starts uh with the with the family watching a baseball game america the brave the brave home of the brave thank you cindy lauper just a reminder folks we do have a baseball game today. Oh, right. I'm Dennis Conroy, and here come your isotopes. Let's welcome two new additions to the team, Smash

Diggins and Fishbone Walkie. Lucky for us, they were sent down from the majors for drug violation. Well, stupid isotopes. Hurry up and lose so we can get out of here! Why do you hate the isotopes so much, Dad? Because I loved them once and they broke my heart. Let that be a lesson to you, sweetie.

Never love anything. Even you? Especially me. But you gotta support the team, Dad. They're already threatening to move to Moose Jaw. That's right. Like my mother always said, you've gotta stick it out, even if you pick the loser.

To the bitter end. Nice implication that Marge hates Homer. This is a real dark time for their marriage. Yeah. It's a bad time for Marge in these seasons, in general. Where they clink their urine tests together for just a second, every time I think think are they gonna drink it like it's just very odd maybe that i uh just me that they put they put the punch line in your head yes yeah and that's a non-speaking

appearance by lunch lady doris there is the tester homer's all right to have his heart broken because this is the team that fired him for being their mascot uh eight seasons previous i don't know how sports teams are doing now but since we live in the bay area i'm sick of being surrounded by winners it's very very annoying well uh recently our our local sports team got defeated by will's local sports team oh right i was a big fan of that. So the Toronto Raptors. Yes. Yes, I do vaguely recall that. I mean, I really wish you could have been here to witness what it was like in the city because it's been I think the last Stanley Cup that we won was 1967. Wow. Stanley Cup energy went into that Raptors victory. The atmosphere in the city was very much like, you know, as you see in this episode where Homer is like, ah, you know, the isotopes suck. And then all of a sudden he's immediately on the bandwagon when they start, when they start winning, that is very much like that in Toronto. It was actually quite, quite nice. The city really came alive.

Oh, that not as much destruction as happens in Springfield later. There was some destruction. There was a big, I guess, a block party, I want to say, after that took up the entire downtown. I think there were something like three million people out, which is bigger than the actual population of Toronto is. And I believe there were some shootings at that. But if you get 3 million people out, inevitably something like that's going to happen. As someone who will be moving to Canada at some point soon, I use that win to flex my new loyalty to Canada.

Yeah, but Bob, you're moving to British Columbia. That's like the total other side of Ontario. It's like America Junior. The whole other country. I don't even know it. What do you know about Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan? Oh, I mean, if you want to know about Canada, you're really asking the wrong guy. I know about my neighborhood, but what I know about Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan is the name. Okay.

It's a funny name. I thought it was a joke name they made up for, like, it was the new Shelbyville in the show, and I was surprised to find out it's a funny name i thought it was a joke name they made up for like it was the new shelbyville in the show and i then was surprised to find out it's a real place yeah and i'm sure the people who live there love it if they had internet they'd be furious with us the toronto's winning really ruined uh the warriors like they really wanted that fifth championship in a decade but yeah poor guys only four yeah the i uh i don't want to hurt the feelings of warriors fans out there but i feel like that loss was deserved because the warriors are doing what all jerk offs do in this in the bay area which is once they got successful enough

they abandoned the east bay and they're moving to san francisco and so like the the venture capitalist dickles who owned the warriors they made the warriors successful enough that they could finally build a stadium in sanford an arena in san francisco and move the team over there which well something similar is happening here because of course kawaii leonard the man who um if i am to believe my Twitter feed, single-handedly won for the Raptors. I didn't get out of here fast enough after he started getting some U.S. contracts, which is as it always happens in Canada. Wayne Gretzky all over again. That's right.

Magic. The Simpsons will be right back This podcast is woo Not over yet And we have a big thank you to our guest Will Sloan for coming on this week Everybody should check out his awesome podcast, The Important Cinema Club. And Michael and us, me and Bob, are big fans of those. And if you enjoy the Talking Simpsons podcast, you should really consider supporting it on Patreon.

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He's made to look like Raleigh Fingers of a classic Oakland Athletics game. I didn't know that. The way his shoulder dangles is really disgusting. Oh, yeah. Now, Homer actually is acting a bit like my dad. Any sports games we went to, he would not want to stay for the full thing, which I understand it now, Dad. I'm old enough to know that I'd rather, instead of seeing a team win or lose, I'd rather beat the traffic. I mean, I witnessed what happened to you after your last baseball game.

Oh, my horrible sunburn? A near heat stroke, sunstroke conditions. Baseball is, you forget to put on your own sunscreen. If you go to one baseball game every two years, you forget that. You've got to figure out where the shady part is. I don't want to say the friend who bought tickets for us was being cheap,

but we did sit in the bleachers that had no shade. Under a giant magnifying glass. They only put on the poor people. By the way, these cheap seats were $70 at San Francisco Gi these by the way these cheap seats were 70 dollars at san francisco giants that was the cheap seats homer leaves because the the game already sucks and uh dan starts ad-libbing a song about hitler and mussolini yeah do you know the the fun song no it's a whistle while you work hitler is a jerk mussolini bit his weenie now it doesn't work

and i'm sure there are more Verses about other fascists But that's about as far as I got Homer warning us That Hitler was a jerk is more relevant than ever That feels like an edgy comment these days So I was surprised To find out Babe Ruth only had daughters And there is no Babe Ruth Jr.

Let alone third or fourth They got how ugly he was In this Descendant But I do think they were correct ugly he was yes in this descendant but i do think they uh they were correct that he had enough illegitimate children that it's believable that in the simpsons universe he had another some son out there like his one of his daughters he adopted uh her name is julia ruth stevens and he adopted her but it was just cover for her being the illegitimate child of uh of a mistress okay and believe it or not julia lived until march of this year dying at 102 oh what a nightmare

uh the babe ruth for the fourth joke also reminds me of how uh you know the dynasties of entertainment these days like how the reitman family is now directing ghostbusters as they as they should be and jj abrams is priming up his kid to enter the business too oh that's right it doesn't quite work that way with sports like uh with sports you sort of have to physically be able to do it whereas in entertainment yeah you know any reitman can get in there and hold a megaphone and be a traffic cop. What is the J.J. Abrams child project? Well, he's just getting started. But so Marvel Comics really wanted J.J. Abrams to write a comic book for them.

And J.J. Abrams said, well, if I co-write it with my child, I'll do it. And so Marvel announced it as like J.J. Abrams writes Spider-Man. But it's J.J. Abrams and Chris Abrams or whatever his dumb name is. They presented themselves like sitting next to each other. He's like, oh, my son is he's going to be such a great writer. I'm like, this is it. This is here's the guy who's going to direct Star Wars in 10 years. Like 100 percent.

He's sitting right there. I just found out that Joss Whedon's dad was a big player in the Golden Girls. Oh, yeah. And also his real name is Joseph. I didn't know that. I mentioned that we were recording this as the Toronto Film Festival was happening. And one of the movies playing is a documentary directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and it's called Dads. It's just sort of a meditation on the concept of having a dad. A lot of celebrities in it talking about their dads, including, of course, Ron Howard. And I feel it was unwise of the festival to program that film.

Yeah, that's boy, that depressed. I did not know about this. I think she's a good actress. Oh, sure. But I mean, she's a good actress like sure but i mean there gets to be she is a good actress but there gets to be a point where you become so famous and rich that you get so insulated from the world and you think oh i have a dad that's really special and unique what if there was a movie about dads no one has ever done it it's not a major theme in any movie

and and guys do you know do you know who my dad is uh why are we talking about dads celebrities are just so um insulated from being told they're wrong that you kind of can just do anything at that point it reminds me too of how these uh well this is a whole sidetrack but chris evans seems like a good guy all that but i think it's silly that he it was like we need to do something about politics these days i'm starting the uh like sensible centrist group to just get people talking i'm like none of these celebs just join an already existing organization they always want to start their own thing so they can host the parties i'm still part of alissa milano's sex strike by the way so hands off everybody yeah i

mean i'm curious when it got to this point when every celebrity was expected to have an opinion about politics. I mean, I feel like as recently as 10 years ago, I basically didn't know the political views of most celebrities. I mean, you just sort of assume that they're kind of Hollywood liberals for the most part. And then there are one or two people like, I mean, I guess you used to know Clint Eastwood was a conservative or that Warren Beatty was a liberal. But all of a sudden now, every celebrity is expected to have some big opinions on things. I guess that's part of your engagement policy, but you also have to do the careful dance of not having too strident an opinion or else you're like Susan Sarandon. irresponsible to have no opinion because if you're i i think wasn't it taylor swift that

everybody uh was angry at her for not not making an endorsement in the last election i believe so yeah yeah because that's irresponsible anyway back to the wait i don't think obama has given his stance on politics yet since he like uh left the presidency uh he's too busy producing netflix series like we need to come together yeah that's that's his politics uh is this big netflix series it'll be funny to see the obama's documentary sitting right next to the like triggered much comedy special uh but anyway uh Babe Ruth the Fourth predicts a bunt which instantly gets him out. That's a cute

little gag on how baseball works. They head off after they lost. Homer drives away and the losers have lost, as I call this next clip. That'll bring up Babe Ruth the Fourth. Of course, he's no Babe Ruth the Third, but course, he's no Babe Ruth the third,

but the franchise is very excited about this illegitimate great grand bambino. And what's this? He's pointing to the right field bleachers, probably at a dying little boy. Mom, am I dying? No, of course not. Is he, Mom? You can tell me. No. Now he's pointing to the ground.

Is he indicating a bunt? Yes, he's bunting. Good hustle, kid. No, it doesn't work. So who won? The losers? No, they lost. Losers. But only by two points, and they didn't resort to stealing bases like the other team, so it's kind of a moral victory.

