Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Rosebud With Mike Lawrence

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

It's time for the David Mirkin Era to begin on Talking Simpsons officially, and we're kicking it off with comedian/writer Mike Lawrence! After Mike shares fun stories of working with Simpsons legend Greg Daniels, we discuss the show's deepest tribute to Citizen Kane. In this absolute classic, Burns searches for Bobo, The Ramones sing "Happy Birthday," Homer eats a lot of cheese, and too many other beloved moments to name in one description. Plus, Mike gives us insights in Homer's debut as a roast comedian and much more in this deep dive. So look out Smithers, and listen to this podcast! Support this podcast and get over 180 ad-free 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 hardly endorse this event or product. chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Hey, I'm Henry Gilbert, rumored to have a head the size of a baseball. And who was our special guest on the line? And I'm Mike Lawrence, and is it my imagination or has TV gotten worse? And this week's episode is Rosebud. I said, are you ready to laugh? Quiet, you awful man.

This episode originally aired on October 21, 1993, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy Bobby, Vincent Price passes away at 82, the Beverly Hillbillies debuts second at the box office, and in comic books, Bruce Wayne is replaced as Batman in Batman 500 with a shiny new cover. Yeah, Vincent Price, he was going to play Santa Claus in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but he was too old and sick, and it was very distracting.

When he died, I had just learned about his existence from having seen Edward Scissorhands in the year before his death. I think that was the only thing I knew him from. Maybe I'd seen commercials for The Thief and the Cobbler, which he's also a voice actor in that he recorded 20 years before he died. But the second of the Hammer Films trio to pass away, he got Count Dooku outlived him by quite a while. Christopher Lee, right?

Yes, Christopher Lee, yes. I don't think Count Dooku's on his headstone unless he really pissed somebody off. Yes. It's crazy too, because I also feel like he would have been distracting just as Santa Claus in that movie. Like him during the boogie song, release me now.

It would not have worked. Yeah, he doesn't strike me as a large, jolly character. He's more thin and creepy. Yeah. Yeah, you would think like, oh, he's going to kill boogie. Like... He would not be the friend of everybody who's like, and is an incredible... No, I would think his extreme professionalism

would come through in Santa Claus. Why is Santa giving every child the completed works of Edgar Allan Poe hey we just lost the the voice of Oogie Boogie recently Kim page RIP yeah yeah that's the original old Deuteronomy in cats as well and the the alligator from all yeah he's connected to so many of our memories, yes, rest in peace. But yeah, the Beverly Hillbillies movie, I always think of it as coming out later

because I didn't see it until VHS, I think, like a couple years later. When I saw it was 93, I double checked it twice and was like, really? It was a Christmas or a holiday, it's 93 movie? It's pitch perfect casting Jim Varney in one of of the few non-ernest roles he ever played adedric bader as jeff roe And lily tomlin as ms. Hathaway a lesbian icon. Yeah playing a lesbian icon That that should have been the tip off. It was amazing. I think that was the first time I saw

Yeah, like varney as anything else and i'm like, oh wait, he's an actor I just thought earnestest was a guy I believed in the K fave of Ernest. That's right. Well, he built it so perfectly. He was just Ernest everywhere But yes, it could not defeat demolition man at the at the box office demolition man two weeks in a row number one One of the what are the what are the best movies of that era for what it is. I mean, Wesley Snipes is way better than that movie needs him to be. We're not living in the Taco Bell future though, unfortunately. But Arnold is president in that movie.

He has become president, yeah. So they got that close to right. We're getting close to having cyber sex replace regular sex to you You can close the more progressive future where they let people from other countries run for president And yeah, the comic book thing of a Batman 500 I remember reading it when it was new like it was basically it was in 92. They killed Superman They're like, what do you do for the second one? one it's like well we can't just kill Bruce Wayne so he gets his back broken by Bane and he gets replaced by a guy named Asriel that's why his era is known as as bats and he gets like a like

a cybersuit of Batman it it it lasts tops a year before Bruce Wayne is Batman again it was basically one of those things of like Batman isn't selling as well as he should be so we'll make a way lamer dorkier Batman a blonde guy with a ponytail named Jean Paul and Then you'll realize how cool your Batman is and buy more Batman comics and it kind of worked it did and Animated Bane a megastar like everybody loves bit. He wouldn't be the lead of the third Batman movie if he didn't get the name.

And also, I always loved Bane's aesthetic, because he's a super-steroided-out Mexican pro wrestler. That's his style. Well, I believe he's from South American country, not Mexico, but my point stands, it's a luchador outfit. He is from the island of Santa Prisca. And oh, this is like perfect that you're bringing this up

because he also has a bear that he's obsessed with. Wow, man, see, I'm getting out comiquet here. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Garfield, Bane, and Mr. Burns. No, his whole thing is that his mom, you know, gives birth to him in the prison and he has to serve her sentence and she had a bear for him, which I think you could scan as a special thing in the first Batman Arkham. Yeah, and he grows up with that bear.

