Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Marge in Chains With Stephen Sajdak

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

We're covering an allegedly prophetic ep of Simpsons, and for that, we're joined once more by Stephen Sajdak, cohost of the We Hate Movies podcast! After the Osaka Flu ravages Springfield, Marge is arrested for shoplifting, and we discuss how much it might mirror the 2020 lockdown. Then we dig into the best Lionel Hutz sequence in the entire series, followed by trying to figure out all the changes in the weird third act. You won't be saying "malaise forever" after this podcast! Support this podcast, hear it ad-free, and get 180+ bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talk king of the hill the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where our listeners are damned for all eternity. I'm one of your hosts, the super hunk raider, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today, as always? Henry Gilbert, and better cut down there, Smokey, and who is our special guest on the line,

Steven Sadak, and down I go. And this week's episode is Marge in Chains. Marge in Chains. And Stone's Jewel, but Morphine. Let me share a flowboat. OJ. Morphine. Flowboat.

OJ. Morphine. Flowboat. This week's episode originally aired on May 6, 1993. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby. The Bridges of Madison County tops the New York Times bestseller list. The series finale of Quantum Leap airs.

And Dave loses to dragon the bruce lee story at the box office now that uh that the bruce lee dragon the bruce lee story i remember watching that on vhs not long after it came out but it was eerie the timing because it was five weeks after the death of brandon lee when that movie came out there must have been some conversations about when we're putting this movie when that movie came out. There must have been some conversations about when we're putting this movie out after that came out. Or maybe like strike while the iron is hot and the body is cold, I guess.

He's in the news again. So now it's perfect timing. I never saw Dragon. Dave, I watched the ever-loving shit out of him. I don't know. Any of the Dave heads out here? No. The only thing I remember about Dave

is that his penis is different. And Sigourney Weaver notes that. I remember that. Yep. I think I never saw the Bruce Lee story because the film felt haunted. The ring didn't exist yet, but somewhere in my mind, I knew that if I rented that tape, a similar thing would happen. I watched it. The weirdest thing in, well, there's two funny stories I remember hearing about dragging the Bruce Lee story. One is that Brandon Lee was offered to play his father in the movie and film it. And he for real said, so I'm going to act out a scene making out with my mom? No, no, thank you. I don't want that.

And then also in the movie, because it is the family approved, Bruce, Bruce Lee estate-approved story, when it gets to his death, they don't talk about it. It gets up to his last good day, the last time he saw his family, and then it's like, I believe it's a voiceover from his actual wife, not the actress who played her, going like, I don't want to talk about his last days or you know his legacy is this and yeah but they have this weird dream sequence that is sort of thematically about his premature death but then there's a part in it where like his son is being threatened by like this giant warrior

and he's like protecting his son that felt entirely different than I think when they filmed it. It's very strange to see. Well, they did the same thing for that cowardly ending to American Sniper. You remember that? Where they do not show him. And I mean, a guy that lives and dies by guns gets shot by a veteran. That's the end of the movie. Or it should be not. And then they go off together together and who knows what happens next

speaking of clint eastwood bridges of madison county yes it was a book but i think the movie is what lit the world on fire it told the world that not only could a 45 year old woman have sex she could have sex with clint eastwood and it was good it's one of my favorite simpsons uh lines which is i know it's trite but we could tour the bridges of madison county which is one of my favorite Simpsons lines, which is, I know it's trite, but we could tour the bridges of Madison County. And also it's the starting point for the worst clip show of the whole series. Another Simpsons clip show is Marge reading the bridges of Madison County. Oh, right. It ends up in the fire along with Bill Cosby's fatherhood.

And I forget what other books. Oh, sorry. The lottery got thrown in the fire as well it's uh yeah the bridges of madison county it was like how all the jokes 10 years ago were about how like all the moms are reading the uh the twilight books or the uh no sorry the uh 50 shades of gray 50 shades of gray thank you bob yeah. Back then it was, your mom is reading Bridges of Madison County. In both cases, they express that your mom is sexually unfulfilled in her current relationship. Looking for that D wherever she can get it.

To be fair, Bridges of Madison County did not start as Twilight fan fiction like Fifty Shades of Grey did. Yes. It was Star Trek fan fiction. Yes. Thank you, Steve. No problem. And yes, the series finale of Quantum Leap. I also saw this, though, not until I didn't. I watched all of Quantum Leap one time when it was through, when it was airing on the SyFy channel.

And so I didn't see it when it aired. I know some fans viewed it as kind of a letdown. When I viewed it in syndication, I liked the finale. I don't know if you guys ever saw or if you'd want me to spoil the ending of the original. No, I never got in. Does he get home? Samuel Beckett never returns home. Oh, no.

That's what I wanted to mention because I mean, it doesn't really matter because there was no resolution, but great premise. But then it ends with a big so there because it has nothing to do with the episode that they aired. And then there's sort of like a parenthetical at the end. Like, yeah, he's dead, by the way.

Well, roll credits. So basically the episode, I think the episode is kind of clever, though. It's also a little bit of a clip show where basically he goes into a bar and meets people, actors who had appeared in other episodes and okay and slowly but surely he realizes that the bartender is like god or whatever who's sending him on all of these things and the bartender is telling him like well yeah you're a guardian angel i send you to places to fix people so your trip will never end i always need you to fix people you can't come home and so and he kind of accepts that fact okay so there is a finality to it at the very least you know what i mean because we just finished star trek the original

series which i never saw all the way through and that last episode is just like it's just the they had no idea it was coming and it is just the end of like this great adventure the series that is so influential and it's just a body swap episode it's like okay bye everybody it should stay it should end with uh kirk saying uh stay tuned for wagon train next week and they're all just waving to the camera that'd be great smoking cigarettes apparently there was a quantum leap reboot uh in the early 2020s which we're in right now that uh recently wrapped up last fall i had no idea it oh it succeeded? Or I guess it was just sort of like, maybe probably got canceled.

Yeah, I don't know how it connects to the story of it. I only learned that this Quantum Leap reboot existed because to go on the Super Mario ride at Universal Hollywood, we went on the VIP Universal Studios tour and we got to walk through, you know, oh, we can walk through some standing sets right now. This was also during the strike, so they're like, well, we got a lot of standing sets,

and nobody's filming anything. And one of them was, we're going to walk through the Quantum Leap reboot. Anybody here watch the Quantum Leap reboot? No hands go up, silence, crickets. But I did get to see the original Munster's calliope that Grandpa Munster plays in the Munsters. Oh, cool. So that was fun.

The pipe organ? Yeah, the pipe organ, yes. Also, I got to learn, if you ever see the Beverly Hills street sign in a movie, it usually is like I just saw in watching Death Becomes Her. That is a fake sign that is owned and copywritten by Universal because the real sign looks slightly different and is owned by the city of Beverly Hills

and won't license it to anybody to film. So you have to use this fake sign that's in a bunch of movies and we got to see the real fake sign. What a scam. But that's your movie magic for you for this week. For the week, this episode aired. And joining us once again is Steve Sadek from We Hate Movies. Welcome back to the show, Steve.

He last joined us for Season 3's Black Widower. Thank you so much. So happy to be back. Love coming back. Love doing the classic apps when I get a chance. I love doing the new ones, too. I think my last new one was the Mel Gibson joint, which was a lot of fun. But yeah, I'm happy to be back.

And you guys were just on our show a couple weeks ago, which is exciting. Covering Despicable Me 2. We have not yet recorded it as of this recording, but I'm sure many a laugh were had. Yeah, I'm sure Eric is comparing them to dildos at North Buckle. Dominions, that is i'm gonna make a note of that to see if that truly happens i but you know what that episode of the mel gibson one and this one this is a good one to have on a guest who knows their movies this one is so full of movie references like it is endlessly packed with movie references it's so this was a really fun one to

revisit it's it's on my list it's got some of my favorite the lionel hutz tie bit is something i think about quite often it's just such a great lawyerly like tv lawyer a grandstanding moment that just spoof but also the tomfoolery of lionel hutz happens all the way through and it's of course a phenomenal uh phil hartman line reading so it's all three at once this is such a, fast-paced episode that you don't mind that you only see Marge in jail for about 60 seconds. Yep. They do spend a lot of time to not go there. And then on top of that, this episode means a really different thing than it did four years ago or a little over four years ago, uh, or a little over four years ago, but, uh, Oh, Steven, one thing I did want to mention in the, the,

uh, before we get into the episode, those that we really enjoy, we ate movies all the time, but your X-Men recap ones were so great. The sub series tool for this shit. And your X-Men knowledge, especially really impressed me because I could hear,

I know those, those comics, the originals a little bit but you weren't having to talk around like well okay yes so the ask any sons or this or what you know it's always the uh the burden of a fat white nerd to be like well do i allow fun to happen or do i bring everyone down with knowledge and i think that I think that was my sort of a balancing act. But thank you guys so much. I love doing that.

That X-Men 97 remains like my favorite thing that's happened in a long time, including real life things that have happened to me. It was such an excellent show. I'm so excited for it to come back. Although the showrunner has been fired for, again, still spurious reasons. And we shall see what that second season

looks like although apparently he you know worked on enough of the second season that his thumbprint will be on there somewhat so we'll see yeah it surpassed the original show uh something i wasn't expecting and something i'm not expecting from the new batman show uh premiering in august the successor to batman the animated series that's finally coming out. I'm optimistic, but I can't see it surpassing the original like X-Men 97 has. Yeah, exactly. And especially with, I'm glad they brought back a lot of the voice cast. I'm also glad that they updated a lot of the voice cast to keep them young sounding.

We probably have too much fun with Rogue on our tool for this shit. But, you know, the lack of Kevin Conroy is going to be really felt and that's going to be really hard for that i don't even know who's doing it uh whoever the new gentleman is doing the batman voice and i imagine hamill's not back either i think they're they're probably doing a whole new slate which is again fine i mean it's the batman cartoon there's been 30 guys who've done the batman voice but especially tying it into the successor of batman the animated series not having kevin conroy again he's dead it's unfortunate is that there's just going to be a big shadow on that show i think at least for me yeah conroy to us is what adam west was to the boomers and adam west

was batman for maybe three years conroy was batman for 30 years yes consistently yes yeah the x-men 97 show is full of great either sound alikes or the originals who can still do it and also i think they had they played their cards right share uh they played it but they played their cards right with the integration of other heroes like when they i don't want to spoil the whole season if you if listeners i haven't watched it but whenever they go like, oh, you know, Spider-Man could be here or Captain America could just be here. And they dole it out really well in a, though I'm sounding like a nerd

who likes the X-Men but loves Spider-Man, who's like, ah, finally Spider-Man's here in this X-Men show, about time. But it's cool that they do it, I mean, because it's X-Men 97. When Spider-Man shows up, when him and Mary Jane, when Peter Parker and Mary Jane are looking at the TV, it's the Spider-Man animated series versions of them. It's really clever the way that they really stuck to their guns and figured all that stuff out.

And yeah, we're able to have a little, like, we're taking a bit of a shit on Captain America. Why? Because it's an X-Men thing, and that's usually the role Captain America plays when he shows up. He's a government stooge, you know? I loved listening to you guys chat about it. It was a lot of fun. That's too old for this shit on patreon.com slash wehatefoodmovies. You can subscribe to two Patreons at once. No one can stop you.

No one can stop you. And it's all the same card, so it's not even... You'll never miss it. You don't know what money's coming at. I'm like an old person. I don't know where my my money goes it just goes where it goes and i'm subscribed to everything i sent my wife a a bullshit uh what are those talking uh greeting cards it's called blue mountain.com or something like that i gave that company like 300 over the course of like eight years of just me never unsubscribing from this company because I thought it was funny to send my wife a talking squirrel once.

So that's how that works. Thanks to Patreon, that's finally working out in our favor. Exactly. You forget it, it still comes to me. Yeah, this episode is the first one on staff for our pals Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. Multiple time of interviewees on here. They, I think, prove why they deserve to be on staff because this is one of the best of the season. Like even with hearing stories that their original script got compromised quite a bit by the time it got made.

Yeah, apparently they were trying to take a realistic but funny look at what being in prison would be like for someone like marge and they were assigned a lot of homework in a way that feels like trolling a bit from their boss aljean and that they're writing this episode that involves a flu and he had them read uh camus the plague which steven you did that to prepare for this podcast too right yes of course i mean honestly the the amount of homework you guys give me for this show makes it really un makes me not want to come back i love that it's just like try and get any nuggets you can out of kabu while we are going to just make a bunch of infomercial jokes and godzilla jokes anyway

yeah that's that's what's funny that like. It sounded like Gene especially came to them with, well, you're on staff now, so this is what's expected of you. The big step up here, they say, I believe it's Bill who says that Gene said something like, really think about what it would be like if your mom went to prison and read this book about how it's presented to children and get really grounded. And also same with the plague

and what happens when influenza spreads around. And then they write that and then they chuck out tons of it to just make room for tons of crazy cutaways and wacky stuff. I love it. Marge and Shane's, by the way, don't go to DeviantArt and type that in.

Only go to Disney Plus to get your stream because Margin Chains, very different animals, by the way, just what they have over there. You know, I saw on a wiki it said that it's like, oh, this is based on the band Alice in Chains. But I know it's it's it's about women in prison exploitation films of the 70s, right? I do not think that anyone, I mean, I'm sure whatever baby Bill Oakley was jamming to Alice in Chains, but I sincerely doubt this episode is a note to that. Yeah, there's a million women in prison movies like Caged Birds. It's the words caged or chains are in all of them. I feel like Pam Greer starred in like six of them but i feel like pam greer started like six of them i i know this yeah i'm seeing i'm seeing a lot of blank in chains films on imdb uh girls in chains sex in chains women in chains

school girls in chains all that predate this episode and bill oakley and josh weinstein named their 100th episode after uh an exploitation film seymour skinner's badass song that's right oh no that's from the stone double pilot songs dude damn you're right no it just so yeah it is they very deftly and maybe it was part of the original thing there's no like uh for lack of a better word especially with those cheeseball exploitation films there's no i'm gonna protect you here from the big bertha kind of character you know what i mean like none of that lesbian subtext is anywhere near this episode. There is a tiny bit of it in the original revised table draft script

that is online and I read through and even fact-checked something with Bill Oakley for new research on this very podcast. But you'll hear that later. I only know these women in prison films slightly by title i haven't seen them but when i worked at a mom and pop video store in 2007 they had a whole dvd section for exploitation films and i remember when the ilsa series got re released officially on dvd in the u.s we stocked them on the shelves and, and there was a certain aging clientele who was excited for those.