With a little middle relief, they might even make the playoffs. You'll be in your cold, cold grave before that ever happens. Homer, would you please stop talking about the children's graves? I gotta say, you play that clip and I'm starting to think maybe I've been too hard on this episode. Lots of laughs. There's lots of good lines yeah as someone who doesn't follow sports or really know about them very much i just realized you're not supposed to announce a bunt a bun is a surprise play and that's the joke i mean i got the whole

pointing to the thing the baby roof pointing where the ball will go but no this this stuff's funny i think it it loses a little steam when the when the kids take over and it becomes uh an r gang parody but uh but no i like i like homers did the losers win no they lost losers that's that's good i this uh i it this bit always strikes me as odd that like this is the only time ever that lisa appears to not only enjoy baseball but understand it at like a higher level than most people engage with it like she's i don't think has ever since or before had an opinion on the game of baseball like knowing middle relief stuff and going over the scorecard like that's baseball nerdery right there well i guess maybe just like in lisa the greek she learns about sports to interact with homer just so they

have something to talk about yeah i guess their skills from football are transferable after that scene we then have a quick cut to six months later which that is very out of left field too not to not make a baseball reference yeah i always like to imagine like what were the episodes that unfolded in that six months in between uh i guess if that was six months then that and it's at the end of the baseball season then that would be like march when the first scene happens and it's like october in the last scene so did the episode where homer's on the sub did that happen in between homer lost his job got hired by the navy and then got discharged all in the same time and that that also means the soviet union is back in the world of The

Simpsons since that episode. Yeah, yeah. Homer arrives at the bar and he finds out, just the way me and Bob find out, that sports is happening by going to a bar and seeing lots of people. Well, I can't have a conversation in here. That's one of our favorite pizza places. Every time we're like, all right, time to go here here major sports are probably over but then we live in such a liberal college town that there actually was a full bar of people to see the women's world cup which i i was you know that's a progressive win there but i yeah i was i was uh i just wanted to eat pizza alone i'm very disappointed in that my local pizza place that i love and go to a lot they always used to show turner classic on every TV, like throughout the entire opening and closing of the restaurant.

But recently, people complain too much. So now they show sports. Boo! Yeah. That breaks my heart. It's terrible. I have half watched so many movies, old movies at that bar. It's great.

It sucks. it's great it sucks it's all the idea of people going there and like seeing uh i don't know humphrey bogart on a tv and just getting mad like angry and complaining one time i i can actually that's a joke but i can see that happening in real life because one time i was uh with my family at thanksgiving and my sister who is not nearly as cultured as me of course we were all watching dial m for murder on whatever tM or whatever was showing it, my family and I. She walks into the room, looks at the TV, and she's like, this movie's old.

And that was all she had to add. Like she was alarmed. Like she wanted to let us know something was wrong. So- Yeah, it's funny to think that that's probably how like 90% of people are when they're confronted with old media. Yeah, it's like-

I think a lot of people look at a movie like that and they think it's almost like, why would you watch this? That's like having an old iPod. Yeah, yeah. It's like she wanted to let us know the movie had expired. Yeah, yeah.

There have been copies of this since then. You know, I think I probably only watched that movie because it was a reference in The Simpsons, I think I probably only watched that movie because it was a reference in The Simpsons. I think actually I did a whole Hitchcock, like, well, I wouldn't have called it a binge back then. But over like a month, we rented every Hitchcock film that was at the blockbuster just because I noticed The Simpsons was referencing Hitchcock all the time. So I needed to know these things. I did that as a teen just to get all the references. I enjoyed tons of the movies.

Yeah, me too. Did you watch Citizen Kane that way? Yeah, I think I saw that in one of my first film classes in college. Yeah, me too. It was a first film class thing. But that also had the same click. Oh, here's every reference on The Simpsons. Makes sense now.

I think they've done pretty much every scene from that movie in The Simpsons in some form or another. I think so every may like even the little things like joseph cotton with his torn up program flipping yeah they even did that by the way though michael nassar and citizen kane that was a really really good one oh thanks very much yeah it was nice to watch a good movie for a change instead of just like astro turfed better aurora'rourke content oh my god oh my god i i am living in the democratic primaries oh god i i don't envy you in that that documentary is made before he became the swearing guy oh yeah yeah well for people who don't know on on my

podcast we just watched a documentary about beto o'rourke's run in Texas, which I think is called Running with Beto, I want to say. And it was produced by the Pod Save America guys. It's already evaporating from my memory. But one of the things that's sort of interesting about it is by the time we watched, like Beto O'Rourke's appeal, it was so enormous about a year ago, and then his popularity evaporated almost instantly. So it feels like this, it's like a relic the second it came out. And it's interesting, too, because the documentary ends on election night with, you know, Beto obviously losing very narrowly to Ted Cruz. And Beto seems utterly untroubled by this. He

seems totally fine because he knows that's okay. The presidential run is happening right after this. God, what a, just such a waste. He actually like in another Senate race in Texas, he'd have a real chance. Yeah. It's not too late. I mean, I suppose it's, I think you guys have said on the thing too before of like, well, you know, it's, even if you don't lose, even if you don't win, you get famous enough from the presidential run. You just get another swing at it anyway. Or speaking tours or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Or he gets to be, you know, secretary of state for president Biden or whatever. Don't say that. Don't say that. Hey, hey, don't shoot the messenger. Hey, all we need is a couple more eye bleeds And we're going to have candidate Bernie I want to believe this Yeah, maybe, maybe

One more bleeding eye He's got to bleed from at least three head holes To shake anybody But, well, speaking of bleeding from head holes That's what Homer thinks Moe did At the start of this next clip What's the hubbub? Did Moe did at the start of this next clip. What's the hubbub? Did Moe finally blow his brains out? Quiet, we're watching the isotopes.

Shut it up, they're losers. Where you been? The isotopes are on fire. Yeah, that sniper at the All-Star game was a blessing in disguise. Now we're in the championship game. Championship? Hmm. Topes rule! championship game. Championship? Hmm. Woo!

Topes rule! Well, here's a die-hard fan. Sir, your beloved isotopes are about to make history. Any thoughts? It's a great team, Kent. You never gave up hope. I want to thank Jesus and say hi to my special lady, Marge. We did it, baby! Woo! Woo!

The inspiring words of a fan who'll always root root root for the home team even if they lose this no no no the game's not over not over there you have it woo something i want to say about this hom Homer comes across extremely badly in this episode throughout. Not just because of the fact that he's a craven bandwagon jumper, but also he seems to have been rooting for Moe to have killed himself. Yes. He's been waiting for so long. So we have like a suicide joke followed by a mass shooting joke.

Yes. And I believe I was reading on the wiki that that joke was taken out of syndicated versions of that episode while the Baltimore sniper thing was happening. Or maybe like a London sniper thing was happening. There's so many snipers. In the early 2002s. I mean, I miss the snipers. They were creative. They had patience.

I'm sick of this spray and pray crap. I remember the DC sniper. That was a big deal for about god it just feels so ancient doesn't it yeah yeah it's it's it's so many corpses ago it really is i i mean that joke is so cruel but i i do love the all-star game joke yeah and the lip sync is way off so it's a late edition but normally i wonder like oh what they had before might have been funnier but i really love that mo is celebrating that a sniper at the all-star game won the isotope that's the only reason they're winning too i mean homer does come off bad i think it's the most

drunk driving on screen with him to date and possibly they didn't do much more of that afterwards but there's just like minutes of drunk driving yeah he's uh homer overall is this is one of his darker moments i think uh and his destruction of school which he doesn't remember at all but yeah and his lying to the camera with uh with kent that i really love that it captures the local guy at bar who gets interviewed who is such a bandwagon fan i like to think homer stole those clothes off of someone outside instantly and put them on i mean why not he's such a monster in this episode complete sociopath why wouldn't he just beat up somebody in an alley steal his clothes and just

walk in yeah no that sounds like that sounds like our homer these days in the show i guess they dropped that whole pickled egg lottery system for designated driving well this is a special occasion that's true it's the big game you just gotta let the topes and as they are celebrating the when the topes win they hit get the home run it's uh topes win and we get to hear about krompowski the uh the relative of uh another larry doyle relative oh yeah the technical director so he's like going going going then he announces that who the technical director was barn even grabs a keg and just sprays everybody with beer they all start getting drawn sprays brockman out of the bar with it i've never had ramaki i don't think i looked up what it was i've never had it apparently

it's a tiki style uh appetizer and so it's water chestnuts and pieces of chicken liver wrapped in bacon and marinated in soy sauce and either ginger or brown sugar. So I'm not a big fan of organ meat. Can't go there. I mean, if you wrap it in bacon, though, it's hard to get it wrong. Though I'm also not a fan of water chestnuts. Maybe I need to open my

palate some more to appreciate it. But yeah, they go on a bender. I do like the gag of lenny carl punching each other in the face as they both say isotopes uh and also i like that carl really has the energy of a drunk friend who tries to make a reference that everyone ignores by saying like hey who's that first right nobody nobody references it is the same drunk driving crew from the new york episode too right lenny carl barney and homer yeah so this time barney's drunk with them yeah i think this also is in the time where they decided homer is like

a party monster who just gets drunk and destroys things instead of uh uh i i don't know i never thought of him as is that type of drunk on the show until these seasons yeah what are some of the recent examples of this well definitely the new york one he got super drunk and well he was like flying around and saying i'm peter pantsless but and then there was the prohibition episode too right yeah yeah he got uh though he's not like doing destruction like he's not destroying things while drunk until then this might this might be his first really destructive uh drunken episode well there's the treehouse of horror episode i think it's the homega man where i mean he's not drunk in it but

his his i guess ideal reality after the world is uh destroyed is him like running around like partying by himself and mutilating corpses and dancing naked in the church yeah yeah i guess he's acting i think they forgot that that was a if that if they're like well we did that with homer we can do other stuff like that is a halloween episode where you're allowed to go farther with the character and people don't mind as much i think just in the escalation of jokes you make homer more and more sociopathic as it goes to surprise people. And if you go on long enough, eventually your lead character is a gigantic monster.