So he had his own bow bow. Wow, man, amazing. Well, so what a bunch of great connections, then, for this week's episode of Sensing What Happened, the weekend air. Nothing is original. Yes, and joining us today is first time guest comedian and writer Mike Lawrence.

Welcome to the show, Mike. Thanks for having me. Yeah, this is awesome. And I promise no long wrestling conversations here. I already have indulged now in comic book talk accidents. Oh, I already have where I'm going to put my wrestling connection in. So don't worry.

Oh boy. Hey, I found a related fun fact about Mike. So Mike, unless IMDb and Wikipedia lie to me, you worked on the Greg Daniels show upload. Is that correct? That is correct. This episode has the first Greg Daniels credit on a Simpsons episode.

So this is where Greg Daniels rise to power begins. Can I, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you something. So the wifi at his office was Bart Selsall. Wow. And this is the thing. So, uh, he was there and Brent Forrester was there. And okay, so I got an autism diagnosis in 2021. I worked on that show in 2018. I didn't know I had it, but a moment I should have known I had it. I had to ask, there's one Simpson joke that I've never understood and I still don't get.

And I asked them for the meaning of it, which was I'm the first non-Brazilian to go back in time. I don't know what that means. I asked them, you guys were in the room, like, what does that mean? And they were like, we don't know, but sometimes people would just say a funny thing, we'd laugh at it, it was late,

and they'd put it in the script. Wow, well see, listeners can go back to our 2018 show with Bill Oakley that we did. We asked him that same question. He also wasn't sure. I don't think anyone knows. It's confounded so many people, but I must recommend Upload. It's a fine show.

Yeah, especially the first season and especially episode five so that I get more residuals. It really went downhill after that, but episode five, peak Upload. It's the peak, yeah. The peak and the Jean Paul Valley. Though, if asking that question is an autism diagnosis, then I feel like me and Bob, we need to, we need to talk to some doctors now too. Yeah. Have you had a Simpson podcast for more than one year?

Yes. Well, yeah, you know, Mike, I was curious too, with your, your work in television and being a standup like this. This episode is the first one run by David Merkin and he made the transition from standup to scripted comedy and half hour TV. Like how is that venture? Like what's it like going from this freedom of the stage

to working in a team writing room? I mean, it's weird. You know, like, yeah, I was not a Harvard guy. I went to community college and worked at a McDonald's for seven and a half years. And I didn't do UCB because I couldn't afford it. So I got in the stand up. And, you know, but I think that, for me, you know, I always say what makes the big difference is standups. We're less afraid to fail because we do it all the time. And there's less of an intimidation factor when you're in the room. And, you know, because you'll see a lot of times, like the first week of a 20

week writers room defines what it's going to be the rest of the time. And there'll be people who their first pitch just tanks and then they never try as hard again. Yeah. You know, and it's like, I, I feel like, yeah, one of my skills when I'm in a writer's room is I don't mind throwing out the first pitch and if it doesn't work, we'll do another one, you know, because that's standup. You're not as, as worried. Um, and you know, you could do two shows on a Friday and your seven o'clock is the worst set you've ever had and you still got to go out at nine thirty. So yeah, I think we've heard stories about guys who were hired to the Simpsons and they were Harvard lampoon guys, very funny on the page, not necessarily confident pitchers or

performers and they would often take a long time to get acclimated to that kind of environment if someone like Conan O'Brien or Dana Gould is in the room. Yeah, I mean, you know, because a big part of pitching jokes is selling them. And like a lot of times you'll see people will undersell their own jokes, which is just say the joke where they'll be like, you know, look, I know, I know, you know, this is just this is just the first draft. This is the preamble is longer than a joke. It's like, they just say it and then you know, because it's often it can be an ego bruise, but a

big skill in a writer's room is sometimes being the person who has an idea that can be improved upon by other people. Like there are people I've worked with that is their greatest skill, they'll say something and then someone else improves it. But it's like, but they said something because when it's awkward silence in a room, it's terrifying. Now, yeah, I think we heard from Mike Scully that he's barely spoke his like first couple days. And it's why so many Simpsons writers, they usually do remember that the first joke they pitched, because it was like it took a lot of work or a lot of confidence to finally finally throw it out there. Yeah.

And I haven't imagined those early years, you know, when you're even developing what the show is, I think even this is season five and it's still, you know, with David Merkin, it's finding a new voice. It's I can't imagine what it's like now on season with 35 36 where you're just you're so afraid I got gotta pitch something unique, but also feel Simpson-y, and it's gotta be intimidating. I mean, we've covered it before. This is almost an entirely new writing staff.