And with the Ilsa films, you start with women's prison in South America, but then if that's not hitting it enough for you, you can level up to being a Nazi prison, and it's Ilsa the She-Wolf of the SS. Yes, exactly. Everybody hit all those buttons are we talking a beaded curtain here henry or not so much are they out in full view a beaded curtain for the well actually not beaded but it was sectioned off for the actual for real this is pornography porn but if it was if it was exploitation films those were on regular shelves. Much respect. Yeah, and I think Orange is the New Black kind of redefined how these stories are told, although I looked that up and I'm surprised to see it went on for like eight years.

I clocked out after the first season. I was kind of done with it after that, but apparently it went on. But that's people's go-to now for women in prison, not caged heat or whatever. It's that prestige TV show. Yeah, I mean, I don't have Showtime anymore, you know, cord cutter here. women in prison not caged heat or whatever it's it's that prestige tv show yeah i mean i think that i i don't have showtime anymore you know cord cutter here i don't i don't imagine those things are haunting the airwaves after midnight like they used to when i was growing up when i was very intrigued by those films uh the ideas that they had the themes that were interesting

and not so interesting the cinemax and showtime after dark still exist in the broadcast version i know that when i saw showtime is now part of paramount plus it's just like a tab on it i was like i know red shoe diaries or whatever is not on here emmanuel well i i kind of wish uh my hbo i mean i wish a lot of things for my HBO Max, but give me all those real sexes. I just want to go back to those and be, A, look at what I was looking at as a kid and be like, holy shit, this is way too early for this information. And to watch all these gross people like straddle shit, like that was the whole show. It was like a bunch of like, it was real heads, you know what I mean? Like real people who were not very attractive or, you know, or varying degrees of attractive talking about whatever their weird kinks were.

And it was, it was interesting. I would love to go back to that, but they didn't, they do not let you do that anymore. Yeah. Previously HBO max, their rollout was,

we are the prestige of prestige streaming services. And now that they're max and their slogan is you come here to eat garbage. They should put on real sex and tales from the crypt and a dream on all of the things that hbo max was too ashamed of yeah same oh man same with taxi cab confessions when we dug into that like last year for that being a joke on an episode i was like yeah taxi cabs confessions may as well not even exist even though it's like it's it feel felt really ahead of its time of just

like showing you the crazy conversations people have with drivers. Yeah, there was a lot of episodes of that series as well. Yeah, I remember that show very, very well. But yes, also the work they did on this is I figured it out what some minor cuts they made that are in the revised table draft, which is on Internet Archive. At least for now it is until somebody is able to successfully shut down Internet Archive. I hope that never happens. But it is dated October 5th, 1992, which is important for another bit of research Bob directed me to that fits up timeline-wise of the writing of this episode.

But it's a revised table draft, October 5th, 1992. Also, this episode has an entirely new meaning after lockdown, which we did dig into a lot in SF Sketch Fest, our 2023 SF Sketch Fest live show. But we can get into more of that when we get to it, I guess. Yeah. But so the episode begins with one of the cleverest things I think Bill and Josh do as writers, which is they were the first. They've said to themselves they were the first Simpsons fans hired on staff of the Simpsons. So they take a runner that had been used twice before, really only once before. But they're like, let's do more of that and make it even better.

So they bring back. I can't believe they invented it. Last scene in Saturdays of Thunder. I love this. I love any Troy McClureure p is for psycho is such a fucking funny joke yeah yeah this i think this is the best version of the set piece they did because the juice loosener is just an even funnier version of mr sugar cube yes and it's i love the apish way of trying to crush an orange with your hand. That's the only way you can ever make orange juice. That's the way we've always done it, and cutting to Homer doing it at that moment is fucking hilarious.

I looked on Amazon for any of these, if they exist. Obviously, a microwave that floats on water is a bad idea, and you can't literally sell that on Amazon. So that one doesn't exist. And most doggy doors, you can find some decorations for them that are like, you know, God bless this house or I love my dog signs. But you can't get like a doorman that goes by your door. However, you can. It's not called the mobile ear like it is in this episode, but you can get the car delier-lier for only $16 of hanging chandeliers for your car. The outcome will be the same.

I was going to say that the microwave is the most ridiculous, but that's the stupidest of all of them. You know what I mean? The doggy doorman, actually, it's quite fine and cute if you can get the mechanism to work right. It's such a nice little extra bit on that joke that the man is making crepes yes yes my uh though i also love the the bit of animation as the guy has to act like he's trying to he's in a commercial for the mobile ear but he keeps

smacking him in the face so he has to smile even though like it's hurting him and then he crashes ah it's one of those things wouldn't you have a better wouldn't you choose a better piece of footage but of course joke it's a joke yes as well you know as as mr burn says they they did 30 takes and that was the best one uh and oh and the director on this one jim reardon one of the best as always but i just wanted to give him give him credit there but yes it's uh as as is usually the case it's hard for me not to clip every scene where uh he's talking but phil hartman rules this entire episode and even starting from our first clip hello everybody i'm troy mcclure star of such films as p is for psycho and the president's neck

is missing but now i'm here to tell you about a remarkable new invention. Until now, this was the only way to get juice from an orange. You mean there's a better way? But that's all changed, thanks to the juice loosener. Let's meet the inventor, Dr. Nick Riviera. Hello, Troy. Hi, everybody the inventor, Dr. Nick Riviera. Hello, Troy. Hi, everybody. Hi, Dr. Nick.

Troy, would you like a glass of orange juice? I sure would. But won't we have to pay those outrageous grocery store prices for something the farmer probably spit in? Not anymore. All thanks to the new juice loosener. Doctor, are you sure it's on? I can't hear a thing It's wisdom quiet

You got all that from one bag of oranges? That's right Order now and you'll also get sun and run The sun tan lotion That's also a laxative. It was worth clipping all of that. Yes. Now, we talked about P is for psycho.

My favorite, I think, is The President's Neck is Missing, especially because much, much later, Bill Clinton wrote a novel with James Patterson called The President is Missing. And whenever I saw that in a bookstore, I would laugh because my brain would just stick neck is missing into that title. So, yeah. I forgot all about that. Speaking of books, in Mike Reese's book, he says my favorite joke I ever wrote for The Simpsons was the Troy McClure movie title, P is for Psycho.

That is in his memoir. That's so good. I just love Dr. Nick as both a medical professional and an inventor you know he's got he's got every everything covered i love the specific of you could smash the orange between your hands you could do that but no right up against your eyeball and i love the little details too of like there's it's a silent woman like basic you know comes up and cleans his face while he's talking.

And also when Homer is doing it, his leg is sticking out for extra effort. It's shaking almost like he's a dog or something. It's more of Homer is a dog writing. Yes. And Whisper Quiet is fantastic. One bag of oranges is really a great detail of what a piece of shit product this is in the original script there's two really good jokes that were changed so instead of sun and run the original gift is a special globe that is historically accurate to 1987 meaning it's just globes that

have the ussr on it that they can't sell anymore because they're wrong and they're giving them away but they're selling it as historical, which I thought was a good joke. It's good. It's no poop joke, but it's still good. Well, then there's another Rye Ball joke with Homer's reaction of his mantra of like, instead of in the original script saying, you know,

while using the phone anymore, he says, won't have to have sex in that odd position anymore. Oh, wow. They cleaned that up with some ADR. Yeah. the phone anymore he says won't have to have sex in that odd position anymore uh oh wow okay so they cleaned that up with some adr yeah i i don't want to imagine what sexual position that is for homer for him to expend the less least effort i don't know yeah i mean again if you go on deviant art you can find that out um it's all it's all there. The Simpsons will be right back.

Tomorrow, look who's become Springfield's most wanted. You kids be good. Your mother's in prison. Marge gets sent to the big house. I'm going to miss you so much. And it's not just the sex, it's also the food preparation. The Simpsons. Your mom's a jailbird. So is yours.

Oh, yeah. Let's play. An all-new episode. Then, Martin Lawrence plays all his funniest characters in one show. Is that the wife or is your dog walking backwards? An all-new Martin after The Simpsons tomorrow. tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie. Welcome to The Break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert enjoying some Flintstones chewable morphine and a big thank you to our guest this week,

Steven Sadak from the We Hate Movies podcast. We always love having on the We Hate Movies guys. We just had on Chris the week before. Now we've had on Steven. And we also just had on Andrew and Eric this year too. And they had us on their podcast for the We Hate Movies episode about Despicable Me 2, which you should definitely check out if you aren't yet a listener of We Hate Movies.

Thanks so much again, Stephen, and all the rest of the guys for coming on the podcast and your long support of our show. And if you'd like to support the Talking Simpsons podcast and get podcasts without any ads in them, then you need to head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. That's where you get ad-free podcasts

for just five bucks a month and tons of other exclusives, including a week ahead of time release of Talking Simpsons. That's where you get ad-free podcasts for just five bucks a month and tons of other exclusives, including a week ahead of time release of Talking Simpsons and a monthly episode of us covering Futurama and a monthly podcast of us covering King of the Hill, just as in-depth as we do The Simpsons, but only for our Patreon subscribers.

Not to mention us covering every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of Batman the Animated Series. You need to check out the over 180 exclusive podcasts that are there at patreon.com slash talking simpsons today. But if you want something even nicer than a smoking monkey, better cut down there, Smokey,

then you need to sign up at the premium level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because subscribers there get all of the ad-free bonus content then you need to sign up at the premium level of patreon.com slash talking simpsons because subscribers there get all of the ad free bonus content i was just talking about but then you also get our premium monthly podcast what a cartoon movie which is more like three podcasts because we often talk for five or even six hours about an animated feature film we are smack in the middle of the disney renaissance. We just covered Mulan last month. This month, we're covering Pocahontas. Next month, Tarzan.

And that's just the most recent of almost six years of what a cartoon movie that we have been doing. If you sign up now, you get the whole back catalog, all the previous Disney or so many Pixar films, including all of the Toy Story movies. Even crap like Shrek and Cool World. Or even grown-up classics like South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. And even our longest podcast ever, Six and a Half Hours, about who framed Roger Rabbit. You want to see all of the awesome ad-free stuff that is at your fingertips, especially at the $10 level. Head on over to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons today to see it all. So when Homer makes his order, we then cut to osaka which looks like a postcard a very vivid postcard

and you know they do a joke about bad dubbing which was relatively accurate for 93 i think dubs got better then but now these i feel like these jokes are lost to time because dubbing technology for pretty much any movie now is so much better than the godzilla movies this is making fun of this was the stock and trade joke it would be difficult to track down who the first person to do the bad godzilla dub joke was i remember comedians would do it you know what i mean like also based off of kung fu movies as well and then it just sort of kind of all got wrapped up into sort of a racist trope kind of a thing where and i think this is less racist than doing like say your classic the simpsons go to

the sushi restaurant and the guy talks the way that he talks this is a more family-friendly version of that joke i think yeah uh shout factory is running a youtube channel now where they're just streaming old jackie chan Sonny Chiba movies all day. And it's fun to hear just who they got to dub those back in the day because it seems like it was a low-rent production. And they weren't getting voice actors. They were getting guys who were narrating industrial films. So all of the men have narrator voice. They're always like, come here.

I will fight you. Your reign of terror will end soon. It's just they all sound exactly the same and that's what these guys sound like we've lost that because we there are now voice actors that do this and they're paid a lot better than they used to get paid yeah no i just was learning more about this for our mulan podcast i looked into the i i read some interviews with james hong who he's the greatest living legend. But he did an interview last year because everybody was celebrating him. And he talked about how he was one of the original performers in the American version of Godzilla. And how in one of the cheap ways they did it, one of hiring a guy who's like it was him and another Chinese American hired to do it. And he was told he,

as he told the story, he was told by the white guy that hired him. Can you do like a Japanese voice? And like, he's like, okay, I'll do, he said he did a rather extreme accent as was directed to.

And then on top of that, he's like, yeah, me and this other guy were most of the voices in the movie. So in those old dubs, too, it's like there's 30 speaking parts said by four people. Yes. The gals get one. And she's also probably doing the little boy as well.

Yeah. So now it's time to talk about the flu. We'll talk about COVID. I'm sure Henry has a lot to add here. But obviously, The Simpsons didn't predict anything. Now, I'm sure Henry has a lot to add here. But obviously, The Simpsons didn't predict anything. Now, I'm going to say a fact that sounds racist, but it isn't. So hold on to your seats, folks, because most seasonal flus originate in Eastern and Southeast Asia, and they make it to North America six to nine months later. That's traditionally what happens. Now, COVID, it seems like it was much more easy to catch. It was much more communicable. And it was

about four or five months for COVID. But vaccines are developed for North America and other territories based on what they think will come over to those continents when it starts in China. It's not a failing on any Chinese person's part. People are washing their hands. It's just there are certain conditions in place that make it so these diseases originate in china first and then move elsewhere so that is why this is happening on the simpsons and that is why it's happening you know in the real world as well and i have a little quote from bill oakley about this uh he was interviewed about the whole simpsons predicted covid thing and he says uh i think this is from 2020 he says i quote um I don't specifically remember which viruses had been in the news in the decade before we wrote it,

but there are probably a few. The story was assigned to us by the showrunners, Mike Reese and Al Jean, and they told us to read the plague by Albert Camus, which is what the entire first act is based on. I would say in general, when people say the Simpsons has predicted something, it is just that we were satirizing real life events from years before. And because history keeps repeating it, it just seems like we were predicting things. So again, traditionally, throughout the course of human history, the Far East is where these flus originate, and then they come over here, and the Simpsons is just reflecting the history of disease up to that point. Well, respectfully, Bob, I've done my own research and uh sit down for 20 minutes while i tell you about reading those old articles that bill did interviewed about it it's crazy to see

the dates on them like the hollywood reporter one i pulled up was like it's like march 15th and the other one is like march 17th of 2020 so like lockdown hasn't even really gone into full swing in the u.s yet and yeah he he was i i hate to say that this is what made simpsons predicted it such a ubiquitous bit of internet content but i think it was you had the 2016 president trump thing and then you add four years later simpsons predicted covet and that just seals the deal for that way of thinking which we did our best to deconstruct and attack at the sf sketch fest live show of january 2023 it's your it's it's perfect internet content because it's a small kernel that sounds like it could be somewhat feasible wrapped in a whole bunch of bullshit and it's packaged in the easiest way to ingest that information without having to do any other

research and just be like it's almost like creepy pasta the the simpsons predicted it kind of thing it's like oh it's they had ghostly writers that could see into the future like i don't i don't know what we're getting at with Simpsons Predicted exactly. Aside from, yes, history repeats itself. And also, if you have a show that runs for 30-odd years making 200 jokes an episode or whatever the number is,

some of those things are going to repeat themselves or look similar to future events. As our wonderful t-shirt says that you can get on TeePublic, Simpsons Predicted Nothing, satire is dead that's uh yeah no i uh there was one other quote i saw from bill in that thing too he said or in a different one maybe this was with reuters around the same time but he said i believe the most antecedent to os flu was the Hong Kong flu of 1968.