Yeah. Has Homer killed anybody in the course of this show? Oh, plenty of people. So he causes a pile up. I remember in homie, the clown. That's my first go to.

Yeah. Cause I'm talking like directly murder someone. It's had to have happened up to this point. He drove Frank Grimes to doing an action that would kill himself. We just watched an episode where he ran over Don Rickles. Yeah, he did. And Joan Rivers. They both said they were okay.

And he watched that guy drown. He did do that. The alcoholic who fell in the. And he watched that guy drown. He did do that. Yeah. The alcoholic who fell in the water. He watched that. So death through inaction. By neglect, which is a criminal act. Very troubling.

Also, speaking of crimes and all their destruction, I think them getting naked in the elementary school to shower, that's indecent exposure. That could get them marked as sex criminals. Another painful cartilage ripping noise when Barney falls in the shower, too. Oh, yeah. I've got to give it to their sound department for getting that all together there. Homer wakes up.

He's got a slightly new twist on his usual hangover design with his red eyes in it and just his empty stairs it's um so our next episode we're gonna do is actually we're uh we're gonna do the pilot for family guy because that airs next and that's in the simpsons universe and it struck me that this is the same plot this moment in this episode of the simpsons at the end of the first act it's uh also in the first episode of family guy where he is hung over in front of his family at the breakfast table. Yeah. All the same. Except it's heightened in that he's laying on the table, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's nothing if not a Homer joke heightened. That's the whole point. Well, I take your point, but I think you'll find that there are no other similarities between Family Guy and Thepsons i think the writer for this episode on the commentary he mentions the uh the goalpost exploding yeah and he says also seen on family guy so there are some fun digs at family guy on uh the simpsons commentaries this is why i was so upset when they finally did a simpsons

family guy crossover episode it's like do people have no principles anymore i gotta say i mean like technically every time i get enraged about this henry reminds me technically it is a family guy production yes but i did watch it and i can't even talk about it on this network i don't like bart being in the same room as a rape joke yeah i don't like that i i blame seth mcfarland success they they felt like they could knock him when he was a guy who had a canceled show who seemingly would never get another show. But once he became a very successful filmmaker and television producer.

And movie star. And movie star. They decided like, well, we gotta be friendly with him. So let's just do a crossover. He forgot recording artist, Henry. Yes, and his sister too. We talk about the nepotism. His sister who, I mean,

she's a fine singer, but he just cast her in multiple of his shows and put out an album of her singing. Rachel McFarlane sings. Oh, boy. I don't know. It's like if the Beatles did a guest track on a Monkees album. That's a great way

of putting it. Maybe if we hit, let's say thirty thousand dollars i will deign to talk about that special uh i mean what at about five years i think we'll get to that point chronologically with inflation what does that even mean uh so uh homer tries to remember what happened but he just gets uh old-timey video footage and then we have a scene missing gag which that is referenced a lot online oh yeah that is a good one but though it's like i i i thought it was a nine inch nails closer video reference when i was a teen uh and then uh as homer uh comes to and realized he can't remember he calls lisa big maggie which i thought that was cute. That is good.

But the destruction is apparent to the news media. Hello, Big Maggie. Yes, yes, yes. Someone trashed the school. What the dilly-o. Where this morning the three R's stand for rowdiness, ransacking, and e-responsibility. Any suspects, Chief? None. That's why we're jumping to the conclusion

that this was the work of no good punk kids. Kids? Therefore, effective immediately, I am imposing a curfew. Any kid caught on the street after dark will be shot. Or returned to their parents, as the situation may warrant. Whoa. Curfew?

Serves you little punks right. Maybe next time you'll think before... Oh, my God! Look what those French kids did to my car! God, you keep playing these clips and I'm just laughing at every single one of them. Marge saying, what the dilly-o, that later they mock NBC sitcoms like just shoot me and all that

but yeah marge saying that it was no different from that mbc sitcom style i think they're doing but we like weird meta commentary on sitcoms because later so we have the just uh don't go there sitcom in this but then later hibbert's like you said a girlfriend yeah or whatever like i don't know what they're doing i guess it's funny that marge has picked picked up on a weird catchphrase from tv uh on the commentary they mentioned they had to heavily coach julie uh julie to say what the dillio the correct way it didn't dillio didn't stick with us for very long no no i think even by the time it was in this episode nobody said it anymore uh the gag is like in three years later it would have been march saying like in the his house or whatever yeah barf but i do like the plot point that the cops and the media work together to blame children when it's really the mainstream

violence of this championship celebration that they're all ignoring i do like that yeah they go after society's most vulnerable and oppressed peoples if only they were doing like broken window checks as well yeah but uh and wigum though has an incredible amount of power to impose a curfew on his own and just yeah i mean wigum seems a little out of character in this episode not only for how much power he has but for how decisively he wields it yeah you know normally he's much lazier than this yeah he's having a very kind of evil orwellian figure in this episode yeah actually his billboard is very big brother that's true so as we come back from commercial break uh the kids remark on all the things that uh all the rights they have we get get a cute little kids' rights section here.

The cops can't just slap a curfew on us. We have rights. Sure you do. You have the right to remain silent. That was cold-blooded, Marge. Yeah. But it's not fair. Adults always blame kids for everything.

Well, if kids are so innocent, why is everything bad named after them? Acting childish, kidnapping, child is everything bad named after them? Acting childish, kidnapping, child abuse? What about adultery? Not until you're older, son. That's a really good joke. Homer approves of him having adultery just only as an adult.

We're definitely getting to the part where imagine 10-year-old me feeling very hyped up and empowered. And Bart saying, we have rights, would have resonated very strongly with me. Yeah, that stuff would get me to, like, when I was 10, I saw Home Alone, and that's what jazzed me up for the empowerment of children. Oh, yeah. children oh yeah good time and uh i would watch home alone and think god wouldn't it be so fun if burglars came to my house and i could you know throw a brick at them or whatever uh just kill these guys just murder them on your house with state and ground laws yeah supper post-traumatic

stress disorder probably from watching a grown man die in front of you uh we just burn them up in the giant stove in your mansion who cares uh we we said it before but we support those burglars now because he just lives in a mansion they got too much stuff like just just raw i i'm on their side now oh yeah the burglars are probably you know very you know poor and they you know they probably have addiction issues that chris columbus and john hughes don't get into and they're just breaking into empty houses these are non-violent crimes and they have a bit and they stick to it yeah the wet bandits john hughes of the writer of home alone was of course a

republican in real life i think all your listeners need to be made aware of this i wasn't aware i can see that though the creator of i saw a ben stein being interviewed once and he he offhandedly mentioned that so if the fact is good enough for ben stein that's good for me i mean he's right about evolution and he's right about that yeah there you go uh and so uh the kids they're being taken off the street there's another like season two call back to there yeah it's uh from itchy and scratchy and marge although in season two episodes a much longer pan across the entire neighborhood here it's like a little echo of that i don't know if they remember that they did that before if they're intentionally calling back to a similar scene i mean they're using i think they probably are because it's the same music yeah yeah in contrast to that scene in itchy and scratchy and marge in that one it's

apparently this very novel thing like the kids are never outside they're always inside watching tv and so that episode has this idyllic vision of what if everyone got outside and rediscovered themselves whereas in this one it's it's positing that in fact uh the kids of springfield are outside all the time always doing stuff yeah uh yeah you know that uh boy you're poking another hole in this one yeah i actually immediately regret saying that oh no i listen to myself say that and I'm thinking to myself, oh, come on. No, you're in good company to make that. I think there was only a curfew for minors where I grew up after I became an adult,

but it never would have affected me because I was not a go outside at night child. I was like, well, the outside is not a thousand hour Japanese RPG for me to play. What's in it for me? Yeah, no, I very much stayed indoors most of the time so i i don't know what the curfew was in my area until only in like 17 or something i started to befriend the bad kids who who talked me into staying out past my current my personal curfew

with my parents i do like the drawing of martin with his little coin purse i think that's cute yeah i like that and we see the return of big chief crazy cone uh formerly big chief crazy cone native american ice cream i forgot that was a recurring gag you can barely see it on the side of the uh the ice cream truck seems like they just pulled it out of the uh model sheets of like we we drew an ice cream truck before right let? Let's just get that one. Wiggum references previous guest stars U2 with his Octoon baby. I'm glad I almost remembered it as Kearney was standing there, but he wasn't.

I'm really glad Kearney... Good choice. Kearney, as we all know, he's in his late 30s. He's got a child who sleeps in a drawer. He can be wherever he wants to be. It is also funny to hear Nancy Cartwright pretend to be Hibbert with the fake ID. I think Nancy ends up imitating most of the other voice actors through Bart or other characters. We go back to home.

Homer is abandoning the kids to go to the carnival. I wonder if it's the same carnival him and Bart worked at the previous season. Also, I mean, the idea of a carnival with no children, that sounds awesome. Like, I want that. This hat is not crazy enough for me. This and this scene. The closest I've had to this is going to Epcot Center, which is the least popular one with kids. So it is the best, like, parents' zone of Disney World, I think.