If you join the Simpsons today, you're working with people who've been on the show for 20 plus years, some longer than 25 years. So they kinda know the ropes, and I'm sure it's a lot more intimidating now. Yeah, you have to like, I always say like when you're when you're in a writer's room, you have to if you can care a little less than other people, that is a huge advantage. That's why it's like having life outside of your career that you care about because if you just focus on your career and your career disappoints you, then you're going to be miserable.

I would think you probably don't want to be the person in the Simpsons writers room who just says, no, we did that joke before. We did that joke before. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a big thing too. And I hope I'm not being too like too totally here, but it is one of the, I imagine a lot of people that listen to this want to be writers. You never shoot something down without offering a suggestion. These are life lessons, but. Well, so, well, yeah, have you been involved in like any like restaffing kind of thing? Like what happened with this season where they basically are like coming onto a show

like deep into it or just a few years into a show? Yeah, I was I was on the second season of a show that then did not go forward. The show reboot, Steve Levitan, a critic alum. And you know, they brought in a whole new group of people. And then you know, the the studio in network just decided not to make it but we had to refigureure out, okay, what worked, what didn't, what people want, what people don't want, what we want. So it's, it's a diff, it's surgery for sure.

I mean, there's an advantage to both, like working on a show from the ground up. Like I worked on the reboot of The Soup in 2020, and the network was like, we like the soup, we want everything to be different from what it was. And you're just like, Okay, and you know, we were figuring it out. And you know, and then the pandemic happened, like, six weeks into the show. And that was basically it. But like, it was one of

those things. They're like, let's make the soup for people who used to hate the soup was like and they're like so alienate everyone who liked it and and then and they wanted like the the host her whole Jade Caterpillar it was great but they're like you know Joel was mean and all these other hosts they'd seem like they hated television we need someone who loves all of television. It's like, then it's weird when they make fun of it. That's what I went to talk soup for even as a, as a teen, it was for earnest enjoyment of television.

I always thought, why is he not being more supportive of the clips? If it's one thing you think of when you think of John Hansen, it's sincerity. Maury Povich works really hard and Hal Sparks appreciates it. Yeah. Yeah. He's helping those children find out who their parents really are.

He's providing service. But yes, we mentioned it before, the David Merkin, this is his first production episode, and we have a little history we're gonna, well, we'll cut to now. And now it's time to talk about a little guy named David Merkin. Yes this is the official start of the David Merkin era on The Simpsons which technically I guess isn't even over because I just saw his name in the consulting producers credits on the most recent episode I watched. Yeah I don't know if if this is stealing your fire, Henry, or jumping to the conclusion,

but the secret of David Merkin is he never left the show. If you're wondering, where's David Merkin? What's he been doing? He's been working on The Simpsons since 1993. There is never a gap in his Simpsons timeline. He definitely took time to work on other stuff, but it definitely seems like when they are in the writing process of the show and probably other areas of the show, he comes in for some time every week to help out in rewrites or pitching process or all that stuff. He has been a constant on, despite feeling like the new guy, he's been a constant on the show from 1992 onward.

Yeah, I was looking at his IMDB and just seeing what roles he had. It seemed that for the period where he left the show and was working on Romy and Michelle and Heartbreakers, he was consulting producer. But then from season 12 onwards, he is producer. So he is at the producer level. I don't think he has an interest in being, you know, co-executive producer or executive producer. He's just happy to go in there and pitch jokes.

It seemed like the mini room he ran was just a one season thing, though also that was when the demand for a mini room kind of wrapped up anyway. But he's a very interesting fellow. I think me and you agree his seasons are maybe the best in the whole show or are the best in the whole show. Like he, the results do, he has great results. Yeah. I love his little stinker sensibilities I love his what he's coined the screw the

audience kind of joke which I think is what the Simpsons is most famous for these days it was really invented or popularized in these two seasons. Though also he can be a divisive or divisive figure even in the offices of the Simpsons as based on some interviews for, especially for the unauthorized oral history of the Simpsons book. The middle chunk is a lot of Merkin stories, as I re-familiarized myself yesterday. AC Yeah, and we all know he doesn't get along with sweet Chris Elliott, and we covered that in our Get a Life episode of What a Cartoon. Yeah. So if you want the pre-joining The Simpsons story of David Merkin in depth, give a listen to our Get a Life podcast that we did back in 2021.

Bob and me both rewatched the entire Get a Life show and we did put it in The Simpsons feed, but it was also on the What a Cartoon. But short version is like, there is an easy through line of what he was doing, especially in season two of Get a Life, right into season five of the Simpsons like they are two sides of the same coin Yeah, it's the same sort of detached from reality main character which is what he turned Homer into Homer becomes a More I guess an older Chris Peterson in the Simpsons during his seasons a Chris Peterson who accidentally had a family somehow. Yeah in The Simpsons during his seasons? Chris Peterson, who accidentally had a family somehow.