That was what he thinks maybe the inspiration was for this Osaka flu. But yeah, it is a long history of hearing. There was bird flu before that. You hear about it coming from China first, and then it comes here. But yes, it isn't a plan of the chinese to destroy our economy and elections no no no and there's also there's the killer bees moment of the placebos and blah blah blah and it's just like oh that's like the murder horn it's like there's always a bunch of bees coming around causing some trouble you know what i mean every year there is some some part of texas that is being

beleaguered with bees, hornets or otherwise. Yeah. And I think in general now we stop naming flus after people and things and animals where the monkey pox, I believe we don't call it monkey pox anymore because it makes monkeys look bad. And, you know, many, many a crank online. They were calling covid Kung flu when it first started yeah the wuhan virus you'll get that wasn't there there were bats involved for a long time that i forget about it was like oh it was bats in a lab and then it was a bat flu i think or something like that or it's nice that we can barely remember it now and then we're trying we try our best to forget i think i was doing during our very long lockdown i was doing a lot of bane voice impressions at the time on uh yeah i bought a

stupid bane mask on online and i was going slowly mad at my apartment so i would just bring it up a lot to annoy the other guys on the show and then the other day we were doing uh back to the future episode and i started doing the bane voice again because it was it was fun and then i was like oh man i'm like re-triggering myself of being like locked in my house for a year and like i am re-traumatizing myself right now by doing a dumb impression which is sadly for my life yeah you know every early spring since covid now i get mildly depressed because the conditions of the weather and everything remind me of that time. It stinks. It's a weird thing that we're all still like not dealing with, but we kind of are dealing with.

We're glad it's over, but it's just sort of like, yeah, that's a whole year where a lot of weird shit happened that's under the rug. You know, more money from the government would help out with that, I think. UBI, baby. I would love to be triggered by getting a two thousand dollar check in the mail that would be great yeah also you know what another simpsons bit of history that's important in this that gets overlooked because of all of the covid prediction bullshit is that this is the scene this moment right here the box that they cough into, the address on it is 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, USA, which is now at this very moment the official Simpsons address. In season four, they were dealing with a lot of different addresses.

If you saw a new kid on the block, Bart says, I live at 1094 Evergreen Terrace. And then in Homer's Triple Bypass, Snake is a cattle rustler and is found at 742 Evergreen Terrace. That's Snake's address. But this is where, for this moment onward, it will be 742 Evergreen Terrace. And it's not that in the script either. So it must have come at the animatic phase where they decided that would be it it's codified here then this is it i cannot find an earlier moment where the literal address is said or printed in the show as being this as uh as being 742 evergreen terrace historic you know henry another important moment i discovered is that this is the first disgruntled Agnes Skinner. Before this, they struck upon the idea of like, what if Skinner was Norman Bates and, you know, Agnes was, you know, Norman's mother. This is the first time she's depicted as not being totally on board with being Skinner's mother and in fact, seeming kind of resentful. That will play out more and more in the future. But to me, at at least this is the first time it's ever happened on the show yes bob i do believe you are right i think bill and josh they are

masters of skinner and this is not just the look on her face but also the sadness of skinner going like i hope you have an extra special hug ready for me he it's also the sad and overly familiar relationship too i love the this runner because it's such a i don't know banal thing of like how a virus spreads but they do it in such a old 50s b movie kind of way with the i don't know what you'd call it the saw music but that that thing is going on the animation of the thing and even skinner down to flu virus coming in every single pore like he just can feel it and just it's just a smart way to make something you can't visualize incredibly visual every character goes walleye the second the cloud of virus hits them too it's great

yeah and of course ending with wiggum shooting the gun and then the old old Superman, George Reeves ideas, you shoot something a couple of times. It doesn't work. Might as well throw the gun at it. You know what I mean? See if that's going to do something. And from the angle he's shooting it, he's definitely hitting that hot dog vendor. Yeah, that's true. This season, Wiggum has done that to a mummy and a cloud of virus. There you go. Yeah, I also did love the six to eight weeks

later bit which shows you how we live in the future now where if i don't get something within three days i'm like what the fuck is going on here i go to the website i'm check up uh refreshing the page over and over again i'm very spoiled. We all are. Also, in the original script, there's a great joke they cut of when Bart passes the box to him. Bart says, it's that juicer that killed three people in Iowa. And then Homer says,

glad I don't live in Iowa, smugly. We get the dreaded Osaka flu. I do like the Godzilla with a cold. Is it great? That's a t-shirt that i'd like is just godzilla with the with the uh the cold compress on his head nina drew it for our poster for that live show too and it was really great i love i forgot about that i it's right in my line of sight that's why i remembered it and uh yeah patty and selma they exchanged gifts on

their shared birthday and we also they cut another dirty scene. Instead of Skinner in the original script, Krusty is gifting that juicer to a porn star who he is breaking up with. And then the flu virus breaks out and covers her when she opens it. And then Sideshow Mel comes in the door and says, Drew Barrymore is here, Krusty. And he's like, give her a juicer and covers her when she opens it and then side show mel comes in the door and says drew barrymore is here crusty he's like give her a juicer and kick her out like so pretty harsh on drew barrymore yeah well especially she was probably 19 at the time too it's we're having a little bit of fun and it's the woman who would later play his daughter

about 10 seasons later too so even better they cut that but yes the the dreaded osaka flu is spreading as announced by kent brockman on tv we then cut to arnie pie who is uh getting very dizzy and he pukes and you know what if there's ever going to be a joke about puke on the simpsons this is as tasteful as it can be it's only indicated with a shadow we get both puke pov and virus pov in this well it's funny because you don't get you don't think that we're going to do the virus pov joke anymore but then when the puke happens the same noise lets you know that auto is indeed about to get the virus in the worst possible way as his mouth is wide open which is hoo boy that's just just just doing that math it's not fun shearer has had said in the past that otto is a tough voice to do and then he's screaming

in it like he is he's working overtime in this episode old harry shearer and then we also see that bart is trying to stay homesick instead of faking it he is willing his body to stop and in in that original script it does say virus has jailbird voice and white blood cell number one has teenage voice so that was intentional that's so good i saw this as a kid of course and this got me to try this and i swear to god sometimes it worked i was such a faker I had all of my tricks ready to go, which were a hot washcloth. We had a long enough bathtub spout that if you let that guy go for a while, it would get really hot. You put your head against that. Now, all of a sudden, we've got a fever, but you better get to your mom real quick.

You've got like 30 to 50 seconds. It worked sometimes. I think maybe I overstayed some sick days of like i never faked it at the start but if it was after two days i'm like i bet i can squeeze a third day out of this like i i i would do that yes the padding is smart because then you're like it's wednesday friday i can make it to friday who wants to go back on a friday and then we see the itchy and scratchy short which is germs of endearment a reference to james l brooks's oscar-winning film terms of endearment so it's a wink towards the boss man here and the itchy and scratchy they admit on the commentary

it buys them more time it covers some pages and gets your script uh filled out and i love i love how when scratchy falls right through the pupils both of the needles on the cactus that that is great detail because it's one thing to i mean like all of his guts fall out and he goes to chase them he swallows them back up backwards which is a bad idea brick and all and you expect him to just land, like maybe explode. But there's an enormous cactus there. It's just a nice cartoony way to punchline that punchline. quimby says he canceled his vacation and there were more than a couple politicians but the two i i noted when we did our live show was like ted cruz not just during covid but also during a a blizzard went on vacation in in his home state and then also gavin newsom getting caught having a party at the the french laundry a fancy california restaurant so those were the two biggies i'm sure there's others i'm forgetting yeah i mean you get the rich and powerful and tell them

what to do they're gonna be like no fucking way and understand that rules for thee not for me that's how that shit works and ted cruz of the simpsons and you know i read the same thing as like and we must remember that ted cruz is an enormous fan of the simpsons and it just always makes you think of that those impressions that he did that one time. If you never want to watch this show again, if you're like, dude, I'm watching way too much of The Simpsons. I just need a clean break. I think if you watch that five times in a row, you'd be done. You'd be like, I never need to see this show ever again. All of my good memories have now turned bad, and now I'm watching Murphy Brown for the rest of my good memories have now turned bad and i'm now i'm watching

murphy brown for the rest of my life or something like that that was a brief attempt to make him seem human then they realized well this is gonna take no he's a disgusting little imp and let's sell him like that i remember people saying the same when and this is uh back in the news because they've got they've hidden likes now on twitter uh but how his liking of a porno tweet, but that made people say, I actually think it's fake because he just wants you to think he likes regular porn. That's not Ted Cruz's bag. He's too much of a worm man to want that.

I believe both somehow. Somehow I believe both. I mean, I believe it was of the step mom variety so that does feel more in his general vibe perhaps but i mean that that's still that of that porn of the lady like biting her finger is has been used for like ever now and god bless that that porn star got some good traction for her her work i hope it got her a lot of new gigs i do i hope yeah definitely sure. And I hope she never had to talk to Ted Cruz ever.

Oh, God, I hope not. But yes, in our next clip, not only do we get updates from Quimby, but also from Mr. Burns. And now for an emergency announcement from the mayor. People of Springfield, because of the epidemic, I have canceled my vacation to the Bahamas. I shall not leave the city. Springfield, because of the epidemic, I have canceled my vacation to the Bahamas. I shall not leave the city.

Hey, you, get that steel drum out of the mayor's office. Sorry, mon. Smithers, this plague doesn't scare me. I've constructed a germ-free chamber for myself. Not a single microbe can get in or out. Who the devil are you? Don't panic. Just come up with a good story.

My name is Mr. Burns. Don't! So do you think Burns has that, it's a germ-free chamber, but then later on he makes it his escape pod? Or are those two different parts of the office, you're thinking? I think they did hollow out the escape pod for that, I think.

Yeah, okay. That's what I think. Retrofitted. Yeah, that's the move. I love that Homer made it in there. They say that it was Conan who pitched it being a sandwich. I can tell you in the original script, it does say, eating a submarine sandwich is how it's described.

When I see this germ-free zone built by the super rich i mean i tried to find other ones the biggest one i noticed when i did the research last time was like david geffen had the super yacht his own like uh city he was living on during lockdown but in general you were seeing in lockdown what rich celebrities homes look like and how gigantic they were like mainly in the imagine video but in other things too all of their ice cream freezers yes they're just like us that happened uh you know my day job too like a bunch of we would do like zooms and what have you and it was like you could tour this incredible executive's enormous ranch. And I'm like, that's not exactly endearing what you think it's going to endear. You know what I mean? Like when everyone's stuck in their crappy Brooklyn apartment,

be like, wow, I feel like I'm on your ranch. It's more like, why do you make so much money? I think that's why celebrities, when they then started doing, you know, talk show appearances from home, they got the memo of just find your blankest, whitest wall, nothing behind it, and talk in front of them. Yes. And then we had certain things like, let's say, comedy specials where a man wants to depict just how much COVID and isolation is affecting him.

So he films it in his guest house, and it really hits home. Real. Now we're getting real. Now, you see, I remember the Bill Maher one was, as always, the most annoying because it's Bill Maher. He's horrible. But all the late night talk show guys film stuff from their homes. But he really was like, this is my giant backyard. I'm filming it here. I'm not pretending I have a small study.

This is my huge huge home right here and he's probably smoking weed dude oh that's pretty cool he's so cool that like what's more liberal than doing that than smoking weed yeah what if a 74 year old man smoked weed yeah just that's cool i mean if you're a recovering drug addict you'd have to be like that guy's really cool and it's really cool that he won't not smoke pot for me to fucking promote my shit. That's really neat. As a movie man, Stephen, I mean, have you seen the one? I've only seen clips of the Richard Dreyfuss appearance on there.

I didn't realize Richard Dreyfuss had gone so far into Cuckoo Town. No, no. He's gone nuts. I mean, apparently, from all intents and what you read about uh whatever happened at that jaws screening that it was like a small boston i think i think it was boston or somewhere it was just a small little theater and he just comes in and fucking lays the hammer down like we're gonna be in the news tomorrow because i'm fucking crazy that's that i love richard that is the danger when you go to any of those screenings with original cast members or stuff who are like 70 or up.

And you just want to go like, please, please. How nice it was when me and Bob went and saw Gremlins with Joe Dante hosting it. And I didn't have to worry the whole time. Like, Joe Dante's not going to say anything crazy. And he didn't. He was a good guy. But then when we went to see a screening of roger rabbit with the voice of roger rabbit i could see why he hasn't gotten a lot of work uh since that film interesting opinions

yep yep fun fun accents uh yes he he also actively did not answer a single question too like he there you go he was clearly being asked a question and then going like no i simply will not say anything to that like speaking of covet and q and a's for i think it was new york film festival a couple years ago my wife's favorite movie is velvet goldmine that's a movie i like quite a bit as well so we went we got tickets uh for a q a that was gonna have ewan mcgregor eddie Haynes' producer, and the guy who plays Jack Ferry, who's a smallish character in the movie. And he's only been in a handful of stuff. Everyone's seated.

There are so many people with Star Wars shirts on for this. I think they were expecting to sign stuff for Ewan or whatever. But they were there in force as well. God bless them right before uh the lights go down for the movie some beleaguered pa had to come out and be like um sorry everyone uh ewan mcgregor and eddie izzard both have coveted they will not be attending this q a no refunds here it is and we watched the movie and i mean hayden's was great but that the poor bastard that played jack ferry had to answer all these questions.