Man, they're going to play board games, and the game of citizenship is more relevant than ever today. Oh, God. But the board game thing, it reminds me of how my adult friends who are into board games, I want to play regular board games with them, but my adult friends, when it's like hangout nights and let's play a game, they're always the lie-to-each-other games and trick-each-other ones. I just don't like those. I enjoy more Labrador games, but I was just meeting a new group of people recently.

And that is the game that broke out about 20 minutes after meeting all these people. I'm like, I'm in over my head. I can't do this. And it was like the werewolf game, right? Yes. Yeah.

I mean, I will not hold it against them. It is a fun, it can be a fun game, but it's not for me, especially not if I'm meeting people for the first time. I am not a fan of playing board games with other adults. I think whenever I'm at somebody's house and they break out the board games,

my heart sinks a little bit. I would rather just talk over a nice drink. I understand that. I have friends who have sold me on playing some board games, but the ones that are just most anxiety inducing to me are just like one of you people has to lie to everybody else and trick them. And I'm just like, God, that's like the mind fuckery of the adult board games now. I don't like that a few years ago i was at a house where for a board game night and somebody busted out this game i think it was called monty python flux or something where it's like it was a official monty python branded board game and

you know you you go around on the board and you get a card where it would say something like, um, uh, taunt a player in a silly French accent. Oh no. Well, somebody please literally murder me right now. I want to be doing this. This keeps happening. I don't know why with groups of new people. Like when I first moved to California,

I had zero friends. I moved away from everyone I knew. And I was like, I got to find like a board game, a board game group or somebody to hang out with. So I found one. And the first game we played was like a bunch of improv games. Like a board game where you land on spaces and do improv games.

The first thing I had to do was rap. Like 15 minutes after meeting a new group of people, I wanted to die. Give me Spin the Bottle. Give me Twister. You know, give me the classic. Give me Never never have i ever those are my kinds of games uh and yes i did rap they're gonna play hippo in the house and there's a missing hippo piece which that that also is kind of they kind of repeat this joke in the next episode sunday cruddy sunday where they're doing crafts and there's the missing feet for the eggs yeah i love that vincent price joke though it's the missing feet for the eggs yeah i love

that vincent price joke though it's a better joke than that i mean i like hippo in the house is a little gag but uh it uh the missing piece thing reminds me of like when you pull out mousetrap and you realize like the one thing is missing i've never successfully played mousetrap yeah it takes too long to set up uh i think i properly played it a couple times with my mom and brother but eventually it you just build it on your own and you don't wait to play through the game to build it yeah there's a reason that the games people play are like you know poker you know where you can just hold it in your hand uh after a crappy night with uh with board games the kids are reflecting on their sadness we get to hear uh i like millhouse hearing that having to hear his

mom's problems like it's it can suck as a kid when your parents want to tell you things they probably shouldn't tell you about their unhappiness uh it's uh i i won't go more into that On my own personal thing I agree But also with Skinner They are going back to continuity That Skinner does have a large behind That's true, Big Butt Skinner I mean, the way they draw his butt When that giant tomato hits it in season 4

Yeah He should be proud of that shapely butt Not sad about his metabolism changing. Butts were not in in 1999. Yeah. I think he looks pretty svelte in this episode. They don't draw his butt wide enough for this gag. We'll find some consensus on this, I think.

And as the kids are suffering, Wiggum is opening up a new billboard. That ought to show little Timmy and Tammy scumbag who's in charge around here. Gee, Chief, all those gears and motors must have cost a fortune. Well, you gotta spend money to make money, Lou. I just, that makes no sense when you're a cop. Yeah, he just goes, hmm. So I guess that's the,

so that is taken from a leave it to beaver episode in which the beaver the main character he wants to know how the soup billboard works because steam comes out of it yeah and he gets stuck in it and it's a big situation with antics yeah i uh i skipped around and watched it today so i'm like uh like basically three minutes of it and that mean old eddie haskell tricks the beef into going into the soup bowl that's all it is i mean he just gets tricked and that but that's not really the plot of this but it does really date it that they got it from leave it to beaver which like even if that had reruns on nick and knight as a kid and i'd watch anything on nick and knight i

would not watch leave it to be for i mean mean, it got an, I got a movie, but not an ironic movie like Brady Bunch or Adam's family or whatever. So, you know, whenever I'm, I'm talking to you guys about Simpsons episodes, I feel myself getting very kind of annoyingly nitpicky. I'm going to do it again.

Welcome aboard. Because when I see the leave it to beaver parody and I see the, our gang parody, and then I see a Village of the Damned parody, I think why these things, why these things in relation to each other, why these things in relation to this story of sort of like organized, radicalized children, you know, are these necessarily the cultural touchstones that make the most sense for this story? I mean, far be it for me to tell, you know, the writer's room of Harvard boys how to write their show. But something about it doesn't quite doesn't quite click to me.

Thematically, I can see how the village of the damned stuff does apply in some way. It's about adults being afraid of children and children having spooky powers. It does connect to the plot, but other things do seem unrelated and sort of like time wasters in a way where here's a fun bit, here's a fun parody. Things just spackle over the weaker parts of the story.

Yeah, I think, you know, the Village of the Damned at least fits a little bit, though it also is very out of left field that they would advertise on primetime television that a film from 1960 is going to be at a drive-in well this is also curious to me because it's it's being marketed on primetime television as this incredibly transgressive very gruesome horror film that had

been suppressed for so long because, and it's so notorious and it's called, it's literally called The Bloodening. And the thing that they're parodying is Village of the Damned, which is, you know, not that kind of movie really. I don't know.

Something doesn't quite, something doesn't quite fit there. Yeah. And the way it's being advertised is via William Castle style marketing to people in 1999. Yeah. So it's bizarre.

And why would current kids get excited about this? Yeah, why would Bart and Lisa, well, the advertising at least of calling it the, okay, here I have an in-universe explanation. Here we go. That the folks at Sony TriStar got the rights to this musty old movie, which was called something else.

They then call it the bloodening and make this ad to trick the kids of the nineties to go and see it like that. That's my guess now. All right, I'll buy it. But I think that would have worked a little more if one of these kids had said something about how much this movie sucks and is boring. Yeah. Instead they all really love it which when when i would watch movies like this i don't think i saw i have not seen in its entirety village of the dam i haven't either but but when i'd see movies like this on mystery science theater yeah they would bore the shit out of me if i saw them without comedy puppets talking

over it like i would not have loved these movies when i was 10 especially a black yeah actually the kids reacting this way to a black and white film really doesn't make sense yeah i don't know i think there's a way to make a village of the damned parody work with this story and i mean i guess that this it's introduced as they're violating their curfew to go see a movie at the drive-in um so so there's a reason it's set up this way you know to advance the story um but something about something about the combination of the story and this and this target doesn't quite land for me but i do like them targeting nbc's must-see tv sitcoms i I do like that. Yeah, they get that kind of

late 90s NBC white smugness. Whatever was sandwiched between Seinfeld and Friends, just like the shows that had the biggest ratings ever just because they were in the must-see sandwich. The Single Guy, Veronica's Closet,

Caroline in the City. Everybody was talking recently about how Game of Thrones was like one of the last communal experiences one of those last shows that everybody watched together and the last episode of Game of Thrones got 17 million

viewers and I guarantee that any given episode of Caroline and the City probably got 25 million viewers you could be right they brought america together yeah and the design of don't go there i mean the i love the guy leaning on the don't go there yeah don't go there right back and it looks like central perk too where they're sitting in yeah and the character designs are that kind of like young and sexy and cool look of an NBC sitcom character.

It's funny in that it's Hank Azaria, who is friends with Matthew Perry. Did Hank Azaria audition for Friends? He wanted to be Joey. Yeah, I thought so. He pushed hard to be Joey and couldn't be it. Part of the suffering he went through in the 90s was that he was married to the oscar winner that year and his best friend was matt leblanc and he uh he felt like he was just some cartoon nobody and it was driving him crazy oh yeah he's happy now he's he's fine oh yeah wait no it's not leblanc it's perry perry

that's what i meant that's what i meant yeah perry yeah no i said leblanc but yeah it was hey he had studio 60, right? He was in that. Yeah. Oh, beautiful show. You know what? Actually, there was that reboot of The Odd Couple he was on with Tom Lennon as well. And that was on for seasons.

I don't think it's on anymore. I think it was only one season, and it may not have even made it the whole season. But why don't we take us back to 1999 and hear a little of Don't Go There. There is one thing we could do. Lisa, no! It's prime time! Rob me of my manhood! That's petty theft! Don't go there!

Don't go there will be right back. Oh no, it won't. Wait, there's a commercial. Oh, yeah. Forty years ago, a film appeared that was so shocking, so terrifying, it was sealed in a concrete vault deep beneath the earth. But even the new management of Sony TriStar could not contain the pure but even the new management of sony tristar could not contain the pure evil of the blood in the next clip here i do like how millhouse reacts on the phone like

that's i think good acting of pretending you're watching something that you're not when you're asked i i like in this little clip here do you see what's on channel 6? Uh, yeah, it's really something. Ah! A registered nurse trained in the treatment of terror will be on duty during the showing of The Blood and Egg. Now playing at the

Springfield Drive-In. After dark. Milhouse, spread the word. We're seeing this movie tonight. That's right. We're breaking curfew So I'm sorry to bring us back to Caroline and the City But I was kind of distracted Because I was actually looking up the ratings for Caroline and the City And Will is correct

So Caroline and the City was the number four television show Of the 95-96 television season Number one was ER, number two was Seinfeld Number three was Friends And it indeed reached an average of 17 million viewers. Oh, hell yes. That makes me so happy. That proves, once and for all,

America prefers Caroline and the City to Game of Thrones. Exactly. It has just as much cultural relevancy as George R.R. Martin's masterpiece. The numbers don't lie. I was a big Caroline and the City fan. I was there for season one then they got rid of the cartoon so yeah it's just like in that bob newhart one when the

it was a comic book he was a comic book writer for the first season and then in the second season they're like none of this comic book shit they sent him to a greeting card factory that was before it was cool to be about comic books i believe it was called bob that sitcom the bob newhart 90s sitcom is really weird in that it was co-created by mark evanier who was a best friend of jack kirby so it's basically a jack kirby sitcom that's right yeah i forgot about that starring bob newhart there's a good um well you know it's it's you may not think it's good, but there's a movie from the early nineties called the ambulance starring Eric Roberts, where Eric Roberts,

you know, it's, it's kind of a schlocky horror movie. And Eric Roberts plays a comic book artist at Marvel comics. Stan Lee is in it in a very supporting role. And, you know, back then, I guess it was just very easy to get stan lee and marvel in your movie and have have the marvel comics offices be this site of like oh what's a quirky job that eric roberts can have in a horror movie holy crap i believe it or not i've never heard of this before i now feel like bart in this episode i have to to see this movie. Check it out. The Ambulance. It's about a killer ambulance. You'll like it. Oh, man. So it's like Christine, but in an ambulance? Yeah. Well, similar. It's not like anybody's driving the ambulance. It's like the ambulance has sentience and it operates on its own. And yeah, Eric Roberts has to fight it.