Yeah. But yeah, the short version is he was a kid growing up in Philadelphia who loved comedy. Bob, you pointed out that losing his father early in his childhood affected him quite a lot, I think, and gave him the dark sense of humor. That is his trademark. Yeah, it was one of the few sincere things he ever said on the Get a Life commentaries,

and maybe just period, where he mentions his father died when he was young, and that's why he gravitated towards TV, because people can die and then show up again in another episode. He enjoyed how the reality was not static. And he went from stand-up in the late 70s and early eighties into television writing first on threes company. And then that brought him, uh, he really wanted to write for cheers, but he could only get taxi that really brought him into the orbit of Jim Brooks and the Gracie productions.

He also would work on new hearts and becoming showrunner there would also work on it's the Gary Shandling show. A huge fan of Monty Python tried to make a US version of the Young Ones, but it just wasn't ready for US Network TV. He had such a dark, I feel bad for him in that he had a dark sensibility made for now or 10 years ago, but he was trying to do it

in the 80s and 90s on network TV. Yeah, the world was not ready for David Merkin, but the Simpsons, that show was ready for David Merkin. So he worked with Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick on Get a Life. He was the showrunner of the show. They all created it. They did not get along. Elliott and Resnick, Resnick pretty much quit the show by the second season and Elliott

was still working with him. But the show was a critical darling, but did very poorly in the ratings and eventually was canceled by March of 92. Though Merkin also, you got gotta say he has an impressive eye for talent with his hires, he can say like, oh yeah, I gave Bob Odenkirk his first TV network writing job outside of SNL, or Charlie Kaufman. Like, I discovered Charlie Kaufman is what he can say.

Yeah, and the recent Bob Odenkirk autobiography revealed that he almost wrote for the Simpsons, but he chose Get a Life instead. Odenkirk has autobiography revealed that he almost wrote for the Simpsons, but he chose get a life instead Odenkirk has such a funny story of like he's he's staying at a friend's house and his friend is like god You gotta watch this show on TV get a life It's my favorite show and his friends a writer and then while he's living there Bob Odenkirk gets the call That he's hired to get a life and he has to tell his best friend like hey, you know your favorite TV show I got the job on it. Not you Odenkirk didn't have any nice stories.

He didn't have any mean stories about Merkin, but he didn't have any nice stories either. I just remember him describing that Merkin had a very expensive car, and that was, he kind of used that, I think, to mark that he was a little out of touch with the other writers. Yeah, it's, I mean, obviously we never worked with the guy, but it seems like he knows what he wants,

and he doesn't like when you're not on board with that. Yeah, there's, in the Simpsons' oral history book, there are two sides to it. Some say that he gets results, he works really hard for what he believes in, when he believes in comedy, he will attack authority and works hard for it, and that is commendable,

but also some call him narcissistic, some call him almost dictatorial, and that he's like, no, this is not a democracy of comedy in his writers' rooms. Yeah, it does, it might be a little telling that he never really had anything else going on after those two films. I mean, I'm sure there were things he was consulting on and everything, but there was no other David Merkin TV show.

So what's the timeline of things here? Get Alive gets canceled March 92. And I found the variety article that announces he was hired was December 3rd, 1992. So what happens in those months in between? A little TV show called The Edge. I was an Edge viewer. I like The Edge. I think I previously described it as in living color for white people Yes, it's it he co-created it with his then girlfriend Julie Brown the the MTV white Julie

But but he co-created with her and yeah, I mean you've talked about it before but a Incredible cast that includes Jennifer Aniston before she's famous. Yeah, Jennifer Aniston Wayne Knight I believe Tom Kenny and Jill Talley. It's just an insanely stat cast, a very, very mean sketch comedy show, mostly send ups of modern day TV shows and celebrities. I remember watching it because this would air after a season four, Simpsons would air,

that's the time slot it was in. And I just remember a very few sketches. One of them was basically basically what if Delta Burke was Godzilla and that's as far as the sketch went a lot of a lot of jokes at the expense of overweight women I think the edge that was that was their their their expertise I think yeah I wonder if they felt like well we can be mean to her because it's like a female-led show like But also it did date it a bit to be like, because when I look back on that sketch,

it's about how Delta Burke left the show and how the new season of Designing Women is not as good, and then she returns and eats everybody. It's just that really outside of 1992 doesn't make much sense. The other thing I remember is I believe Merkin is friends with Kevin Nealon because he's come up on commentaries before and Kevin Nealon was a guest star on The Edge and there was a joke where there was a sitcom with that there were a man had a baboons ass but the network wouldn't let them