He thought he was going to get like two questions and he had to keep apologizing for you and not being there. I just felt so bad for that guy. I thought the announcement was going to be Ewan has seen all of your T-shirts and right now he's in an Uber to the airport. He called Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She could not calm him down. He is leaving right me and bob went to we had tickets to a back to the future screening that christopher lloyd was supposed to come to but he got like it was raining all day that day and he literally could not land

in san francisco and so we but at that one they're like look we'll give everybody refunds but you can show up to a free screening of Back to the Future. But me and Bob both agreed, like, we've seen Back to the Future many times. Let's just go out and have a drink. I think that's what we did, right? Yes, yeah, that's the move. Then in another, Simpsons predicted a bit. Yes, it's the everybody's demanding a cure. Oh, wait, no, nobody wanted to take vaccines.

What am I talking about? This is an inverse prediction well they're like the virus isn't even real or it's not even that bad or something why would i take a cure for something that's something what well there was a big demand for placebos like ivermectin and all that stuff they wanted things that psychosomatically you would think they were working but they're just doing nothing or they're actively killing you. And as a 10-year-old, this taught me the word placebo. I learned it too.

And yes, the killer bees thing, when the murder hornet story came out, that was when Bill Oakley tweeted, okay, I guess we did predict it. Like he had to admit, the murder hornets coming in April after the March lockdown. That did line up pretty well.

But though it follows the same rule Bill talked about otherwise of just like that. Yeah. The news media only has so many things they can talk about. And killer insects is one of the top ones every year. Yep. It's what you do in the spring. It's like who's coming from where. What swamp.

What swamp are they emerging from. And just watching local news in general which i only do when i visit my mom i'm just like god this is why everybody in this country is fucking insane is like the local news especially makes you terrified of everything around you at all times stay indoors buy more products then we cut to the flanders family and i think they on the commentary have a knowing chuckle and they say nancy cartwright's really good at speaking in tongues but uh i think they're joking about her scientology background but otherwise she does a great job speaking in tongues oh and why are we damned for all time because any married with children joke on the simpsons is one of my favorite jokes it's just they would love to roast that show and they did a such a very succinct job of it i'm pretty sure my wife and i recite the

two parodies more than anything else in the simpsons uh the superior one is in deep space homer where the the punchline is no pig and he flushes the toilet but now that my wife is decorating all our uh condo and our nice patio with all kinds of plants i'm tempted to launch into this one more often so lifeless and limp maybe we should put it in the bedroom and i love i love ned feeling terrible for laughing at it it's so good it's not in the script the watch fox and be damned for all eternity live you can tell it's so good it's not in the script the watch fox and be damned for all eternity live you can tell it's a raw it's a redone adr mouth but it's a great extra line to

it which every time i see them make fun of fox we say this every time but you'd never see them do this about disney now you wouldn't do this joke about a disney product yep they would not have a joke of watch disney plus and be damned for all eternity. No, and I mean, they wouldn't have done, I mean, like they would probably be making fun of Star Wars and not have Maggie Simpson, I don't know, be in a Star Wars short or whatever is going on on Disney Plus. You know, the short would be making fun of it as opposed to just sort of like, isn't it fun to see your favorite Simpson characters engage in our fun IP? That's cool, you know?

Yeah, the only disney jokes they do are uh the concept disney is powerful and we're terrified of them yep in the most reason short they did they made sure to let you know that marge enjoys going to galaxy's edge at disney world and you probably would too cutting cutting commentary cutting then we cut to the simpsons home everybody is suffering except for marge though she is actually more stressed than anybody by not having the osaka flu everybody is crying for stuff including oj flintstones chewable morphine and homer wants march to change the channel to sheriff lobo which every time i look it up i cannot believe it exists

though this reference is like it's a 13 year old show then which would be like now referencing a 2011 tv show yeah yeah i guess syndication is my guess is what we're talking about here until i had the internet i didn't know what homer was saying because i never saw the misadventures of sheriff lobo i thought he was referring to a celebrity called sheriff lobo and i was just thinking who is sheriff lobo but yes this uh the the adventures of sheriff lobo the misadventures called sheriff lobo i was just thinking who is sheriff lobo but yes this uh the the adventures of sheriff lobo the misadventures of sheriff lobo it was a two-season spin-off of bj and the bear and bj and the bear was a ripoff of any which way but sorry every which way but

loose the clint eastwood and orangutan trucker movie and then there's any which way you can i only know these because steve your podcast has covered both of them yes because our show is for people only over 58 years old um and if you if you're younger than that you probably shouldn't listen no yeah we've done both of those and they're wild movies man it's just the idea and that's the movie it's just like he's a hard drinking ape and there's bare knuckle boxing and clint eastwood's kind of hot in it it's just it's a very bizarre I think watching one of them if you're into like watching dirt 70s culture uh bloom before your eyes it's it's one of them is worth it I think the first one's totally worth watching and I think the critic joke really sums up those movies best right yes it's such a perfect

joke where he's got his eyes closed like someone's kissing me it must be a beautiful woman which is just such a good joke when i looked at the bj and the bear thing to sheriff lobo like the timeline of it is nuts to me because like sheriff lobo he's a comically poor police officer who actually like breaks laws and in his small town that's introduced in like the 10th episode of bj and the bear and the network thinks this is so good we need a spinoff in six months after bj and the bear debuts it gets a spinoff and then after two seasons more both are canceled there's less than 50 episodes each of bj and the bear and sheriff lobo love it and

and in syndication they were repackaged together and sold as a combo called the bj and lobo show that's the real name of it wow so marge is going crazy it's not helping her either that abe is uh demanding bourbon and that it can be stirred into his mush. They've said in other commentaries that Conan O'Brien, when he would imitate cranky old people, he would say, give me more mush.

He would always be talking about mush. So I think it's another Conan gag. I think also Groening was obsessed with mush because when he was a teenager or in his early 20s, he cleaned cafeteria trays at an old folks home and he just remembers constant amounts of mush being sprayed off the trays.

I mean, I also think for freaks who are interested in finally figuring out where Springfield actually is, you need to use the rubric of where can you buy liquor in a convenience store? Like, that's, because this is, I mean, I think this is the only time you can buy liquor. No, would you like vodka with that? So that so yeah there's liquor there all the time so that so that that's going to narrow down some states for you yeah that's true yeah i it not to be the guy who talks about his tokyo vacation all the time but it's funny in in japan they don't have the beer just behind the counter like they do in the hard liquor when i've been to bodegas in the u.s pretty much all of them now hard liquor's behind the counter like and you gotta ask for it but

in japan they still have it on the shelf and you can grab it as marge does when she she hits this uh the quickie mart it's always fun to go to a different city in america and be like so where can i buy booze exactly how how am i allowed to consume my favorite thing and they cut a bit from the script here too first off aim has a flashback saying the spanish flu in 1918 was even worse but actually it's perfectly fine and he in his memory he just has to take bed rest and then seeing the doctor cost a nickel. And then he describes it like, oh, it's horrible. But also, he's not the one who asked for bourbon in that because when Marge leaves, she stops first at Patty and Selma's place and she's taking care of them, too, to add to her stress. And it's them who ask for bourbon to be picked up. And also they are smoking and they say like, you know the saying, smoke a fever.

Like, so that's, again, good gags. They cut there. They are repeating the device of disembodied heads are all saying a same line repeatedly. So we have OJ Morphine Lobo. We had with, I think it was Bart maybe, like Like, from now on, the baby sleeps in the crib. Iron helps us play. Hello, Joe. And then Marge in the car going crazy.

I haven't flushed a ball in years. They love this device so much. Oh, and I call the big one Bitey from Monorail, too. Yeah, yeah. Yes. I love in the Marge Goes Crazy, the horrible radio show that she's listening to about saying that your husband is dead. It's this horrible prank that goes terribly wrong and this woman's crying. That I love. It's one of my favorite things. Yeah, it feels like Marge is going to have a

Rancho Relaxo style freak out in this moment. Yes. This episode is an inverse of that episode. Marge, in both cases, gets arrested arrested and wigum is the one who arrests her but this time she does go to jail instead of getting to have a vacation yeah she's buying all of her crap she forgets about the the bourbon we get some a very rare uh or maybe this is the only time actual a poos speaking hindi that's interesting that's that's interesting. That's a one and done. Yeah, so the bit where there's a lot of little things in here that I think are technically paying off in the courtroom scenes, but they don't cite them as real evidence

because it's crazy Lionel Hutt stuff. You don't need to. But technically, you can see Marge empty her pockets, and she forgets that the bourbon's there. She's not actively stealing it, but she forgets. And then Helen Lovejoy's behind her, which explains why she's a witness later. But none of that actually matters. But technically, this is set up for the courtroom scenes here.

Also, I love that they set up that Apu, or the company he works for, is greatly inflating the price of aspirin. So he's robbing Marge right here, but that goes unpunished. And hey, it's a reference to a real mass poisoning case where they never found the guy. In fact, the lead culprit in that mass poisoning died last summer of natural causes. Man, so actually by Marge getting arrested and not taking out aspirin, she lived to tell the tale. Yeah, that's the escape mental patient because i guess in 1982 in the chicago area someone was just jamming tylenol bottles full of cyanide pills and a lot of people died and uh from that point forward that's why we have

like the the cotton shoved in the bottle and the seals and everything it was because a lot of people died and it was unsolved only in america i remember what i we did i was hanging out in toronto i just i bought a bottle of tylenol i just could screw that thing off like it was a soda pop i was like holy crap there's no child lock on it whatsoever and marge then buys her stuff she's going to leave and that's when the alarm goes off. And an extra joke to this is they cut a line in this next act. But the joke is that Apu gets stolen from all of the time. He's always shoplifted from. And the one person who ever gets caught for it is an innocent person like Marge who's merely forgot. You know, in the self-checkout era, this is kind of funny.

Because one time, maybe a few years ago, I think right after COVID, it was a real stressful time. I'm checking out at Target. I get like a text or a phone call while I'm checking out. And of course, I forget to pay, but I still bag all of my stuff and leave the store. And it was only when I got a few blocks away that I realized like, oh, shit, I forgot to pay. So I just kind of stroll in nonchalantly. My order is still on the screen and I pay for it and leave. And I thought, oh, this is white privilege.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you had a real should I rob the quickie mark moment. Yes, yes. You thought about, what if I didn't pay for my Target order? Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas Strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games,

and signature BetMGM service, there is no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie.

You have worked so hard to make your business into a reality, but achieving your next business goal, that can be overwhelming. What if you had someone to talk through the options of the next steps with? Someone who wants to see your business succeed while giving you peace of mind. That's why the bankers at Merchants Bank are here, ready with exceptional service every step of the way. Let's dream together. Visit merchantsbank.com to get started.

Merchants Bank is a proud member FDIC. But Henry has been to that Target before in Berkeley, California. It felt like a social experiment to determine how much people would shoplift from a Target because at best, in that very large store, there were maybe three people in one corner. Exactly. Yes, they didn't. I mean, that is in general the problem with the idea of the self-checkout, I think, which is like, well, if we do self-checkout, then we employ fewer people. But it's like your cashiers are also the people who make sure things aren't stolen. And if you're having fewer of them, well, you know, and also I personally feel like

shoplifting from a quickie mart or a target i i would call that a victimless crime because the companies just throw the shit away anyway when they shut down well that's spoken like a true northern california and that's what that's what you folks do steal trillions of dollars that's that's why prices are so dirt high you know i will encourage people to not do it though because occasionally they do catch people and they try to humiliate them and destroy their lives when it happens so it's not worth it as happens to marge in this episode no no i yes i agree i agree i well so i do have another angle on this too is that i worked in a blockbuster video for a couple years and i had been on the apu side of these things of catching somebody

who or a manager caught them stealing and they ran out and like the police did get involved and all that and then that blockbuster two years later would shut down because the company went bankrupt uh because they suck and all of the things those guys stole were just thrown away or shipped to it like put in a dumpster so i was like what who why did we bother stopping these people from stealing things like it was it just ended up in a landfill anyway helping no one at least if that guy had stolen that copy of grand theft auto san andreas that could have given him like 20 in resale value somewhere and hours of joy exactly and i will say here stealing digital media completely fine except for patreon bonus

podcast you must pay for those we're on our hands and knees folks just don't that's that's the only one that will send you to whatever vision of hell you believe in it's that one i like marge clocking it at eight foot two here That's fun That's very tall And also that his height chart Goes that high too I think is another Part of the joke like I don't think They do at most tours You're clocking out at 7

Usually This episode very funny but I can sense The anxiety in making an episode about Marge where a lot of people on the staff think, oh, Marge isn't that funny. We need a lot of distractions, which is why Act Two, as much as I love it, is just the Lionel Hutt show. And I'm looking at my notes and I'm saying to myself, does Marge do or say anything in Act Two? Not too much. You're right.

Not until the sentencing. Yeah, they make it a Lionel Hutt's TV show, though it it's the best i think it's the best lionel hutz of the entire series i think everything you love about lionel hutz is here oh on the hindi part i did want to mention that they said they called up the embassy of india in washington dc to get this and what they say is in the script too and. And I would bet it is phonetical Hindi. But when I looked it up and then Googled those words, they do seem to Google translate to look at her coat. And then the reply is, yes, I will. Or, yes, I will right now do that.

So it apparently is phonetic, though actual Hindi speakers maybe could see how accurate it is, but that's at least what Google tells me, and Google's AI is always right. Always. And it sounds like the embassy was not happy to do this. They begrudgingly did it. Yeah, I think they weren't thrilled with the character for a very, very long time. Also, it's like you could hire a professional translator to just like pay them 50 bucks for it. But instead it's like, this is a political body whose job is not to be translators for Americans.

So, but nice of them to do that. And yeah, I feel so bad for Marge when she's like cornered like that she looks so i can see why they ran to lial hutz because like this is too much sad emotion of like your mother is arrested and she she's fears for her life now like that it it is sad i've made a lot of space in by normal amount of clips for lial hutz here because there's so much great hutz starting with man is this my favorite hutz line in the whole show? Well, here, I'll play it. Now, Marge, you've come to the right place.