All right. I'm checking this out. It's sort of like the Joker of cars. What if an ambulance hurt you instead of helped you? Pretty twisted, eh? Yeah. You're still in wheels bits. I know. I know. It's a good bit.

I love your bits. I love it. Yes. Thank you. Have you seen that yet? Is it come to Toronto yet? The Joker, well, it just played at the festival. I mean, I'm sure I will see The Joker.

It feels a bit anticlimactic. I mean, there's this whole discourse happening among critics who have seen it. And I feel like they're all going to tire themselves out by the time the movie actually opens. Well, I think the reviews came out too early and it was like premature discourse on it. The movie's out October 4th in wide release.

So it's like we're all just we're all tweeting ourselves out about it too soon. Yeah. Yeah. We got to. I feel like I've seen it. We got to take our time on that discourse. Well, I mean, in that you've seen King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. Though I think, you know this uh after one the golden lion i'm like what if it does win best picture what what happens then well i mean i guess we'll have to deal with that when we come to it but it but it uh it very much could and then you know there's a rip in the space-time continuum and this horrible ordeal we call life will finally end for everyone thank god oh i'm very much rooting for the joker uh you just love this chaos but uh another thing that really sticks this in 1999 is the joke that a wussy kid watches

teletubbies yeah i mean teletubbies jokes were fresh. I think that joke would still be funny today, honestly. Yeah, I think it'd be funnier that they'd still be watching. I would guess Teletubbies must air somewhere. But yeah, I mean, it was all in the news in 99 because it was making kids gay or whatever was what Jerry Falwell Sr. was saying. Yeah, Tinky Winky or whatever was gay. I think it did turn Jerry Falwell Jr. into a, had some effect on him. Allegedly. I don't want to get sued.

This is a lot. This is a joke parody. But that story of Jerry Falwell Jr. and that pool boy is pretty funny. Sometimes you just pretend a pool boy and give him a lot of money. Give him a million dollars. You set him up in a new job. He hangs out with you and your wife.

Yeah. That's called being a good Samaritan. Read the Bible. Christ told us of this. It's true. hangs out with you and your wife yeah that's called being a good samaritan read the bible christ told us of this it's true uh so the kids all head out nelson's mom is looking for skull she's out of skull which they if you don't know that is a brand of tobacco chew oh yeah uh i didn't know it at the time because my dad was a levi garrett man and that's the only brand I knew of. I have no idea. Wow. Levi Garrett is the tan bag that has an old-timey building on it in black and white. So it's literally a pouch. Yes, yeah, it is a real pouch.

Skull's a little can. I know because in high school, kids would whack the can against their hand like that to get their dip on or whatever. See, my dad was more of a chaw guy out of a pouch, which I feel like I guess you probably still can buy that stuff. But if smoking is less big now, I got to think chewing is even more unpopular with people under 50. Let's bring it back. You just need one hip YouTube star to make it a meme, and it'll be back. We need the vape version of Chew. Boy, what would that be?

It's a gobstopper. An e-gobstopper. A gobstopper. And so everybody heads off to the bloodning. We get a life insurance joke which reminds me of the MSD3K Screaming Skull episode skull i wrote that down yeah

that's such a great sketch where uh the movie or the trailers promise i think there's like an intro to the movie where it's like if you die while watching this we will pay for your coffin yes and there's a great sketch where they call and it's very disappointing and they have to pay for a coffin themselves uh and uh yes this is uh drive-in life insurance here. Due to the likelihood of fear-induced heart attacks, we're offering all patrons million-dollar life insurance policies. Life insurance?

Might I be able to borrow against the equity? I don't know, sir. It comes free with the popcorn. Is that air popped? Skinner! We're losing valuable make-out time. More of the Chalmers and Ednana i'm sorry um agnes thread yeah yeah they kind of drop this but i i prefer when charlmers is boring him being on dates with agnes is a little too silly for him yeah i guess anything to add to skinner's humiliation although he's there with edna right yes yeah so it's a double. Although he's there with Edna, right? Yes. So it's a double date, but he's still

being cucked in a way, I suppose. Yeah, that's funny to me. I'm in favor. And then we get a callback to the Teletubbies with Milhouse getting his underwear, or his pants torn, exposing his Teletubby undies, which 10-year-olds,

you were clearly a baby if you were still watching that at 10. But I also do like whenever were clearly a baby if you were still watching that at 10 but uh i also do like whenever there's a gag of of nelson and lisa recognizing that they used to date yeah i like those that's very sweet i think there's a wasted opportunity that they they have the let's all go to the lobby song with like no parody it just plays yeah i don't know yeah i mean they already did the best one yeah maybe the Simpsons writers acknowledging that a drive-in is a little bit antiquated. Yeah, that's true. I went to one drive-in once in, I think it was 95, 96.

It was to see Hot Shots Part II. That's the only film I've seen. I think mine was Spaceballs. I saw Billy Crystal, Robin Williams' film Father's Day at a drive-in. Oh, wow. only film i've seen i think mine was space balls uh billy crystal robin williams film father's day at a drive-in oh wow uh but yes the uh the kids the kids all sneak in to watch the village of the dam parody which is at least like very the film is very close to the clips i've watched the village of the dam the kids look exactly the same. Yeah. It's British, uh, small town,

British people being terrorized by children. I like how it's directed this parody, but I also like how the joke is just about how British everything is. Yes. Yeah. Get off my mall. You trouble me. I,

I like, uh, I, I wonder what our British listeners think of how Americans think, uh, British fancy people are, or a low, lower class British people people are this is a

peculiar thing about a lot of older horror movies if you watch any of the universal horror movies from the 30s or the 40s they are sort of set in peculiar european mishmash countries so people will be dressed in lederhosen or you know there will be kind of transylvanian castles and then everybody will speak with a british accent that's uh that's like when you see uh films like where the nazis speak with british accents against the against the americans and stuff or uh in i've probably said this on a million podcasts before but i always remember the film enemy at the gate the that sniper movie where all the russians are like cockney brits led led by bob hoskins so everybody kind of talks like him and his like brusque british voice but they're all russians talking about like you have to defend

leningrad yeah and meanwhile uh like the the german is played by, the head Nazi is played by Ed Harris. So in a very unaffected accent. It was a strange choice. Inglourious Bastards is the only movie I can think of that sort of acknowledges that dilemma. Yeah, that's true. Because that has that whole section of the movie where Michael Fassbender goes undercover as a German. And then deep into it, somebody recognizes a bit of a sliver of a British accent. that whole section of the movie where michael fastbender goes undercover as a as a german and then deep into it somebody recognizes a bit of a sliver of a british accent and that is the sort

of thing that probably would have happened to spies all the time i love that scene i was just watching that movie again recently and also the i love where they try to pretend they speak italian and the woman is like i know you're american but do any of you speak another language like uh but yes we we head over to the the british isles for the bloodening get off from my morgue you mischievous wins actually we'd prefer to stay you're thinking about hurting us now you're, how did they know what I was thinking? Now you're thinking, I hope that shepherd's pie in my knickers. Well!

They showed him. Man, I never liked Shakespeare until now. Right, you little buddies. We've had quite enough of your evil mischief. But you're the one who's been bad. You've been sneaking puddings. But, but, how did you know? We know all your secrets.

And you pilfered the poor box. And, Doctor, we know that you and the boot black have been rogering the fishwife in the carpet shop. Lies! How dare you get them quickly we can't have that i love that lie i mean the joke is like how many british english things can we sneak into this scene my favorite one is having to pan across four characters for that last joke it's really good especially the guy spitting out his tea who runs the crumpet shop. A crumpet shop, too, that only sells crumpets. Crumpets are great.

The sneaking in of a poop joke with the shepherd pie in your knickers. That's a tough one. You've got to be careful with that word. Enunciate. And also calling things puddings, too, is a very British thing. So in the trailer for the Village of the Damned that I did pull up, they don't make a guy stab himself with his own pitchfork they do make him shoot himself with his own like old-timey

shotgun so right in the head it's uh it's intense that's how you do it after that scene we get lewis of all characters saying like in your face fish wife like he never gets a rare lewis line yeah i guess ralph has to appear for that joke in the song so he can't be with them but there needs to be more like known children in this gang uh and also the scene another very rare thing is that it ends with eddie getting a joke of all characters yeah it's his time to shine before it was uh god who shot mr burns part two yeah that's a good way to get sick that's the last time he got any good lines but it it ending on him chuckling after scaring

wigum with the lights like that was pretty good but how'd the kids get caught though it's just it seems like there it would have been elucidating to just have a scene of like somebody spotting them and calling the cops or something yeah There's other holes in this story, so not too bothered by it. But then comes my line of the show in the next scene where the kids are put to work. I'm going to play the jingle if you agree with me, Bob, being the line of the episode. I think I'm with you.