say ass so whenever they said ass in the sketch which was frequently a computer voice said buttocks so that was the entire sketch. Oh, and also Paul Feig worked on it too, like future comedy directing superstar. I mean, the Ben Stiller Show got a DVD release, that's because it won an Emmy. I think we should give The Edge a DVD release. I don't know how many of these sketches would cancel everybody in them,

but they aired on TV after The Simpsons. It was seen by millions and millions of people. I got a couple commercials of it when I've pulled up vintage commercials. They're like, tonight on The Simpsons, and then on The Edge, and then they would just show like Wayne Knight being attacked by a lizard for like five seconds, and they're like,

and then Martin. An interesting aspect of The Edge is that Tracey Ullman's show had The Simpsons as interstitial bits. The Edge had Bill Plimpton cartoons, which would transition from one sketch to the next. And, and, oh, and speaking of Simpsons guys, too, he also hired on that Ken Keeler, Steve Tompkins, and George Meyer was a writer on it, which I definitely think that George Meyer tries to quit The Simpsons thing involves him going to the edge and then when the edge has its ending I think that's why Meyer then does follow

Merkin over to Simpsons at least for season 5. Why did the edge end and why did he quit halfway through the series? Well, there's a couple stories to this Dave Merkin's version that he told in a 2012 interview was Fox Loved the show ordered 26 episodes like he's like they didn't order a back nine they ordered a back 13 they loved us but we were being produced at Sony and they were going through a budget crunch at the time and they said you know what these sketches they don't syndicate well anyway we got to slash the budget big time and so Merkin said that it was he didn't take a pay cut but the show became

By his standards impossible to produce at that budget. So that's what he says however If you read variety articles for Dave Merkin's name back in the fall of 1992 Well, it was in September of 92 They do a sketch about 90210 and how it sucks, really sucks, and is really mean to Tori Spelling. To be fair, SNL was also very mean to Tori Spelling, and I've been watching 90210 with my wife because We Hate Movies is doing their podcast series about 90210 in Melrose Place,

and God bless her, she's just not that good. It's unfortunate for her. She now is, I was looking her up recently, she said she's like out of her parents will or something. Like she says she has said I'll have to go on OnlyFans soon because my father didn't leave me any money or my stepmother isn't giving me my inheritance. I think she's also doing a recap podcast with Jenny Garth. It's sort of one of those, the stars come back and talk about the show. And it's not that great.

Oh, that's a, that's, that's extra sad. Well, back in 1992, Aaron spelling did not like that. Another Fox show was making fun of 90210 and he took it to the press and complained and wanted a formal apology from David Merkin, which that's the last thing you're going to get out of David Merkin if you ask him to apologize for his sketch. Yes, absolutely. So Merkin then quits the show around late October, early November and another person

takes over. Now in that 2012 interview, Merkin doesn't mention spelling at all, but if I can throw out my Henry conspiracy theories, I will say he's getting all this heat from Aaron Spelling not making it fun. I do believe him that Sony then cuts the budget because you're like, you're a pain in the butt and you're making Aaron Spelling mad at us. But also in around October, November, he would have known the position is open at the Simpsons and he is friends with Jim Brooks and Sakai He says that Brooks and Sakai came to him after he quit the edge

But me personally I wouldn't be surprised if he was told hey if you were to quit the edge you have a job Tomorrow at the Simpsons and I guess it's our theory that he was chosen He was a guy with a lot of experience They like the sensibility and they assume that he would shepherd the show to its gradual end. Let's say the Simpsons runs for six seasons. What a good run. We went on on top. I feel like that was Merkin's role, but then the show kept being profitable and Merkin wanted to do other things. So it continued for, let's say, 31 more years. Yeah, he was supposed to rebuild and get the show back on his feet after so many people left

We said it before but he had four writers who were on staff That's Conan O'Brien Bill Oakley Josh Weinstein and Dan McGrath now John Swartz welder It seemed like he sort of left but then did come back and George Myers sort of left and did come back So I would count those two And also we'll talk about it in each of their episodes. But if you look in just the credits on this one, like he's hired Brent Forrester, David Cohen, Frank Mueller, Jonathan Collier,

Greg Daniels and Mike Scully are gonna join up too. And he did, if you do look at those names, there's a couple Harvards in there, but he did de-Harvardify it a little bit in his hiring process. Yes. He's not a Harvard guy. He hires people like Mike Scully, who's a proud college dropout.

Yeah. Just like Merkin himself, I think, or maybe as a college graduate. But there's some really good stuff in The Unauthorized from Merkin's assistant at the time. And the assistant implies that maybe Merkin also is feeling a little intimidated by all the big brains in the room. And he also wanted to get it more blue collar, or at least white collar. Yes, Merkin was not beloved by all at first. He really wanted to make the show cartoonier.