By hiring me as your lawyer, you also get this smoking monkey. Better cut down there, Smokey. Mr. Hutz? Look, he's taking another puff! Mr. Hutz, this was all a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to take anything. Now don't you worry, Mrs. Simpson. I... Uh-oh. We've drawn Judge Snyder.

Is that bad? Well, he's had it in for me ever since I kinda ran over his dog. You did? Well, replace the word kinda with the word repeatedly and the word dog with son. The way he puts his fingers together like son. Like, yo, why did Hutz repeatedly run over his son? We'll never know. But that's such a perfect, perfect line by Hutz.

I love it. I also love the monkey, too. The monkey looks great. It's a good-looking monkey. And they're really developing Lionel Hutz's personal life because, you know, he was just an unscrupulous lawyer. We're learning more about him. And this is where he really hits bottom. This is the path to Miguel Sanchez. Yes.

Yes. And, yes, those smoking monkeys were real things for the writers growing up if you want to get i just looked on ebay if you wanted to get sealed from the 60s trico brand smoking monkeys you can get it for 40 whole dollars hmm well because i mean they knew it was the 1960s they knew that there was smoke in your house anyway might as well have more fun with it with a smoking monkey it's such like a dated un-pc toy like uh here's a promoting smoking toy for children it's a wonderful specific and he has a whole drawer of them he keeps trying to pass off and then nobody wants is this where we get quimby and wigum in this in the sonic because i love any it was an earlier gag which i thought we were going to get into here, which is that who runs the town, the mayor or the chief? I love those exchanges.

We don't get it here, but it's pretty close. Yeah, we're nearing the end of them dealing with the political backroom dealings of Wiggum. And Wiggum becomes too stupid after this, I think. Yes, exactly. He's too stupid to remember this rivalry. But first, Homer goes to the quickie mark to try to de-escalate with Apu, but Apu and Sanjay are celebrating. Not sure if they are singing his actual Hindi in the script. It just says, singing Indian song is what the direction is there. Great. great uh but apu i gotta say marge is very forgiving for apu later for all their later

interactions that he said we're gonna put that bitch on ice in regards to marge yeah she continues shopping there and nordine defense dynamics is one of those perfect bill and josh names like that's such a great who and most evil companies do know the Nordheim Defense Dynamics of the World do own businesses like Wikimart. Oh, yeah. All shell corporations. But, yes, this is where word begins to spread about Marge's shoplifting. Don't tell anyone, but Marge Simpson was arrested for shoplifting. Let the word go forth from this time and place.

Marge Simpson is a shoplifter. Hey! In other news, the chick in The Crying Game is really a man. Boo! I mean, man, is that a good movie? Yes! So, a lot to unpack here, because

The Crying Game was a fairly new movie. That's why that whole bit about The Crying Game is just pure ADR. It came in very late. And Quimby spoiling The Crying Game is based on That's why that whole bit about the crying game is just pure ADR. It came in very late. And Quimby spoiling the crying game is based on Gene Siskel spoiling the crying game in Siskel and Ebert's If We Pick the Winners Oscar special in 1993. So we do have a clip of that, but I think it was the first spoiler warning to ever hit any screen yes so knowing this clip that they just had a warning on screen that said turn down the volumes of your tv because they don't want you to change the channel but they're like if you don't want crying game spoiled uh but yes this is siskel and ebert talking about it in a march 1993 episode of at the movies uh gene uh first of all i don't think you should have given

the secret away because very few people have actually seen this film in terms of a national television audience. I think it was cheating, because to me, one of the real pleasures of watching this film was to walk in there and not know until a crucial moment in the film what the secret was. I don't know if people turn down their sets in time, and I think it was, you were, in order to make your opinion, what you were doing was you were keeping them from enjoying what I think and what I agree with you is a great performance. Well, the question would be, how can I do criticism of this work without talking about why I think it's so much of a stronger performance? Unfortunately, what we're going to end up debating now is whether I should have given the secret away as opposed to whether or not. Oh, it's a very good performance.

It is a good performance. Well, let's see if you picked it as the best. Why don't you see if I picked it or not? I hope you do. Roger's out for blood on that one, dude. Like, you know, there is selling out your co-host and then there's fucking going after your co-host, and that's what Roger's after.

He's like, I'm with the people here, Gene. That was almost like a wrestling heel turn, like, oh my god, look what he just did. Can you believe it? His blood is boiling, and I just read the very good book, Opposable Thumbs, about their show and their history together. And this is one of the top five moments in Siskel and Ebert history, Gene Siskel spoiling the crying game. It's referenced a lot around this time. There's a bit on the Larry Sanders show where Gene Siskel appears and he has an exchange with Hank. Hank is horny for what he thinks is a woman and Gene has to break it to him. Yeah, I see. I am on Ebert's side, too.

But I do think I see it from Gene Siskel's point in this specific instance, because this is if we picked him, meaning it's their reactions to the Oscars. And Jay Davidson, the actor in the movie, is nominated in the Best Supporting Male Performance category. And so I can see why that complicates it more to discuss why he's, you know, and Jay Davidson loses to Gene Hackman, which that is, it's crazy to think of those two against each other in nominations for Unforgiven. I do want to jump in really quick and say I wanted to say I'm describing the Larry Sanders scene in the terms of the show. And it's fun. It's fun in quotes to see critics of the time are very impressed by this movie. It's the picture of queer people, but they don't have the language to talk about trans people or issues. So it's always couched in oh it's this amazing movie where a man dresses up like a woman they don't have any idea that the trans people

exist or there's this trans identity or anything like that there was there was no spectrum between the crying game and mrs doubtfire for many people for many for an incredibly long time for far too long uh and i wonder when because i mean like that's such a weird i mean obviously the incredibly transphobic ace ventura ruined the crying game for me as a kid and it's it's a movie that i would go on to see like way later in my life and it's it's got way more to do with it with the ira than you think it does um but it's just so odd uh like that that was as a kid a part of your sort of vernacular because someone whoever wrote Ace Ventura had a real Steve Odekirk I guess had a real accent behind with it

yeah no I I just when I watched this as a kid I had my mom I think lightly explained this to me because I had no clue what it was but then very quickly in most comedies, then a crying game reference turned into a way to do transphobic jokes. And what, and naked gun 33 and a third. I think I saw that before I saw Ace Ventura, which also has a, the, the joke is Anna Nicole Smith's character has a penis.

That is the reveal of that. And then he also starts to puke as well, just as, as happens in the crying game and so it just became a thing and yeah the critic did a whole episode many shows did crying game jokes and it's sad uh that a great i think a really good movie i just watched it last night i hadn't seen it fully before i finally watched the little thing i think it it's a really great movie. And it's sad that it's become a movie about being shocked that you were tricked by a woman. And it's just like gross. and that's certainly not what the movie should have done, but it took a lot of slings and arrows for,

you know what I mean, for the culture to move forward even an inch, you know what I mean? That's how that shit has to happen. Unfortunately, it's like something has to be a fucking punching bag before people can at least acknowledge the existence of another experience, even by millimeters, and that's one of those movies that did push that that conversation forward just a touch and we're all the right people to be talking about transphobia

and film and how people completely of course yeah i feel like the next movie shorthand to make an offensive joke was um brokeback mountain yes yep yeah just an easy way to make a gay joke, just like how if you're writing your friend-style sitcom in 1995, character one, how was the date? Character two, have you seen The Crying Game? Laughter! I think people have called each other Brokeback in some joke or whatever.

Is he the mountain? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Yeah, no, I mean, in very tragic ways, the shock of the movie is used in real crimes to justify horrible things. It's just so sad. And it's also like, that is not what Neil Jordan's movie is about.

Stephen Ray as Fergus' character is lying far more than Jay Davidson's Dill character is. It's all about false identities. And like, yeah, that's the entire theme of the movie. And he definitely, there was one other key to this that I did not realize why Don't Tell the Secret of the Crying Game is known to Americans. Because the film in the U.S. was distributed by Miramax. And it was a very Harvey Weinstein marketing move to make the

marketing of the film entirely about you won't believe the secret in the crying game don't tell people the secret of the crying game like they he his marketing team at Miramax made it entirely about that yeah and that's not what the movie is it's yeah it's it's not the usual suspects you know what i mean it's not like though now yeah it's funny to think about what spoiler culture has turned into so differently from just everybody the gene siskel can spoil it on a tv show that is one of the most watched tv shows back then he can spoil it on that and it's remembered forever now everything is spoiled all the time months before a movie comes out yeah it's like you go online on twitter the day furiosa comes out people are already posting animated gifs based on cam rips yes yo god bob do you remember

that horrible website we both worked at that before guardians of the galaxy 2 came out we were instructed you have to read a list of spoilers and be ready to report on them ahead of time just spoil the movie for you this was like a week before the film's release oh yeah yeah i i'm uh probably one of the more spoiler phobic people in the world i just i try not to even watch trailers if i could avoid it if i really want to watch a movie because i think there's like you know the first trailer is fine and then by trailer three i pretty much understand what's going to happen in the entire film we've gotten to that point where there's just to sell the thing we need to tell you everything that's going to happen in it to get anyone interested and i i don't think that that's accurate but i

think that that's where marketing teams kind of are is just sort of like no let them know everything i mean even uh deadpool and wolverine which i think is probably coming out last week uh when this airs it's i keep avoiding the internet i mean i'm looking forward to that movie i'm not insanely looking forward to that movie but like the so-and-so is about will appear all the different cameos and stuff like can't that be fun wouldn't that be fun to be in the theater and be like oh shit it's whomever you know what i mean like that to to do to know that it's going to happen to reveal it's going to happen just removes any impetus for that movie to hit you know in those kind of situations and and sony i think is the guiltiest of this with their super movies but i think in all those cases it's that the marketing team thinks

we're gonna get scooped on this and it'll be spoiled anyway so we should at least control the leak and get all the juice ourselves that's probably where it comes from that makes some sense but yeah the simpsons get this on the show within two months of when that gene siskel's clip we played aired so So that very quick turnaround. It's just incredible. Siskel and Ebert were that powerful. A film critic was that powerful. That's what Gene and Reeves have said every time they've been asked, like, you should bring back the critic.

And they go like, this literally doesn't exist anymore. Like, you can't. Nope. There was a golden era and now it is absolutely dead. From that, we then cut to the poker table where uh the whole town is spreading gossip about marge marge's webbed toes i only remember them appearing one other time which was on her trading card from the bongo trading card set that came out around a year after this no no other time uh march webbed toes i just love the way that that is delivered and then we cut to the flanders

house where they are acting like they aren't judging march and after ned tells the funny story of being mistaken for ed and uh my mistake which second time they use that i love that and just like norman bates modlanders is masturbating while watching Marge. I love Ned Flanders, the animation of the silent nod of approval of I'm going to go follow her. It's all in one motion. He's like wiping his mouth and he's like, but of course, you know what I mean? And his eyes are closed with satisfaction. It's just such a great little piece of animation and it's that great you know criticism of the most pious of us all are just these people that don't trust you at all you

know what i mean they're judging you all the time she's spying through the god bless you sampler and i love how marge is so wounded she readjusts the picture before she leaves because she feels like she has done something wrong so sad just wash your hands and get out i think it was this the numerous psycho reference and simpsons pushed me to watch it like a couple years after this aired but i think it was finally my family went on vacation to universal orlando and the psycho the bates motel is built there they have psycho stuff i believe one of the psycho sequels was filmed at Universal Orlando, I believe. If you are a Simpsons fan, watching Psycho, if you're our age where you grew up with this show and watched all these references, it really pours over you.

There's so many Psycho references in The Simpsons, just left, right, and center. It's so funny. You have to watchpsons just left right and center it's it's so funny to you have to watch the movie and try not to catalog them like no no get get swept up in the narrative stop thinking about the simpsons and just watch what the movie is when i finally watched it as a kid my mom speaking of spoilers was shocked i had not been spoiled for the end of the movie i did not have the end of it spoiled for me before seeing it the i did know of the shower stabbing scene i'd seen that so that didn't i wasn't tricked by the the original intention of the movie in your head were you like well i'm sure she bounces back from that no i was like god his mother is so scary when am i going to see this mother that's

who plays her i can't wait to find out What old actress? Then we cut to the courtroom In the original script, the blue-haired lawyer is calling the jury fat That's how confident he is But rating the super hunks is pretty good too Rating the super hunks That's how confident he is This is when Helen Lovejoy takes the stand.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, who do you find more attractive? Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson? What is the point of all this? Your Honor, I feel so confident of Marge Simpson's guilt that I can waste the court's time by rating the super hunks. Ooh, he's gonna win. Mr. Hutz!

Now, Mrs. Lovejoy, could you tell us a little about Marge Simpson? Well, as the wife of the minister, I'm privy to a lot of sensitive information. And here it is. Marge's husband doesn't earn much, and the family's a mess. And quite frankly, I think she... Let the record show

that the witness made the drinky, drinky motion. Well, I'm sure you have done this before, Steve. I know Henry and I are constantly doing the drinky, drinky motion to refer to certain people. I do it to refer to myself sometimes

to be fair. Oh, certainly. And on the show, it's just sort of like you'll do that and be like oh no he made the drinky drinky motion or the finger thing obviously means the money uh two of the greatest hand motions a man can make uh if he's at his 40s i feel like when we want to just allege that some famous person we're talking about has a drinking problem we did the drinky drinking motion yes the bit of uh oh he's gonna win that's also i i laugh so much that oh and the reaction shot of marge's nails like ripping into the table out of pure rage of being alleged to be an alcoholic

because she had the alcohol with her like uh you i mean you don't go back to that church is the idea like i'm not i'm not being cordial to hell and love joy ever again that's how that works we'll go to the day we'll go to the shelbyville we'll worship in shelbyville we have to assume marge was so impressed by that statue she forgave everyone that's right and just after whacking day uh the previous season four episode had the parody of ruby killing oswald Now we have a back into the left parody, which, again, flew over my head as a little kid. And I watched Seinfeld's parody not long after it either,

and it would be years before I finally watched JFK to know what this was all about. I love the tree that is... It's just... No, it's a great parody of the slow mo like the slow showing of frames naming the frame saying on this frame here though though to steal a line from our uh our previous podcast guest from choppa trap house the the point the the big plan of jfk is like the the president was murdered what's my my proof? These guys are gay.