That's the joke. And let this be a lesson to you. Kids never learn. That's the joke. Man, if we had eye power like those kids in that movie, we could read the adult's mind and tell their secrets and make them pitchfork each other in junk. Oh, yeah. Wait, we don't need supernatural powers. We already know their secrets. She's right. Homer's done a ton of crap that never made the papers.

My mom shoplifts all the time. Stuff she doesn't even need. My dad gets in car accidents on purpose. Great. This is all gold. We gotta spread this stuff around. Let's put it on the internet. No.

We have to reach people whose opinions actually matter. And I think I know how. So all TV Simpsons was not happy with that line. The show is getting pretty sensitive to their internet critics at this point i think i mean they'd already put the lines of people on the forums in the mouth of comic book guys so yeah uh but this was their next their next level to it i i do just love the i i like the line let this be a lesson to you kids never learn it's uh it's it's clever i just got that was a joke i like it martin's mom sounds a lot like marie from breaking bad am i right i thought about that too the most uh the that

subplot snap crackled and popped that was they just totally dropped that they're like yeah they they maybe they realize like we don't need to have every character do stuff on the show she was fun comic relief after that i liked her yeah all her purple marie was fun they're not making a spin-off movie with her no they the kids are just devising a real our gang plot which is why they even just copped to it with the our our gang music little rascals music played over that was cute i feel like all these things they're parodying would never be shown on tv now oh yeah just like little rascals leave it to beaver even black and white movies are hard to find this is something that i sort of like about you know the early simpsons that it feels very rooted in i guess boomer or older gen x culture yeah i agree the the kids who grew up watching reruns of Little Rascals, which we...

I'm old enough to be one of those kids. Yeah, but you had to look a little hard to find them out. When TNT opened its doors, my friend, they had a lot of content that they bought. Little Rascals was one of those. I, too, remember seeing Little Rascals on tv when i was very young which uh i mean i knew at first before i watched it as like a joke i was watching the old snls and yeah i'd seen eddie murphy's buckwheat character yeah do today's kids have any idea what buckwheat is if they saw those eddie murphy sketches would they have like would they have any context for what that was i would guess not they i mean would they even know who gumby is now i wow uh man well the it helped too i guess the little

rascals did get a film adaptation in the 90s that's like yeah oh yeah i i mean i'd watch those originals before i'd watch the Little Rascals movie from there. It was just, it was weird. I'm sorry, Donald Trump, by the way. That's right. Oh, you're goddamn right. Damn it. Oh, my God. I know.

But, you know, you got to separate the artist from the art sometimes. I was going to say there was nothing offensive in that movie, but now they cleaned up buckwheat a lot. I know that. I mean, they had to. Yeah. There's no thing you kind of have to i mean that was uh i mean i'm sure that in the 1930s hal roach thought that he was being very progressive making a comedy series where like black children and white children

played together which you know uh just goes to show you about how what was progressive in 1931 is just not necessarily cut it even, I don't know, 30 years later. I mean, How Roach was being progressive by not having a child in blackface is one of his things. Yeah, that's true. But while speaking of old-timey, as the kids are getting to, they discover that their best route for exposing their parents is through the radio in the 90s, which now the internet is the radio. They're the same thing. Yeah, the kids can start a podcast now.

Revealing all their parents' secrets. I think this gag, even though I was like 16, the bit of the kids knowing all the parents' i was like i guess i do know a lot of my parents secrets too and could could humiliate them if i wanted to that'll be a patreon episode yes we know all their secrets just go on youtube you're right yeah just say uh my dad's a drunk i mean i'd rather those exist than um the torturing your child YouTube channels that exist. All the fun prank families that are being shut down. By the way, I'm sure people will know this. I mean, like most people, I don't follow The Simpsons anymore. But would I be right to guess that there must be an episode where Homer starts a podcast like in the last five years?

Oh, they've only recently embraced podcasting as something to make fun of. And I watched the one with Marc Maron. Krusty Goes on WTF. Yeah, they did do that. And they did a corresponding episode. If it hasn't. Homer and Bart definitely started

a Flash video cartoon on the internet. That is true. I mean, I remember the episode where Homer starts like a Breitbart-style website where it's like Mr. X. Yeah, yeah. That's right, yeah.

I think it was like a drudge. Yeah, a drudge. That's the name I was looking for. I've always had the idea for a spec script, which is as good as writing the idea down and making it into a script,

that Bart and Lisa will start an Itchy & Scratchy podcast. And Henry and I are guest stars on that episode, by the way. Yes, that's part of the spec. Yeah. They've cycled through every other possible idea with these characters. So, like, why not? Why not?

I mean, one episode I watched from, like, just 10 years ago was the first act was, what if the Simpsons got TiVo? What would that be? Oh, you're right. Oh, my God. But yes, as the kids are hatching their plan, we get to hear about another NBC sitcom. So, Marge, ready for another episode of Don't Go There?

I'm tired of that show. But I've been hearing good things about Talk to the Hand. Tom Shale says the writing snaps, crackles, and pops. Okay, whatever takes my mind off my life. Talk to the Hand, the face ain't listening. Hey, look what I found. Grandpa's old radio. Oh, wouldn't it be grand to gather round and have a listen?

Well, turn something on. I'm starting to think. So, yeah, that was a fun dig at David Faustino, the Bud Bundy from Married with Children. He never ascended to musky TV heights, though. No, the lead on a sitcom, that would never happen to him, which I guess is also the joke. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciated the reference to Pulitzer Prize winning tv critic tom shales yeah and i

guess the uh that's what he said about just shoot me is what they said on the commentary which by the metric of those shows i liked just shoot me more than the other ones like no one would ever watch just shoot me now i don't think nobody, but it at the very least had on Mr. Show actors. Thanks to the incestuousness of the Brillstein gray management company. It was Brian Posehn on a major role in the show. Right. And America's sweetheart, David Spade. Yeah.

Oh yes. Yeah. He recently came back with like another version of that Hollywood update, which he already had. Like an eclipse. It just comes every couple of years. Or like a case of locusts. I get promoted shots of it, clips of it,

in my Twitter timeline every now and then. And he just is very tired. And a lot of his jokes are just like, you know what it's like to be famous, right? Yeah. I feel like his whole gimmick of being like that that smug guy who makes fun of the movie stars makes jokes about celebrities like it wore a little better back when he was 22 yeah just being this this um aged shell of a man just very tired still doing the same thing well

and also like his it's one thing when you're 22 and you're you're just rising as a star that then when you make fun of say vampire in brooklyn you're like okay that's fair you wouldn't make that but now when you're the guy who's who's not even the fucking lead in bench warmers like where do you get off when When Joe Dirt 2 goes direct to Crackle, who are you? Yeah. I'm assuming he probably doesn't make fun of Adam Sandler on his show, right? I'm assuming that's off limits. I would think so, yes.

We see they talk about all the jokes you can't say, but they don't talk about that joke you can't say on the show. But, yes, they turn on the radio. We get a little clip of the FDR address, which I don't know who's playing that on the show uh but yes they turn on the they turn on the radio we get a little clip of the fdr address which i don't know who's playing that on the radio that was just very random that have been an action was that the actual fdr audio i think so yeah yeah though they admit on the commentary that they actually tightened it up for timing purposes yeah fair enough the uh one thing I do like in this episode in the construction of the plot is,

at least as it goes, is a mystery of where the kids are. You can see in the background the back of a billboard, but it's just vague enough that you don't know it. So they're not cheating that they're like in a black room

or something like you. You do get a little tease of where it is. Not that they even let you have the mystery for all little tease of where it is not that they even let you have the mystery for all that long of where the kids are I think the mystery lasts like 90 seconds but but yes it's time for we know all your secrets

good evening adults we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a very special presentation tonight's program is entitled we know all your secrets boring to bring you a very special presentation. Tonight's program is entitled... We Know All Your Secrets. Boring. Go back to that infamy guy.

Constable Wiggum likes to act tough, but he also likes to walk the beat in control-top pantyhose. Ooh! Ha, ha. Well, it's not like that's a crime. I'm afraid it is, Chief. Well, it's not like that's a crime. I'm afraid it is, Chief. And schoolmistress Krabappel has been stealing supplies from the school cafeteria. Edna, how could you?

Don't get up. I'll bust my own tray. I love the giant mustard barrel. Yes, yeah. All the industrial-sized things there. I like that. In both these cases, I support the criminals. You should steal from work like Edna does if you work for a place that'll never miss that stuff.

And you know what? If Wiggum wants to walk around wearing that, more power to him. That's what I say. He really bounced back from his public indecency charge to show up later in this episode. Yeah, he gets out pretty fast. He had his arraignment i guess wiggum's cross dressing is something that pops up very occasionally on on episodes but it's not it's never quite as uh it's never become quite as much a part of the show's lore as uh smithers queerness has yeah yeah it's true there was one episode where you said, finally, an excuse to wear makeup. Yes. Which one was that? That was when they got to make movies.

Oh, yeah. Stars Burn. You're right, yeah. Plus, he was undercover in basically a Glenn or Glenda outfit as the guy stole his purse. Right. And he accidentally bought a male sex doll. Oh, yes. Accidentally. Yeah.