His first script that he came in with was Homer Becomes an Astronaut, which several writers, and including Mac Grayding, did not like at all. And this might tell you something about his leadership style. I remember Bill Oakley telling us in one of his interviews, I believe, that for Merkin's seasons, they left their writers' room and they all met in Merkin's office. And they were kind of just sitting around Merkin as he was leading the writing of the episode. So he definitely wants to be the head honcho it's not a plateau of writing talent when he's in charge I think in the

unauthorized as well Bob Kushel who has a lot of stories but that's for another podcast but he mentions about that writers room setup that he later thought back on it like our chairs seemed lower than his too. So it was like almost he was looking over us. Oh, we'll talk about the firing of Bob Cuchel soon. On his positive side, like he did, he basically sent Schwarzwelder and Bill and Josh into their own offices and like, you just write five episodes and make them awesome.

And they did, and this season rules because of that. They also say that he fought Fox hard on many things, including not wanting to do more than 21 episodes a season, not wanting to do clip shows, which he intentionally bombs, but also that he knew he fights authority, but he would not fight Jim Brooks or Richard Sakai. Like he had a soft touch with that. And the last thing I'd say that changed about his era was a lot more consulting producers started coming on in his time, leading to the bigger and bigger and bigger writers rooms. Yeah, that's that I'd say that that really sums up Merkin's start in the show anyway. We were talking a lot about

him over the next let's say two to three years of our show. Oh and also with the Merkin era I did want to say as well a thing that defines it is this was when syndication began like I Found in that same article with Merkin or when the planning for syndication began in that same article of hiring Merkin They were like Fox is already setting out feelers for syndication. They know a hundred is coming soon So they are hopeful the money's coming in and I think we we heard recently from John VD Suggested it to me, but we've heard heard it before of like once the syndication money came in that's when the Simpsons was not ending with season six like that's when they knew or season seven but yeah so that's the beginning of

the mercenary will have a lot more to say about that and please give a listen to our get a life podcast and watch get a life too if you if you love the Simpsons but haven't checked out other David Ruek. The Simpsons will be right back. Thursday, Maggie finds a priceless teddy bear. How much do you want? One bazillion dollars. That everyone's after. On The Simpsons! Mix it up at Maverick with our huge variety of great products at great prices. You and your friends don't need to agree on food, drinks, snacks or candy

because Maverick has it all. From coffee to energy drinks and from pizzas to hot dogs. Not to mention our bonfire burritos made fresh at every Maverick every day. No matter what you crave, Maverick provides endless possibilities to fuel endless adventures. Head in and start yours today. Maverick. Adventures First Stop. I know I say this every hundred years, but thanks again for listening to this week's

Talking Simpsons. This is Henry here, also saying a big thank you to our guest this week, Mike Lawrence! It was so great to have on this comedian and writer-extraordinary. He gave us so many cool insights into the show and writing comedy for TV. Check out Mike Lawrence wherever he is doing stand-up. Follow him on the social medias. Thank you so much again, Mike, for coming on our show. We would love to have you back!

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Cool World, Akira, a bunch of Studio Ghibli movies, a bunch of Satoshi Kon movies, and our longest podcast ever, 6 and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. Please sign up today, it's so easy to do, at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and you'll see all of the things you are missing out on. So this episode though, Rosebud, is such a beloved episode. Like it is one of my favorites. I love this one too. It's really great.

Yeah, it's starting production season five with a bang. Again, 80% new writing staff, new show runner, just showing like we know the Simpsons, but we won't actually get to a Simpson for about three minutes. Yeah. That's how confident they are. And you can see David Merkin, when he came on,

he's like, oh, this Mr. Burns guy, I love this guy. Like he is a major player in the first two episodes of the season. Homer goes to college and then this. This is like the citizen Cainiest episode of the show too. I think. And we've said it before. I wonder, Mike, if you had this experience, like you see all these Simpsons episodes that's so specifically parody citizen Kane and moments from it.

Then you get older and you watch citizen Kane and it like unlocks all of these things right? I mean well the biggest thing is that it you know the ending has been spoiled. You know the literal ending of the movie is the title of this episode and I mean and and and they show you like what that is like within the first minute of this episode and then you look at show you like what that is like within the first minute of this episode. And then you look at was it tiny tunes had a, had one too. Oh yeah. And they did it in black and white too. With, um, Montana max, right?

He's like, uh, the cane version. So, so I remember seeing that one first and then this, and, and then, you know, you just grow up with like, this is the greatest movie. Um, you know, people say like, people that don't appreciate Citizen Kane is often because they don't, you know, they've seen so many things that have taken from it that they don't know the leaps and bounds that it made or how like, ballsy it even was to make that movie.