These guys are all gay. You know, we're talking about the Zapruder film. I'm surprised Eric Siska has not joined the Zencaster call. He can usually sense that. Yeah, he's going to be furious when I tell him that I got to talk to Zapruder without him. That's true, man. We miscast.

We should have traded episodes with yours and Eric's. Bummer. He's watching it right now. We know he is. Then we cut to another of my favorite scenes, which is the description of bourbon. Now, Apu, Mrs. Simpson claims that she forgot she was carrying that bottle of delicious bourbon. Brownest of the brown liquors. So tempting.

What's that? You want me to drink you, but I'm in the middle of a trial. Excuse me. Hello, David. I'm really tempted. Just take it one day at a time and know that I love you. I love you too, man. Such a sweet moment. It's great.

And as a kid, they introduced me to the idea of alcohol abuse and having a sponsor. I did not know what these things were. This was an escalation of in Marge Gets a Job, he says, care for a belt of scotch? And they tell him it's 11 in the morning. Or for me, yeah, that was also an Oakley and Weinstein episode. And just like I imitate the drinking, drinking motion, I have asked bottles and cans of liquor, what's that? You want me to drink you? If I see bourbon listed on like, you know, a cocktail description, how can I not think brownest of the brown liquor?

Yeah, the Crosby joke. And it being Crosby and him being kind of cool with it, you know, is a testament. He was probably stoned. That's how he got through it. Yeah, the late David Crosby, it was only eight years before this aired that he went to nine months in a texas state prison for several

drug and weapon offenses and then later in 1985 he was arrested for drunken driving a hit and run driving accident and the possession of a concealed pistol and drug paraphernalia so whoops yeah he passed away in january of 2023 at 81 and was reading, what was he doing around this time? Well, this episode aired a year before he got a highly publicized liver transplant that was paid for by the one and only Phil Collins. Oh, wow. Real nice. And did you see the thing that like Phil Hartman designed a logo for Crosby, Stills, and Nash like in his earlier graphic designer career? Yeah. Yeah, that's bizarre i think he did the covers for some albums like an album by america maybe or something like

that there's there's a few out there you can find some fun listicles but to know that phil hartman was like just a mild man and graphic designer who then got into chic Chicago improv and that then boosted him to Saturday Night Live and co-creating Pee Wee's Playhouse. Leaving a lucrative graphic design job for improv is almost never a good idea. So just if you're listening out there, don't do it. They joke on the commentary that David Crosby is a good sport for this joke, though then they just they do hit him with this joke again two episodes later in the Homer's Barbershop Quartet where Barty is very impressed

with meeting him but doesn't know he's a musician. Lionel Hutz heads back into the courtroom after getting a boost of confidence and is where he has another perfect scene. So, Mr. Nehasapima Petalon, if that is your real name, have you ever forgotten anything?

No. In fact, I can recite pi to 40,000 places. The last digit is one. Mmm, pi. Well, if you never forget anything, tell me this. What color tie am I wearing? You are wearing a red and white striped club tie in a

half Windsor knot. Oh, I am, am I? Is that what you think? Well, if that is what you think, I have something to tell you. Something that may shock and discredit you. And that thing is as follows. I'm not

wearing a tie at all. But if I am wrong about that, maybe I am wrong about Mrs. Simpson. No further questions. Whenever I am stalling to find a thing in my notes, I think about this lie. And I may have something that will shock you bob uh and oh if that's what you do think and that thing is as follows which is a great bit i also love that it works the jury is shocked if he keeps his pants on he might win the case by accident he's so committed to the bit that they have to buy it yes he doesn't bail out of it i i also just love apu's reply of like you know a lawyer will say you've never forgot

anything really never but the way apu says no i like literally never have ever forgotten anything and his photographic memory likely very much helps him in his future past reveal that he is a computer science expert as we learn later about him and we have some definitely not tedious information about how they determine the ten thousandths place of ten thousandths place of pie god that's a tongue twister yes uh they're well first off i'll tell you the wrong thing mike reese says in his book that he says they contacted caltech to get it and that they sent them a giant dot matrix printout up to a million places of pie so they could find the specific digit

for that joke but that is not true that's right i don't have the details in front of me henry i sent you the website but you can actually go online and see the cover letter of the facts they sent someone to try to determine the 10 000th place of pi in 1992 yes there's a blog about mathematics and the simpsons the co-writer of the blog is a professor named david bailey who was the guy they faxed he was working for the nasa ames research center and he saved his fax it was sent to him on october 9th 1992 four days after this table read so that's when they wrote the joke because it's not in the original script. And according to the saved facts, which by the way, you can learn the Simpsons old phone number and fax number from that saved fax. But he was sent a message from

Jacqueline Atkins at Gracie Films saying that they had called, the simpsons had called a professor at ucla and the professor ucla said call this nasa group and they can do it and instead of looking it up themselves because you couldn't google it then they had to run the computer simulation out that far printed on dot matrix paper and then ship it to the Simpsons so they could do it. It's incredible. I also love not just making it up yourself. You know what I mean? Who in the world would... This is a real striking two separate ribs in succession,

making two clearly different sounds. I mean, the person who's actually 40th of pi is one not nine as we said you know you also have a one in ten chance of being right i'm gonna say that you have your 10 chance of actually getting it and no one else can check in 1993 there's no nobody except for somebody at nasa it's it's great seeing the facts because it has it's just the stock picture of bart that you saw in t-shirts in the 90s of his arms outstretched and he's saying check it out a Bart facts is what he says at the top of it uh but also uh the last bit of it that was funny is David Bailey had to convince NASA that his bosses that doing these running these computations were worthy and worth the time and money and he said that what he told his bosses

quote helping the u.s entertainment industry maintain leadership in the international marketplace that's why he that was his justification we have to fight communism as best we can so there you go that's the story of october 9th 1992 that david bailey was contacted at the nasa research center all for this one joke that now you can just google and if it tells you the wrong thing who cares it's uh you're like well the google told me it i i assumed it was true so after this we cut to the simpsons home they're having dinner with lionel hutz he is assuring the kids that their mother isn't going to go to jail which you shouldn't tell kids that should you no he has a crazy feeling that it's not going to happen lisa calls him a latter-day clarence darrow which is

the famous aclu civil libertarian who was in the scopes monkey trialrial and Leopold and Loeb. And Lionel Hutz thinks that he means Clarence Williams III who played Link Hayes in the Mott Squad. I believe he's the runner in Tales from the Hood. He's like the big scary guy. He's a great character. Yeah, he's a great character. Link Hayes is very memorable to boomers who grew up watching it because as I read in an article about him that you know him and uh uh on star trek and a couple other people were some of the first like

major black roles on network tv in the 60s and his character on the mod squad blink with his afro like there were probably many people who had never seen a fictional character a lead character in a sitcom or a a drama with an afro yeah and were probably many people who had never seen a fictional character a lead character in a sitcom or a drama with an afro yeah and he's a competent cop and all that good stuff it's like wow with an afro how does he do that with an afro no um the mod squad that's the one did they ever try it again after the claire danes movie i feel like they did I can't I don't think so I think that yeah they salted the earth with that bad movie I think uh no the world just said no you know no one had interest in it and it was like yeah we're good I feel like there is no bottom though because even if I hear it's a good movie the fall guy I feel like they were in the IP bargain bin trying

to find anything that didn't become a movie though the mod squad basically was replaced with a really similar tv show 21 jump street which they did make movies of successfully it's the same goddamn premise it's like let's get some teens in there that can go under at least at least in the 21 jump street movies they know it's stupid and it's just them mocking the entire premise of it the see i think the sequel is even funnier than the first one yeah they're fun movies uh and then we also have a fantasy sequence which you can tell they wanted a certain song there but they had to have a sound like the uh the classic 70s i want to buy the world of coke song yeah it's it was one of the more famous commercials from that era early 70s i think I think. Created by Dodd Draper at a moment of clarity.

I wondered if I wanted to spoil that or not, but yeah. We're not making the drinking, drinking motion for him right now? Mad Men, that shows you Mad Men more powerful than The Simpsons. They could get the rights to show that coke ad, unlike The Simpsons. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, they could get the rights to show that coke ad, unlike the Simpsons. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games, and signature BetMGM service, there is no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly.

BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips

greener, your home cozier and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero hub at electricireland.ie but yes after all this we then cut to hutz's closing arguments which he's doing winnie the poo style as it's great to think clearly he walked into the courtroom stood up gave his entire testimony and that entire time everyone's staring at his penis and only at the end is he alerted to it yeah totally naked uh fantastic and then he tries to intercept the verdict it's written on a cocktail napkin and it still says guilty guilty is spelled wrong i like to think that when he's asking for the bad court trial thingy and changing

out the guilty verdict that he's still bottomless the entire time yes i'm the law talking guy is probably up there for an all-timer lionel hutz this might this might i think you might be right this might be the lionel hutz episode if you're looking for one and when they cut to david crosby shaking his head i'm also just like that's so that's so great too. He's there. Even he's lost faith in this man. But yes, when the guilty verdict comes, everybody is shocked.

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case. Mr. Hutz, do you know you're not wearing any pants? What? I move for a bad court thingy.

You mean a mistrial? Yeah. That's why you're the judge and I'm the law-talking guy. The lawyer. Right. The foreman will pass the verdict to the bailiff. This verdict is written on a cocktail napkin. And it still says guilty. And guilty is spelled wrong.

Eat. Will the foreman please read the real verdict? We find the defendant guilty. Marge Simpson, I sentence you to 30 days in prison. Next case, the National Council of Churches versus Lionel Hutz. Oh, right. That thing. What an exit line for Hutz,

that after all of that, then we find out he's on trial next for doing something that pissed off every religion in America. Yep. And man, these character witnesses really crucified Mara. She's a first-time offender,

and she's getting a 30-day jail sentence? That's crazy. Yeah, you would suspend that sentence. Come on, folks. Community service. You know, by the time this has come out, jail sentence that's crazy yeah you would suspend that sentence come on folks community service you know by the time this has come out a certain trump trial thing will have passed and who knows what he gets sentenced to in that but the passing of the guilty verdict i was seeing that passed around on the day of the verdict for for the the new york trump trial yeah that makes a ton of

sense also it's funny that it's jack marley the man marge replaced at his job and marge gets a job is the foreman of the jury he should have definitely recused himself actually he knew her before the trial he has something he has an ax to grind against her though by this point most people in town should know the simpsons even it's only season four but most people should be like no, I have a previous relationship with them. And then we get a quick little Bugs Bunny cutaway scene of Bart imagining that he seduces the warden of the jail and bashes his head in to get Marge out. And that was Steve's joke up front, down I go. I loved down I go. which I love I think it was John Schwarzwalder pitching that joke because

it's something you'd have to say on radio shows to let the listener know you were passing out or you were falling unconscious because you they couldn't see you fall over and the noise of you falling over wouldn't not be you know readable to everybody as someone passing out that's that's perfect yeah no and

also the the use of EAP Bill and Josh admit they thought they made it up but they took it from archie comics that it was just an exclamation by archie and the gang who will get their revenge on homer later uh now homer's speech to me feels like them trying to write james l brooks of him saying you make me feel so lucky and I'm going to miss you like this. This feels like a James L. Brooks kind of speech between spouses, you know? Yeah, but it's about the sex and the preparing of foods. I rank those two with my husband as well.

Like one's above the other. I won't say which. And then comes another bit of that. They have a very funny behind the scenes story again here too. Yes, because I believe she asked this in a previous episode, but Marge asked who's minding the quickie marts while she's being taken away in cuffs. And at the table read, Julie Kavner reads that

and then she adds, and who the fuck cares? So based on her reaction, they thought they thought oh yeah marge should not be invested in the fate of the quickie mart she should be rightfully upset at her fate so it's in the script she says who's as she's dragged away she says who's watching the quickie mart and aljean says he pitched the joke aljean tells a story and he's like i'm not mad at julie she was right to say that it completely takes marge out of her character that she would care about that when apu just sent her to jail but yes bob it was said in lisa beauty queen uh she says that while sanjay's daughter is performing

macarthur park she's like who's watching the clinky part and we're getting the return of the joke where a character will go to mexico fresh off of Wacking Day where we ride the bikes to Mexico in freedom. Now Snake's driving it to Mexico. Yeah. So after that, we get to the third act. And this is where I asked Bill Oakley a question because it was the most confusing thing in the script. So in the script, and this is revised table draft, where the Jimmy Carter bit has come in instead of more exploration of Marge in prison.

But they still do have a bit of Marge arrives in prison and the warden is there. And there's a funny joke where the warden says, oh, you know, this isn't like the TV show Women in Prison. And Marge says, what? And they're like, it was one of the early Fox shows next to Bean Baxter and Mr. President. It isn't like that.

And that was a great joke about Fox programming. Yeah, if you were there for the early years and watching things like Babes, you were aware of Women in Prison. Babes, I definitely was. I don't remember Women in Prison, oddly enough, but I should. I remember Babes and Models, Inc., obviously.

If I didn't have to do this job, Mr. President would be the only one I remembered, because that was the patent, not patent. George C. Scott. George C. Scott show, thank you. He's a human being. It was the show where Patton became president in an alternate future. Babes was two overweight single ladies in the city and their trials and tribulations and i remember their apartment because everything on it had cowhide like

and i guess it was like an in it was like sort of like a like super fashionable weirdo early 90s but also like kind of a rib tickler like get it that's what these these ladies are big ladies right it's just yeah very odd one of the babes was the late wendy joe sperber who was marty's sister in back to the future and she was in others of mecca stuff but a very talented actress i thought there was a lot more babes steve than actually is in existence there's only one season of babes i yeah and i feel like i watched every single goddamn episode of that clearly you did too bob what and speaking of departed actors we just lost dabney coleman who was another star of a one season fox show partnered with the simpsons drexel's class uh i believe

drexel's class got two seasons based on the simpsons being forced to promote it there you go okay and they gleefully wrote its eulogy with their uh with the treehouse of horror uh gravestone as well that i when i shared the clip of oh it could even drexel take care of bart and then they just have bart's head appear and he says hey drexel eat my shorts and And when I shared that clip the day Dabney Coleman passed away on Twitter, people were like, one person replied, I can't believe this isn't AI. Like, this seems like it couldn't have actually happened. Now, I want to apologize to Henry Gilbert. Drexel's class had one season, but Babe's had one season and four more episodes.