You know, I'm surprised they didn't go there with more stuff than that. Though, I mean, they were edging up to some regrettable trans jokes if they had gone too much farther, which I'm glad they didn't. Then we get to learn some more secrets about Homer Simpson. Now we come to Mr. Homer Simpson. Did you know he likes to eat out of the Flanders garbage? I have a problem. Tune in tomorrow and every day until the curfew is lifted because we'll be revealing embarrassing secrets about Springfield's other adults. Well, at least they've already done me.

And we have plenty more on Homer Simpson. Don't! Homer's problem I don't know, this episode's funny I take it all back I like that Homer's problem isn't shocking or ridiculous It's just very troubling Oh, Homer

I also like that little scream he did Just absolute perfect timing And how defeated he is when he's like i have a problem uh though though what's uh worse that he eats out of flanders garbage or that he eats tulips as was revealed in burns his air or the soaps that came in the mail oh yeah he does in that one he's not even ashamed yeah it's those little soaps yeah that homer thinks he's safe after having one secret reveal but it's all going to be homer on it which they do follow through on that promise uh and then it feels like something

got cut here in the pacing where they they go to the town hall and quimby is like and we're gonna find those kids and their accents and then he's immediately cut off by otto like hey the kids are telling secrets again like yeah it's like like an extra joke sequence got cut there. Yeah, maybe there was a longer scene with town hall things happening, but there wasn't enough time, or they just wanted to get right to Otto. But it feels like they don't need to be there at all. You're right.

Springfield has more town meetings than any other town. Yeah, I never went to one town meeting. I sometimes get it in the mail in Berkeley just because like for zoning things. They're like, hey, they're going to build X here. There's a meeting for this if you want to talk about it. I like how the town meetings also sort of all the strata of Springfield society are present and they're in one melting pot. You have well-known TV personalities

like Krusty the Clown and you have oligarchs like Mr. Burns sitting alongside Moe. You're right. It's almost like Rockwell. And yes, we then get another installment of We Know All Your Secrets. I've called this meeting to determine

what to do about those blabbermouth kids and their creepy english accents hey shut up mayor they're telling secrets again oh i hope they don't reveal this as a comb-over our top secret tonight gay divorcee luann van houten has been cheating on her boyfriend pyro with his best friend gyro I think everyone's watching Talk to the Hands. Can we just blow it up? You go ahead, girlfriend. I know. No, not your girlfriend. Yes, ma'am. Say it again, girl. I think Hibbert was watching Talk to the Hands. That's so weird that they have Hibbert become the sassy black guy. That's so odd.

Is this also the last time we see Pyro on the show? Pyro would make one more appearance. This is the last time we'd see Gyro. Gyro only appears for this one joke. The subtly Greek version of pyro but all these jokes like american gladiators had been off the air for like three years at this point yeah yeah uh i think with luan should have just entered into a poly relationship with pyro and gyro that's what they do now we weren't there yet in 98 98 pyro should have been suspicious that gyro was sitting next to luann and came to the

thing and also brought his jousting stick yeah so as uh as the town is freaking out quimby reveals that they're they're already on the case uh searching for the kids wigum is listening through an old-timey ear horn while frank is listening through a science fiction ear horn i like that frank brought that in a sci-fi gun. Same with the kids. That's so crazy. He pulls out a gun that like beeps and stuff, but I never noticed it until this close viewing on it. Same here, yeah. It's played very low on there.

But yes, there's also a bit of a gag. Another like lip sync. The lip sync is at its worst in the bit where Lisa speaks. Yeah, I don't know. It was a different line originally, but it's just so distracting. It's like a season four ADR where it's just like, oh, I can't even look at this. Who's operating medicine without a license? That's right, Homer Simpson.

And just the mouth movements are all wrong. Oh, that's right, Homer Simpson. And the emotion is kind of off, too. I don't know. It just bothers me. I do like that Hibbert looks a little nervous when that said suggesting that hibbert is operating without a license which is an amazing piece of information the uh on the commentary they reminisce about how he used to be the good doctor and they've degraded him so far that only lasted to season three uh and yes it

also is shocking not just that frank has a sci-fi gun, but also to see Professor Frank pointing a gun at children. Yeah. But yes, the children are caught and things come to a head. Brilliant. They transduced amplitude modulation via the concavity of that oversized beverage conveyance. I mean, that is some clever vibing. All right, you kids, come down now.

We promise we won't kill you. Spank me yourself. Bart, get down here. I'm gonna spank you back to the Stone Age. You can't make us come down. You adults are always giving us orders. Oh, you kids are always disobeying them. Adults treat kids like children.

Kids treat adults like cash machines. Adults! Kids! Adults! Kids! Adults treat kids like children. Kids treat adults like cash machines. Adults. Kids. Adults. Kids. Adults. And that begins the Bye Bye Birdie parody. Yes. So I only found out about this after the fact so after watching this episode in 98 I went online to read like the fun trivia people would post on all TV Simpsons

and like oh this is a parody of Kids for Bye Bye Birdie and I filed that away in my head and I didn't really watch the Bye Bye Birdie until a few years ago when I half watched it at that bar I was talking about. I was like, oh, oh, right. And so I don't want to be horny on Maine on this podcast. The last thing I want to be. But I will say the opening of that movie is the most erotically charged piece of cinema

featuring a woman fully clothed alone in a blue void. It's amazing. It is amazing. And Margrock. I've heard Bye Bye Birdie, but you're really selling me on it now. Yeah. I mean, just watch the first song by Anne Margrock.

I mean, she's a beautiful woman, but man, she moves. Yes. No, I mean, Anne Margrock, she was a stone cold fox. She appeared on the Flintstones. Oh, it's Anne Margrock, right? That's why I called her Anne Margrock up front

Well, the story of Bye Bye Birdie I saw the movie long before I saw the Broadway show The Broadway show and the movie are actually quite A bit different Thanks to Anne Margaret It's a bit of a sci-fi movie in that Paul Lynn Plays a straight father

Yes Those are the only things open to him He's really funny in that paul lynn plays a straight father yes oh honey uh those are the only uh things open to him he's he he's really funny in that movie paul lynn fucking rules and he's he's the lead singer on kids which i think is why they gave love joy the opening line in their kids parody song here because he's like the most like paul lynn voice of the regular cast I think uh but yes Bye Bye Birdie uh started as a 1960 Broadway musical which had Dick Van Dyke in the lead role in it uh and it's sort of about in the 50s when Elvis got drafted and people freaking out about it and the character of Elvis is Conrad Birdie he comes to town and causes all these problems and And the character of Elvis is Conrad Birdie. He comes to town and

causes all these problems. And the young girl Kim is into him, but she lies about her age. And it ends up with the guy actually getting arrested, Conrad getting arrested for statutory rape at the end of it. I missed that part of it. That's not in the film. Okay. Get rid of that. But Dick Van Dyke, it was one of the last things he did before the dick van dyke show he actually took two weeks off from bye bye birdie to film the pilot for the show uh and yeah paul lind and him reprised their role for the 1963 film but uh as paul lind himself would say they made that film to be an anne margaret vehicle it had already been a tony award-winning broadway play but back then just like how they made a lot of changes to Hello Dolly to make it a Barbra Streisand vehicle. Right, right.

They did the same for Anne Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie. And so they rewrote it. The opening song, Bye Bye Birdie, that she sings is not in the musical. They wrote it for Anne Margaret to sing in the start of the movie. That's the scene I'm talking about. Go on YouTube and watch that. It's amazing. I don't know why she's just in a blue void,

but it's crazy. And as Paul Lynde said about the movie, they should have called it Hello, Anne Margaret. And he himself was pissed that some of his best lines from the musical got cut to shape the film more around Anne Margaret's character. But yeah, this song is not even a sound alike or whatever. It's a direct parody or the backing track

or whatever you want to call it is the same. It's not like See My Vest or anything like that. And also it's Bye Bye Birdie is kind of about interracial marriage as well. The kids song, it's two adults complaining about kids. It's Paul Lynn complaining about his darn daughter, Anne Margaret, dying her hair and chasing after Birdie. adults complaining about kids it's paul lynn complaining about his darn daughter and margaret dying her hair and chasing after birdie but it's also dick van dyke's um oppressive mom

threatening to kill herself because he's marrying a hispanic woman and uh they're they're both complaining about kids together lynn and uh dick van dyke's mother in the film and in the uh the original one so that's that is the uh the situation of the the kid song it's a fun little song i think the most famous song from it is you got a lot of living to do i think that's the though that that because it was in commercials when i was looking for carnival cruise line yep that's right but will and all your your important film viewing you've never seen bye bye birdie i know i'm i'm very ashamed that i haven't seen it i don't i don't sense that it's often mentioned amongst the great movie musicals though

no yeah it was it was oddly referenced a bit but i never actually saw it in rotation i know mystery science theater would reference it a lot especially the the ed sullivan song yeah i don't know why but uh yeah i just it would never popped up ed sullivan plays himself in the movie too that's right no uh well i know for in the broadway fandom they look down on the movie because it changes too much like some uh there was a quote on the wiki page from one of the stars of the original production saying like anybody who's a fan of the movie hasn't seen the broadway version like that so uh there's there's some real hate for it but that's the one that's more famous i think they did a one of those live televised

musicals in the last few years bye bye birdie got one of those too i often hear bye bye birdie or at least i think i've often heard it mentioned as this disembodied signifier of a school play yeah oh it's perfect mean, it's about teens and it's perfect for teens to play in it, for sure. Though, I guess only if you have teens that can sing, which most teens can't sing. But yes, the

song itself is their version of Kids. I'll play it right now. Kids! Kids! Kids! Kids! You've had your fun, now we've had our fill. Yeah, you're only here cause March forgot her pill. Kids, you're all just scandalizing, vandalizing punks. Channel hoppin', Riz and Poppin' Monkeys, but please don't quit the fan club.