And the things the two things you know about Citizen Kane, I think for people who don't watch it is, yeah, Rosebud is the sled and he was 25 when he made it. Yeah. And I think between the Burns Runs for Governor episode, Marge gets a job in this episode. They ate all the meat off of the Citizen Kane bone. I'm sure there are more references to come,

but this is them kind of completing the Citizen Kane reference package. It's why I expect the Smithers song to be in this episode because it's the Citizen Kane reference package. It's why I expect the Smithers song to be in this episode because it's so Citizen Kane-y. It's not in their Citizen Kane parody. And Citizen Kane, I think it's like you look at like when people like parody like Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, like that's stuff that they want to see on their own. These are like Harvard guys that probably had to watch this movie in screenwriting classes

in any type of film class or whatever it was. This was homework, this movie. And it's like, I'm going to make the most of the two hours I had to spend watching this by putting every reference in the cartoon show I'm hired for. Well, I think for Gen Xers and boomers, there was the big Citizen Kane revival. It had been a buried film that you had to go to art school to see, but then it starts when LaserDisc comes out, it's like an event,

and it's now, it's been celebrated all of our lives, to the point where Family Guy made the joke of, I'm sick of hearing about this, and I don't like this movie. They had him spoiling the movie as a joke on Family Guy but like I love the movie being Bob we saw it at the Castor Theatre like on on film at the in a double feature of In the Grapes of Wrath. I saw it in New Jersey at I forgot what theater it was and they had like live accompaniment and all of that. It was amazing.

But it's interesting too, like when you look at like, you know, Citizen Kane, like a lot of movies that are shared cultural experiences are from this time period. You know, it's a wonderful life and all that. And now it is so much harder to make pop culture references because people pride themselves on what they haven't seen now. Like now it's a personality to like brag about the movies that you haven't

seen and it's it's tough to make any reference that everybody gets and I think Citizen Kane was one of those that even if you didn't know it, you'd seen some parody of it and you convinced yourself that you saw enough of it to get the joke. Oh, the criterion 4k on it, I want to say is like amazing. Like it's really great. I mean, of course it's so full of bonus features like all the ones I had before and then a ton of new ones and the 4k transfer looks gorgeous. I just, I was just watching it the other day. I think it has one of two commentary tracks that Roger Ebert recorded in his lifetime. The other one is for Dark City. Yeah, that's like his favorite movie. I love that they titled it Rosebud because they're just so in your face with it being

a Citizen Kane parody and Bobo is his Rosebud, but they just call it Rosebud in the end. And on top of that, they start with the death of Charles Foster Kane, except it's where Burns' story begins and he's alive to search for his Rosebud instead of just having it in his collection. And it actually would make him happy instead of like, well, because Citizen Kane has his Rosebud, it's just part of his collection of crap,

it gets burned at the end, so he has it. He's just sad about it when he's dead. It's kind of an amazing message, especially like 1941, right? Like I remember saying this to my therapist, like, you know, I'm a part of the first generation as instant access to all of my nostalgia. Like we we can we if we wanted, we can buy every toy we had. We watch every show, everything, you know, the show that you watch, there was a UPN show called deadly games from 1995 that I loved and someone YouTube all of it. It's all everything is there. And it's crazy because like back then you you didn't so it's like the idea that Everything is the same thing and like now it's but it's amazing also because we do have that access and we're still not happy Yeah, I guess today Charles Foster Kane could pull up a 10-hour classic sled compilation on YouTube

while he was dying. A sled unboxing video. He could put a Union Forever Spotify playlist together. It's funny because like I'm a big action figure collector and I don't want to go back and get the stuff I had. I want to get the better versions of it. Like the articulation is so much better. The sculpting is way better. You know, it's like I don't I don't want to get a Hasbro, you know, earthquake toy.

I'll get it. I'll get the new one. Looks amazing. Exactly. Yes. When I, because the geeks like us grew up to then make the toys we wanted as a kid, like, Oh, the finally, finally the Ninja Turtles do what I want them to do, or finally the sword is the right color, or all of the ridiculous things we wanted as dumb kids. Yeah, they made one of Tetsuo, like the bald guy from the first movie that runs the Foot Clan. He's an action figure.

We didn't get that back then, I don't think. I don't remember him as part of my full run of the first wave of the Ninja Turtles 2 toys. No, I had to use my Lex Luthor superpowers to pretend he was Tattoo. Oh boy, we're gonna get along good here, I think. You mean we're on the same spectrum. Hmm, yeah.