So it was the winner. All right. Thank you. That's unfortunate. You bring the whole cast back you got a season two it's like yeah we're just gonna cancel four weeks in sorry what were we thinking strike the sets herman's head though three fantastic seasons yes and this was what i needed to ask mr bill oakley about because in the script the warden is called a miss grub gucker type and i thought what the hell does that

mean i googled grub gucker nothing i asked bill he says boy i don't remember but maybe it's a reference to another character who appears in season four and i was like well that doesn't sound like any character in the show to me but But that his suggestion led me to dig farther. And I found the answer. When the episode Brother from the Same Planet, when Lisa is addicted to the Corey hotline, they cut from the script a scene where Lisa is watching a Corey movie that is at a summer camp. And there is a butch camp counselor character in the scene and her name is miss grub gucker and they seem to think that they were going to have this as a recurring character so

when they bring back her as the warden they call her a miss grub gucker type wow so there you go the lost character miss grub gucker great find henry awesome yeah there's a all the president's Miss Grub Gucker. The boys try to sneak into the girls' locker room at the summer camp, and then a butch camp counselor shows up like, now, boys, you're not trying to do that, are you? And they're like, no, Miss Grub Gucker. That's the joke. Love it. So just imagine Marge had a scene with a butch warden who's joking about old Fox TV shows like Women in Prison.

We miss so much. Then as Marge actually enters the prison, it's one of those you can only see in an HD. I certainly couldn't read it on an SDTV back in my day, but Marge's prisoner number is 24601, which is also Skinner's number as a POW, both references to Les Mis or Les Miserables. I think Sideshow Bob gets that at some point, too.

He had it first. You're right. You're right. In Black Widower with Steve. Yes. That's right. That's right. All Les Mis.

This is when Marge meets Phillips. Maybe they cut Grub Gucker because Phillips is also a rather butch woman as well. I think they would have used that stage direction. Though I hope her future relationship with bardy turns out well i hope so um yeah i mean it's nice that they don't make the obvious jokes i mean you could make her a queer character but an episode from 1992 or 93 would not be very sensitive so she might have this appearance but she's interested in men they're not going they're not leaning into the stereotype you're expecting exactly it's not about like marge being threatened by this woman or anything like that you know it's just you lose

that woman in prison line which i agree would age this episode a little worse than it would be and and no women taking showers seen either none of that thankfully like i i couldn't even imagine them doing that but instead they find a good observational thing of like, oh, yeah, Marge, nobody ever cooks for Marge. So prison is actually an improvement in that regard. And then we get an Al Jaffe joke on The Simpsons with Tattoo Annie, who reveals between her shoulder blades. It makes some physical sense. So she has to have pretty loose skin, I would say. The noise is so haunting that they can, whatever Foley artist they got, it's probably just someone on a leather couch just rubbing it or something.

But it's a chilling noise of this woman's back contorting. And it is insane that Al Jaffe just left this planet in, I believe, 2023. Yes, in 2023. Shocking. This is going to be us as podcasters he works until he's 99 and then as soon as he stops it's over so we can't stop doing this guys no no we have to you'll never stop talking simpsons we'll keep making more and i know somebody on this podcast who has an original Al Jaffe. That's right. Yes, Henry. I believe it was for my 40th birthday, correct, Henry?

Yes, yeah. He got me an original Al Jaffe. I believe it's an oil painting from one of the Mad Magazine fold-ins. And we have not hung stuff up in our new condo yet. That's the last thing we have to do, and that is going somewhere prominent. That's awesome. Bill Oakley was very impressed with that one when you tweeted it out. I don't mean to brag about, like, I did buy you a good gift but no no i was like it's worth it yeah the mad magazine fold-ins

are great i have a like a hardcover on my shelf here of glossy color prints of all of a bunch like decades of the fold-ins and they then have an inset picture i think on the flip side they just have look you don't have to fold it yourself here's here's what it looks like don't don't ruin your book well i do wonder if that's like a weird subset of like mad collectors it's just like it's got to be much more rare much rarer to find an unmolested uh back back ad you know what i mean like for for anything else it's just those that's what kids did. Well, as comic book guy says, you fold it, you bought it. Exactly. I've actually, because I'm a huge loser, I have several old Mad magazines just sitting around.

Oh, of course. This one is from June of 1974. Let me see. Did they actually do the fold-in? Oh, yeah, the fold-in has been folded. Wow, look at that. Sorry, this magazine is 40 years old, but it's still in great condition. That's awesome.

Yeah. It'd be worth more if they didn't fucking fold that thing, man. Yes, this magazine cost me $3. I'd have to pay $5 if they didn't fold it in. So thank you, person from 1974. So then they cut home, and the family is trying to figure out what they're going to do for 30 whole days. And Homer's plan was basically me in my 20s. Just like, you know what?

Just eat over the sink or toilet. That's fine. I didn't eat over the toilet. That is an embellishment joke. Were there a couple nights where I was like, do I really want to clean a plate? Nah, I'll just eat leftovers over the sink. Sure. Now be honest, Henry. Just your 20s? Okay. Into my 30s. like do i really want to clean a plate nah i'll just eat leftovers over the sink sure now be honest henry just your 20s okay into my 30s i can't lie on that when bob saw my apartment in my

30s it's kind of funny i was when i was watching this it's been a while since i've seen this particular episode it was in my head i'm trying to get ahead of it and like i was waiting for gags that happen in other episodes because there are so many when Homer is at home and Marge is away gag, you know, like, which one is in this? Is this the Tom Collins mix and clothes? No, that's in Springfield with the dollar sign. You know, those kinds of things can all kind of almost interchangeable and they're all great.

Yeah. And also the Rancho Relaxo when homer is uh alone hence the title of the episode homer alone and he's got to take care of the kids and maggie and everything yeah and maggie's just gonna walk around in the backyard pooping wherever she does like yeah and and uh when they cut to 10 minutes later and the house is a huge mess note the alligator walking through the kitchen he will end up in the toilet later yes it's not just a cutaway gag he'll be to fate it's not just some random thing with an alligator it's for an important joke later i mean this third act is so jokey i swear to god it is a new scene

in a different location every 10 seconds yes matt graining also on the commentary, not a fan of Homer in the wedding dress. He goes like, aye, aye, aye. He thinks that's too crazy for Homer. That has to be like a family relation. Marge's wedding dress would not fit Homer. Yes, absolutely not. I mean, there's a tear in it, but there would be more than just a tear. Though, I guess Marge, well, no way.

We've seen Marge didn't have a real wedding dress either. They had a shotgun wedding. So, yeah, shotgun Pete's. Well, she would have been pregnant, so there's that. But even still. Oh, then it would have space for Homer. Well, there's a joke there they didn't do. But then Bart makes a new friend and we get to see some prison visits.

All right. Bologna and cheese. What do you got, Bart? Pack of sugar and peanut butter smeared on a playing card. Ha ha. see some prison visits. Oh, Mom, I've missed you so much. Oh, honey, I've missed you, too. Homer, is that an old Halloween costume? Uh, no. So, how are things at home? We flushed the gator down the toilet, but it got stuck halfway, and now we have to feed it. I'll bet you want a piece of me.

Well, you ain't gonna get it, see? Ha, ha, ha. Oh. Hey. God, I really want to know what's making the foley on this. Yes. How did they come up with an alligator eating dentures? It's great.

Confident mocking grandpa is one of my favorite grandpas. Well, you ain't going to get it. It's just such a great cast of the performance we just came off of whacking day which had i am evil homer and one episode later we just have homer in reality wearing the devil costume i guess he was doing the john lovett's devil i think it's so great that homer also just lies and says no i also peanut butter smeared on a playing card like that's great and bart like licks it off right after. Well, there we go. But this also does set up that Nelson's mom has a criminal background,

which was even in a season 35 episode that she was fearing her third strike in one episode. But this is another cut line. They talk about it on the commentary, but I can confirm it is in the revised table draft script which is bart says here mom i baked you a cake with a file in it she opens the box no cake inside and homer is nervous when he they note the cake is missing yeah in the scene there's a there's a cake box on the table when they're all meeting that leads me to believe they actually animated that scene and cut it in animation then, and not just from the script. And on the commentary, they joke that when they wrote that in the script,

in the room, Schwarzwelder pitched that they should then cut to Homer struggling on the toilet later that night trying to pass the file date. But yeah, they note it after Homer sayser says no and it cuts to marge saying how are you doing there is a for no reason an empty pink box sitting in front of her yes if it was a we hate movies episode there'd be 20 minutes on that file being passed that's that's just how shit goes over there i think uh swzwalder or somebody on the staff said we should see the file coming out.

Right. Even in silhouette. They were trying to make it that dirty. So maybe that shut down the entire idea. Like, no, this is what you wanted. Matt's never going to allow that. We got the silhouette of puke on screen in this one. We can't get a silhouette of poop.

Then we have a conjugal visit joke, which did lead me to do a slight amount of research on that. For one thing, the Supreme Court ruled in 1974 it is not a constitutional right. In federal prison, you are not allowed conjugal visits. And currently in the United States, only four states allow it within very set rules. California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. And there's a lot of rules. Usually you have to be the person's legal spouse, which that was a benefit for some people in prison who have same-sex legal spouses. Once it became legal to have same-sex marriage, you could actually have a conjugal visit from your same-sex partner. Though, if you want to

really be sad about it you can look up an article called the dark origins of the conjugal visits which spoiler it's part of america's deeply racist history of slavery so that's uh you don't say i think i'll take their word for it yeah prison and slavery being intermixed i won't hear of it yes and conjugal visits were used as one of those carrot versus stick things in horrible heart like you can you can read the sad facts but so all that to say aljean makes the point of conjugal visits happen more on tv shows than they do in real life and it's true it's actually fairly rare in america's very dense horribly dense uh prison population in this awful country of ours but marge she's enjoying her conjugal visit so much so that she leaps on homer in very funny

animation i i like how marge is uh she thirsty as the kids would say she's ready to go man and i really like the poor planning behind these civic projects in the springfield universe because without these marshmallow squares they can't get the good statue and then later because they're missing two cinder blocks there will be no hospital inform the children it's a razor's edge they're they're their budget it it definitely feels like a for want of a nail the yes the benjamin franklin thing which i certainly know from being well read and and not because it's a classic DC Comics Elseworlds story. No, no, no. I know it from real things.

Well, I don't know. I love this effeminate man who's very disappointed. He goes, oh, darn. Yes. Yes. Do you have this little marshmallow square? Oh, darn. No, Stephen, have you read the Alan Davis The Nail comic?

It's a great one. I always wanted to read i always wanted to read the nail actually that that might be a an ebay buy that i might do right after this it's got perfect alan davis art it's amazing and here is the the subject it's called the nail because a flat tire happens to ma and pa kent they don't find superman so what is the dc universe with all the other superheroes but no Superman? That's the what if. Well, that's Marvel, actually, when I say what if. That's the Elseworlds scenario.

We say Elseworlds on the other side. That's what the distinguished competition says across the street, right? Sorry, I'm pulling out all of the Marvel PR sayings here. But yes, Springfield falls apart. Oh, do you have any of those delicious marshmallow squares? Sorry, Marge Simpson makes those. Oh, darn. $15 short.

Exactly what Marge Simpson's marshmallow squares bring in. Can we still afford that statue of Lincoln? No, I'm afraid we'll have to go with something cheaper. I give you our 39th president, Jimmy Carter. Oh, come on. He's history's greatest monster. Great line. And it was shocking to hear the commentary 20 plus years ago to find out this is what Al Jean sincerely believes or he did back in 2004 or whatever.

I think in the time since this was written, we've had 30 years of bad presidents. So I feel like he would change his tune if he was asked about it today. But Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein thought, oh, this is a parody of what people thought about Jimmy Carter. But no, jean sincerely hated jimmy carter and i should say he's been in hospice for like 28 months we don't know what's going to happen this episode goes live in a month so it's not our fault no yeah it's funny to hear him on the commentary saying well i despise the man that bill's like oh i thought this was a joke about

people hyperbolically hated jimmy carter for no reason and then and matt grating is mad he's like what you don't like jimmy carter he's the and then and matt grating is mad he's like what you don't like jimmy carter he's the great oh i can't believe it uh and then when he says everybody loved jimmy carter al gino's like oh yeah he did great in 80 didn't he like it's uh i always love that joke as a hyperbolic you know everyone's losing their minds about the a genteel president that only was beaten by one of the most evil men in history. Why not? Also, the malaise forever thing is a joke about the big speech he gave

where he never even said the word malaise, but it became known as the malaise speech, where it's about America's energy crisis at the time. But actually, Bob, you're wondering about Al Jean and what he feels about Carter. I decided to search through Al Jean's Twitter account to see what he'd been carter i decided to search through al jean's twitter account to see what he'd been saying about carter in the last decade and uh he he has lightened up on him in june 2015 al jean said jimmy carter truthfully was an underrated president he says then wow in 2017 we never see a show that was heavily topical e e.g. our Jimmy Carter is history's worst monster is an anti-joke is what he classified it in 2017.