Kids, I can nag and nag til my hair turns blue. Kids, you bomb my smokes and don't say thank you Why can't you be like we are? A lot of bunch of brats We oughta drown you just like cats Adults, you run our lives like you're Colonel Clink Adults, you strut around like your farts don't stink. Adults, you're such a drooling, soaring, boozing, boring bunch.

Surly, meanie, three martini lunchers. I just ate a thumb jack. Adults, they're always telling us to jump. Jump, jump, traps. We're fed up with all of you whippersnapps. We're trying to get some sleep here It's almost 6.15 What's the matter with

Don't you treat us like Can't you just lay off We're sick of all of you Kids Cute Games The song is fun Though it kind of goes a little long, I think

Not particularly funny, is it? I mean, my biggest laugh is Ralph saying I just did a thumbtack Which comes out of nowhere Yeah, like most Ralph lines I do like the shocking revelation That Moe was about to drown Snowball too Yeah That was pretty

crazy yeah i feel like the the charge of adults versus kids like the the emotional or i don't know the weight of it isn't quite there for me the other part i did like was that millhouse is really trying to get into the song but then he's immediately stopped i love that that's a good joke yeah but then like the only so the thing i think is clumsy about this ending is that just like the senior citizen plot like like like crash lands in the last minute of this episode to to resolve things like we saw them once i think it's when they stole part of the tv tube or something like that yeah yeah and put a cat in the tv and but they never really had a comment on what was happening. And so they sort of like crash land

to make an ending happen in this episode. Yeah, well, they only got 30 seconds left, so they gotta do it. It felt weird that Bart references Colonel Clank, which like he, I only knew of it because Colonel Clank appeared on The Simpsons like five seasons earlier.

Otherwise, like Bart was not watching Hogan's Heroes, which it wouldn't align with stink if he just said, you guys treat us like Nazis. That doesn't rhyme with stink. Also, walk around like your farts don't stink. That's a little too cute. I really don't. That's my least favorite line, I think. They could have pepped up the song a bit. But yes, the best joke is Milhouse being denied his line.

They wrap up the song, kids, today. The greatest generation guilts us all and lets us know that they're tired of all these kids. And they threaten the grown-ups, and we learn the lesson that the elderly really do vote. We're going to teach all you rugrats a lesson. Oh, yeah? What can you old people do to us?

Yeah, you old fogies. Buzz off, y'all. What do you got? You're wrinkly. You're wrinkly? Somebody should iron you. This is Kent Brockman reporting from my own home in accordance with a new curfew for anyone under 70.

I can't believe it passed. I warned you guys that seniors always vote in record numbers. The controversial measure passed by a single vote. You really should have voted, Homer. It wouldn't have made a difference. Lights out, you punk kids! Yay! We took back the night hey fellas

hey you wanna start with the kicking my pills are in that can good gravy and then Hank Azaria ad libs over the credits are you not gonna play the whole credits uh oh I'll play the whole credits at the end of the episode we don't need you

I like whenever anyone interacts with the Gracie Films lady. Yeah, I do. It's always nice. So I guess the other funny line is the weird Fralf ad-lib. Somebody should iron you. That was odd. Yeah, you're wrinkly. Somebody should iron you.

I don't know if that was written or something that Nancy made up. Make background noises, everybody, or whatever. I like the guilting Homer about not voting. That's fine. But, I mean, that is still as true today as then, but now the generation that was Homer and Marge, they're the elderly who vote all the time. That's true.

They matter so much more than us young, well, when I say young, I mean 37-year-old voters. Very young, young people. So young. I will say, we didn't say it up front, but the title of this episode is a parody of the movie wild hearts can't be broken and it's about a high diving horse so puzzle that one out oh that's an episode of the simpsons and like uh next season and saddle sore galactica oh

you're right wow i didn't realize that was a reference to wild hearts can't be broken as well wow i i haven't seen that movie either. Just like Ambulance. I haven't either. Put that on the list with Bye Bye Birdie. Triple feature. Okay. You watch Bye Bye.

No, I'll watch Bye Bye Birdie. You watch The Ambulance. And then next time we meet, we'll trade notes. Oh, and also speaking of movies, the last shot of the old people playing together, it sort of reminded me of the Spielberg segment from Twilight Zone. Yeah. I think that segment was called Kick the Can, right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. The nice segment of the film. Boo. Nothing beats Vic Morrow. Oh, God. But, yeah, I guess the John Lithgow one is the best segment in it by far. Though Nancy Cartwright's in the Bill Mooney one. That's my favorite one.

Yeah. But Lithgow's screaming man it's just so funny well not funny it's like i just love john lithgow he's he rules he's great anyway yes uh any final thoughts on this one uh for me i think this is nobody's favorite episode it's not particularly memorable and maybe it doesn't quite gel but every time you were playing clips from it i was sitting here chuckling and laughing and thinking about how even lesser 10th season Simpsons has five great gigs a minute.

So I guess my thought has to be up. Even now that I'm much older, I still find the kid power stuff distasteful. But I do think that in isolation, there are a lot of very funny jokes. And I did enjoy this one more than I thought I would. Yeah, if I could, you know, my Monday morning quarterbacking on it is,

I'd turn down the cutesiness just a little bit. That's my least favorite stuff in it. But there's still good joke writing in this as it goes. Like, I think this is the Simpsons trying to navigate entering a new decade, too. So that's why they have these. The jokes about sitcoms they're doing here are very different than the jokes about sitcoms they were making in 1990. But yeah, and honestly, jokes about baseball.

I do like the jokes about Fairweather fans. That's some of the best stuff. Which, by the time we get to the Bye Bye Birdie song at the end, I had forgotten that this started at a baseball game. It's a broad spectrum of jokes. But thanks again to Will for being on the end. I had forgotten that this started at a baseball game. It's a broad spectrum of jokes. But thanks again to Will for being on the show. Will, please plug all of your stuff. We're big fans of you and your podcasts. Thank you very much. Well, I have two podcasts, believe it or not. It's a lot of podcasts to have. I'm podcast rich. With my friend Luke Savage, I host a podcast called Michael and Us, which is a politics and culture podcast where

every week we watch a movie or a TV show, usually something pretty bad and relate it to the current moment. And with my friend Justin DeClew, I host a film history podcast called The Important Cinema Club. One of your ones really gave me reason to revisit Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie because it was like too gross for me when it when it first came out. I didn't give it enough of a chance. But you guys really helped me understand that movie on a deeper level. Oh, me too. I think we're ready for that movie now as Americans. Thanks.

I'm glad you enjoy it now. And I, too, took a long time to appreciate Tim and Eric's billion dollar movie, but I now think it's one of the key, like the key artistic documents of this decade. Yeah. We recently evaluated their series, Tom goes to the mayor and in light of today's events and the modern times, it really feels like, I think our theory was it's if the, uh, the promise future never happened. That's the, uh, it really feels like I think our theory was it's if the promised future never happens. That's the setting of Tom Goes to the Mayor.

Everything is just empty and fake and dead. We're just trying to There's a facade. There's a grim facade that we're all supposed to find it good. The only person with optimism is crushed every episode. And also the stupidness of entrepreneurship as well like the emptiness

yeah there is definitely a recurring theme in their stuff about just like astroturfed corporate culture so thanks again to will sloan you can find him on twitter as will sloan esq that's w-i-l-l-s-l-o-a-n esq look for all his hilarious joker tweets i've been enjoying those uh but as for us if you want to support our show and get some nice things in return please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons and for the low price of five bucks a month you will get every episode of this show one week ahead of time and ad free and the same goes for our sister podcast what a cartoon you will also have access to dozens upon dozens dare i say over a hundred bonus podcasts you haven't heard yet behind the five dollar paywall and that includes everything we made for the past two plus years everything we will make far into the future so

please sign up for five bucks a month you'll get everything you've been missing out on up until now and henry what is happening at the ten10 level? Extra long podcast every month. Well, as part of our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, me and Bob do an exclusive monthly podcast for our $10 and up patrons. That is the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, where we talk about a different animated feature film once a month in a similar Talking Simpsons style. Our most recent one is Cowboy Bebop the movie.

We're doing that one in September. And you can hear that in over 24 hours of the previous What a Cartoon Movie podcast. Only if you're a $10 and up patron. On top of all the other cool stuff you get at the $5 level. It's a really great deal. So please consider signing up for that at the $10 level. One more time. That's at patreon.com

slash talking simpsons so i've been one of your hosts bob mackie find me on twitter as bob servo i have another podcast by the way it's all about classic video games that podcast is retronauts please go to retronauts.com every monday and occasionally on friday to find new episodes or just search for them in whatever you use to listen to the podcast. Once again, that is RetroNauts. And please listen, Henry. Hey, you can follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I'm sure to tweet up a storm there about all the things going on in the world, including whenever we have new podcasts or events happening in the Talking Simpsons Network universe, I'm sure to tweets about them, and you'll learn about it there first if you follow me. H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G.

Thanks for listening, everyone. So next week, because we have hit the premiere of Family Guy in the Talking Simpsons timeline, we will be doing the first episode of Family Guy, Death Has a Shadow, and then we will be right back to The Simpsons right after that. So we'll see you next week. Hey, you want to start with the kicking?

My pills are in that can. Good gravy. I don't kick your things. When you're trying to breathe on the machine, do I go up and kick it? Oh, now look at that event down the sewer. You're happy? I'm going to sue now. Now it's time for the lawyers. Shh! Don't tell me to shush, you stupid lady.

All right, let's see some IDs, boys. Huh, you two scofflaws are violating curfew. I'm taking you downtown. Oh, uh, sorry to disturb you, Dr. Hibbert. Not at all, officer.