And then in 2021, five days after January 6th, he mentions Jimmy Carter one more time because he thought it was crazy that Donald Trump at the end of his term had higher favorability ratings than Jimmy Carter. He thought that was crazy. One more story about this from the executive producers was in Mike Reese's book, and I'll just read it here. I heard this from Jimmy Carter's grandson himself. As a kid, the grandson was always urging Grandpa Jimmy to watch The Simpsons. You'll like it. It's smart and satirical. One week, jimmy to watch the simpsons you'll like it it's smart and satirical one week jimmy carter decided to watch our show it was the episode where springfield

has budget cuts so instead they're getting a statue of abraham lincoln for the park they get the much cheaper jimmy carter statue when it's unveiled a riot breaks out with someone calling jimmy carter history's greatest monster and so. And so Jimmy Carter turned off after that and never watched again. This is the more lost memory. Yeah. Well, he's got houses to build. He's got more important things to do. I do love the idea that Jimmy Carter would be a cheaper statue as if there's a rights

issue involved. I mean, it's certainly about the same amount of cement. I mean, the hat for Lincoln is going to add, you know, eight to ten centimeters or so. But I really think it should be about the same price. I love how the statue is not a stoic pose. It's just him kind of standing there with a sheepish smile on his face. Yeah, it's like he's about to shake your hand. It's the same smile they put on the peanut mascot

character characterizations of him they drew then now what happens after this another thing to put into perspective on timing of this with the writing date of october early october 1992 this was written five months after the la riots in reaction to the not guilty verdict in the rodney king trial so uh this is more of uh them ripping from the headlines i would say uh of this and especially all of the smashing of windows and uh the the guy in his underwear with the uh the tv which is a funny drawing i like that but they didn't know what they were like they were joking about that in this case but then once the they never did like a oj simpson bronco car chase joke in the show comparatively where for all yeah it's pretty shocking that they didn't touch that at all like even a little bit even

seinfeld did that in seinfeld well seinfeld got very referencey towards the end there anyway but it's interesting that the simpsons never did it did a bronco or a you know homer being chased by the cops or something well i suppose he is chased by the cops and who shot mr burns but it's not oh actually there there is the uh you'd have to uh in the 137th episode of spectacular you'd have to ignore all that simpson dna which would be downright nutty stare at the camera phil hart that's right yeah i think they would you know they did a veiled reference because i'm sure they found the other oj jokes extremely tacky and they knew they were working six to nine months ahead of time for this trial that was set to end at some point you know before whatever they were writing would hit the air and as springfield is being destroyed

i have a quick clip here of another line from this episode that has bounced in my head ever since. Release the dogs. Gee, they look pretty mad. Yeah, I've been starving them, teasing them, singing off key. Me-me-ma-mo, me-moo-ma-me. Ah, no! No, no, no! Nice doggy! This never would have happened if Marge Simpson was here.

Me-me-ma-mo, me-moo-ma-me. Like, ah, God, I love that, Selma. Well, actually, it's kind of funny that the only person who learns anything in this episode is Helen Lovejoy, actually. Is that Helen or is that... Well, that's Maude, but Helen does learn the lesson, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so both these biddies get their comeuppance in this episode. They're the only people that have any emotional growth.

Yeah, it's weird that Apu and Sanjay have nothing to say at the end here. Yes. That's not resolved in any way. Well, I guess their spiritual punishment was having the quickie marge stolen and taken to Mexico. I guess so, yeah.

They're in Mexico now going through all that paperwork. Yes. Trying to get the store back through customs. Oh, God. And then we cut to Marge getting released from prison. Great. I love the shot of the opening of the prison gate and the sun shining through. That's just a beautiful shot that says freedom.

And also, Homer is there waiting for her right outside the prison, which feels like it's like taking, you know, from a crime movie of some sort. The guy waiting outside prison. Well, apparently they read this on IMDb. Somebody that's a reference to Goodfellas when she's waiting for him. They're both kind of like that sexy look at one another. Bracco and I'll buy it. I didn't pick up on it, but I'll buy it. You know what, IMDb guy, I'll buy it i didn't get it i didn't pick up but i'll buy it i'll you know what imdb guy i'll

buy it this time only now alice in chains no but that reference yeah exactly and it's nice that barney is there committing identity theft but i think in the end he will be murdered with a screwdriver so yeah it's a great joke i love you know i hope you find somebody i don't know it's a nice guy his name is his name is hom Homer and he works at the nuclear power plant. Like of all the people's identity to steal. I mean, I guess you know one person. It's either him or Mo. And I guess Homer's more attractive.

And also that Homer's right there too. Like they're both waiting and he has to. But yeah, it's nice. I hope that they secretly had a great time together. But obviously, yeah, she's going to murder him. Then we have another joke that is kind of like the ending of War of the Simpsons, but taken to a crazier degree where the kids have to clean up before mom gets home. And this time it's just a wavy carpet they're walking on

that includes the Bronson voice man is under this. Yes. Watch it, which is great. As a kid, I think only recently did I interpret this as, oh, there's a man in the carpet. For the longest time, I thought this joke was a non sequitur where a narrator was saying, was telling the substance children to watch where they're stepping.

But obviously, it's a weird ADR joke where they're trying to cram in a funny noise. And, you know, aowl is not as funny as you having buried the sarcastic man under your carpet so in the original script there's just one last scene here that was cut that it takes the destruction of springfield to a whole nother level as marge is being driven home they spot three things first there is a guillotine set up in the amphitheater of springfield mr burns is at the guillotine about to be killed because he has been hoarding supplies wow okay so that's one next they drive by a sign that says new soylent green with even younger flavors so soylent green is being

sold here things that things have gotten worse it seems yes and finally they drive by the Springfield Thunderdome so also Thunderdome has been set up great yeah I notice it's a tiny joke that when we see the overhead shot as Homer is driving March back to town the town

is actively on fire and destroyed yes yeah you know I wonder if they cut any of that like from color did it make to full animation but that's uh god i would have loved to have seen the springfield thunderdome bob bob is a recent convert to the world of thunderdome yeah i'm a fan of the thunderdome section not the other sections of that film yeah it's that it's it's a tough i i i'm in the same way like i overall overall i think it's a good movie. You know what I mean? It's got some good stuff to it, but the kids will weigh it down.

But the Thunderdome is so much goddamn fun. It's just so much. And Tina Turner and the saxophone, everything is so fantastic. But guys, can't we just get beyond Thunderdome? Yes, yes. Sorry, Mystery Science Theater reference. Okay, anyway.

After all that, it's time for Marge to get her happy ending. I didn't expect all this. Well, we never should have let you go. From now on, I'll use my gossip for good instead of evil. Three cheers for Marge Simpson. Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Now, Marge, we have a special treat for you. Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Now, Marge, we have a special treat for you.

It's beautiful. And clever. That's why they had it say malaise forever, so it could be pasted over with Marge forever. Do you think that would have warmed Carter if he got to the end of the episode? You know, like the fact that he would turn into Marge Simpson and that it would be a nice token after all, or not so much? And he smacked him in the face with a tether ball. Yeah. Just to make the politics clear at the very end there. But yeah, I mean, seeing the Jimmy Carter statue

with Marge's hair grafted onto it is an amazing final vision for the episode as as everyone apologizes to marge so they can move on from this dark moment in the city you know i was hoping jimmy carter spending his final weeks on this planet catching up with the simpsons but i'm looking at recent stories and the most recent one i can find is jimmy carter 99 is no longer awake every day grandson grandson says. Oh, boy. Yeah, you're just going to want to have some audio clip. Why don't we do it one way where he's dead and another way where he's alive?

And, of course, we are very sorry to announce that Jimmy Carter has passed. Gerald Ford died today. One of my favorite SNL bits. He may be dead, but the habitats for humanity live on right exactly and the peanuts and everything it's all beautiful he's a beautiful man that's always the best is when people will oh my god I can't believe you're talking about this guy

who's died yeah that happened five years ago I don't know people will die by the time you hear this someone by the time you hear this I'm probably dead who knows yeah I mean if you think we're being cruel, the joke's on us because as podcasters, we are living to maybe 62, and then it's over.

Oh, tops, tops. We're not going to live long as a clean-living, lusted-in-his-heart president like Jimmy Carter. Exactly. Yeah, you know, boy, was it like two years ago that we got the tiniest president picture of him the that that crazy optical illusion of the bidens with the carters yeah i think it was oh right a couple of years yeah that was a crazy picture

bud six months younger than jimmy carter uh physically no i think you might be older but uh but yeah i think it's a nice it's a sweet ending that everybody forgives marge and all that and they realized they overreacted but again it is like she only was there for 30 days so there was at least a realistic amount but to have the breakdown of society happen without marge instead of just telling a grounded story of what it's like for Marge to be in prison. It is a real wacky town veering off, but, I mean, we had a lot of fun. It is interesting how little there is of Marge

in Chains in this episode. She gets handcuffed to leave after the sentencing. That's it. That's the only time a chain is upon Marge that I can think of in this. This really reminds me of, you know, Wacking Day and The Front, all of these late season four episodes where they're very tired. The showrunners are actively working on a new show and a lot of people are out the door ready to work on new projects. It's just so punchy.

Anything goes. The third act is a series of 10 second sketches. The stories don't always track, but that's not important right now what's important right now are all these jokes that have lived on in the past 31 years and i think uh it's not one of the stories you remember but this episode is just timeless for being funny oh that's interesting because i did i think my first episode with you guys was scenes from uh class struggle in springfield right and i do i think i posited then and i do believe a lot of the marge episodes in the golden era and the least episodes do have

the most emotional resonance they really try and find ways to sort of land the plane with the story and this one does just it gets screwy it gets very screwy i think in a good way but it does get screwy yeah i think this has a plus animation uh they're at the level they've been working at so good and the middle act is maybe the best uh lionel hutz is in the entire series like most of the best lionel hutz jokes there's there's other great lines out there like those are kinds of evidence and but just like you're not wearing, brownest of the brown liquors, the better cut down there, Smokey, then replace dog with son,

all of those, some of the best Hutz lines ever. And, God, they got so much out of Hartman in this, too. It's like, that makes this one of the best of the season to me, just on that level. And, yeah, thanks for joining us again Steve for the past two and a half hours you could have left at any time but you didn't and we respect you for that no I had to

please let everyone know about where they can find you online more about We Hate Movies we're big fans we've been on the show and you folks do a ton of miniseries about Star Trek late night 90's soaps like 90210 and Melrose Place, Lifetime movies. I dare say too much

content. It's way too much. We should have stopped. But no, thank you guys for having us. And you guys were just on a few weeks ago talking about Despicable Me 2, and I'm sure that episode was fantastic because you're always hilarious. So if you like Bob and Henry, you would want to check out

at least that episode. And then you can go at WHMPodcast.com where we have tons and tons of episodes. We just did Dick Tracy, Beverly Hills Cop 3. We did the X-Men movie, which I'm very near and dear to my heart. And I'm sure I bloviate about X-Men way too much in that episode. Speaking of, which we just did, if you're an animation fan, we just did Too Old old for this shit a side series on x-men 97 where we recap every single episode there's a lot of content just go to patreon.com slash we hate movies for all those fun packages on all the cool stuff that we're doing uh we're on a quick little summary break and then we're back uh for our 15th season

we're gonna call it in september which is kind of wild. Man, that's amazing. Boy, that may as well be 50 years in the podcast world. It really, I mean, yeah. And luckily, I mean, that's the only reason anyone listens is we started when no one listened, when no one knew what the fuck podcasting was. People are like, yeah, that's, wow, people are talking about movies on the internet? Let me check that out. Now it's a little more ubiquitous yeah if i can make a comparison to cinema you guys are like the silent era

we're kind of getting in as the talkies are starting with the jazz singer exactly and oh my god it would be great to have a that moment in babylon where uh he sees all the movies but with all podcasters and stuff like that just like watching it all play out he'd be in tears seeing Joe Rogan when he's been able to pull off no you guys yes I have to agree

with Bob you guys do such great stuff and we love having you on anytime Stephen you are our first of the We Hate Movies guys you are the trailblazer of the We Hate Movies and I make fun the trailblazer of the We Hate Movies. And I make fun of them all the time about that because they're just fucking following in my footsteps. But you guys are fantastic.

I love to come on. I love Talking Simpsons. With Talking Simpsons, you guys are the best to do it. And it's so much fun to see you guys. And hopefully I get to see you guys in person soon. For sure. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Thank you so much to Steve and Sadak for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies and everything they do.

We love their podcast. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get over 180 full-length bonus podcasts, head on over to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons and sign up at the $5 level. And when you do, you'll get to access over seven years' worth of bonus podcasts. Podcasts about things you like, like Futurama, King of the Hill, The Critic, Batman, the animated series and Mission Hill.

And that five bucks a month also gets you new monthly episodes of both talking Futurama, talking of the Hill and whatever extra stuff we decided to do on top of that. And again, that is all happening at patrion.com slash talking Simpsons at the $5 level. And there is a $10 level as well.

When you sign up for that, you get all the $5 stuff naturally but you also get one very very long podcast once a month only for patrons at that level or higher and what is that Henry? Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon movie podcast our premium podcast about an animated feature film each month and we go so in depth into it just like an episode

of The Simpsons which often means it's like a triple or quadruple length podcast. Just last month, we did six hours on Mulan, the 1998 Disney movie, to start our summer of the Disney Renaissance. This month, we haven't recorded it yet, so I don't know how long, but I'm sure we go super duper in-depth into Pocahontas. And we're going to be closing out the summer with August's What a Cartoon Movie, Tarzan. And we've covered all the previous Disney Renaissance films, as well as a ton more in almost six years

of What a Cartoon Movie. You get access to that entire back catalog and a new one each month if you sign up at the $10 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. And remember, that premium level also gets you the $5 stuff, which includes all the things Bob talked about and our ad-free early shows.

One more time, it's all at Patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. And as for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo, and my other podcast is Retronauts. That's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to Patreon.com slash RetNauts. That's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash RetroNauts and sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I'm the same on Blue Sky.

I'm Talking Henry on Instagram. And if you're following us on any of those places, you should also be following at Talk Simpsons Pod in those places. Because at Talk Simpsons Pod, we'll keep you up to date when new podcasts go live on the free feeds, on the Patreon, when we're doing guest appearances on We Hate Movies. So many other cool things you will stay in the loop about if you are following at talk simpsons pod on social media and don't forget all the previous free episodes we've released of talking simpsons and what a cartoon can be easily found at talking simpsons.com thanks so much for listening folks we'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast talk to the audience and we'll see you then. Dad! Todd's speaking in tongues! I wish he were, Rod. I pray for the day, but I'm afraid he's just delirious from fever.

Oh, Nettie, why has God forsaken us? I can't imagine what we could have done to... Oh, no! Oh, no! Pig, you gotta take better care of the house. These plants are all lifeless and limp. Maybe they'd feel more at home in the bedroom. Ow!

Ow! Ow! Uh-oh. Oh, and the network slogan is true. Watch Fox and be damned for all eternity. You have worked so hard to make your business into a reality, but achieving your next business goal, that can be overwhelming. What if you had someone to talk through the options and the next steps with?

Someone who wants to see your business succeed while giving you peace of mind. That's why the bankers at Merchants Bank are here, ready with exceptional service every step of the way. Let's dream together. Visit merchantsbank.com to get started. Merchants Bank is a proud member FDIC.