But Bob, you also mentioned, you reminded me of a fact that Bill Oakley had just told us about this episode. Right, if you heard our live show, Bill Oakley was talking about just where the show was, their relationship with Fox at the time, and critics were, at least one critic, did not like this episode. He thought, oh, the show totally lost it. This new showrunner has no idea what he's doing. And the president of Fox apparently apologized to this critic for the state of the show,

saying, oh, they're just getting their training wheels off and they're learning how to make the show again. Don't worry. It's going to get better. And obviously it's a stone cold classic. And I think most people really liked it at the time, but this one critic was very harsh and the writers were very mad at Fox for stooping to that level to apologize to some worthless critic who's probably dead now Stomp stomp stomp to know that yeah that like, you know, they were already the the alt dot Simpsons That alt TV dot Simpsons was was just getting warmed up then but to know that like a public critic was like Ah, this sucks now like that's that's crazy Like yeah, cuz Oakley mentioned that they rarely got reviewed in the mainstream when they did

It was sometimes a negative thing like this is saying like oh, they've lost it like on Rosebud They're saying the Simpsons isn't as good as it used to be. It was just I read a review from Springfield nuclear power Though that was the site I used to go to And someone was like it's finally finding its voice again Their thing was like the last season wasn't good and this is, it's finally finding its voice again. Their thing was like, the last season wasn't good, and this is when it's getting good again. It's crazy. I mean, you definitely get the feel

at the end of season four production that they were getting tired, but they also were just, they had very celeb heavy episodes at the end. So it was harder to like really gauge quality of the scripts then, because they were really just writing for the celebs more So then especially with the Beatles one in the Johnny Carson one. This has this has the Ramones. This is anti-celebrity

It's something I love about murky he loved getting weird guests well and hot ladies he liked Yeah, those were his two types of guests. Yeah, it's funny because the promo image for this episode is Homer rocking out with the Ramones. And two episodes ago, I think, is when they had George Harrison on, right? That's right, yeah, two broadcast episodes, like less than a month, as far as us as viewers knew, they had on the Beatle, and now all of the Ramones.

And oh, and one last preamble bit that this has the an original table draft of it It is uploaded to the Internet Archive. So I referred to it for a few little changes They made well, there's a couple big changes But to give you a time frame of this the table draft is dated March 11th, 1993 So this was about a seven months from Table Draft to Eric. The opening though begins with as Citizen Kane does of the long pan across the gates, all of the signs that telling you keep out the free kittens thing. The script. I like the joke better. He still has up a Dewey for president side. Though then they really confuse things by going from

Citizen Kane to a Wizard of Oz parody. Like that confuses the hell out of me. And by the way, on the commentary, Merkin is wrong. They're not, I mean in the show, they're saying all we own we owe, but that's not what they're saying in the movie. That was an urban legend or just a mishearing of the chant that the Winkies, the Winkie soldiers were doing.

Apparently in the script, it's just vocalized. It's just vocalizing or something or vocalizing. It's just annoyed grunt, no. Exactly. But I guess some people took it to be, oh, this is a depression era statement, but no, it was just random vowels. It probably says joyful singing

and they had to work on the MGM studios and do that over and over and by the end of the year, they heard, they heard Judy Garland singing in her trailer. I mean, yeah, the, the wizard of Oz was the four guys of Merkin's generation. The wizard of Oz is full of urban legends that couldn't be dispelled yet because they didn't have the internet. So just, just passed around. Now your show is the show, Bob, I would say I appreciate it. Your show is the show that taught me

about the Toy Story 2 urban legend. Oh, good. The truth. I'm glad because even in recent articles about the layoffs at Pixar, they mentioned someone who got laid off. It's like, oh, by the way, she saved Toy Story 2. No, she didn't.

I'm proud of her work and what she did, but that is not true IGN.com. Retract the article. I want to say what I complimented you. I didn't think that the story was going to be, thank God that person was fired. No, I'm sad she's fired, but she saved it. Well, we talked about it in Toy Story 2. Check out our Toy Story 2. I know. I'm sorry. I just wanted to. Thank you, Mike. I'm glad. We are some of the few people who know the truth about the movie that was actively published and is Not a secret at all Yeah, when when when when when being a truth around a podcast didn't make people get sick and die

That you know I also you have to be a real Oz head to know those are the Winky Guards like I never knew that I think The only thing that reminded me of it when I heard Winky Guards. I was like, oh, right I'm one of like eight people who saw the Sam Raimi Oz movie and Like I never knew that. I think the only thing that reminded me of it when I heard Winky Guard's, I was like, oh right. I'm one of like eight people who saw the Sam Raimi Oz movie and Bruce Campbell plays a Winky Guard and he says like the other Winky Guards didn't, like he says the words Winky Guard.

So I was like, okay, Bruce Campbell said it. That's the only reason the word Winky Guard like lights up in my brain at all. So we go into Burns' dreams, we see his happy childhood past that he loves being adopted by the old billionaire unlike Charles Foster Kane who hates it. He's instantly on board, loves it. He does not want to be everything you hate

for Walter Thatcher as Kane did. Apparently his given name is Happy. Happy Burns. I love that. Happy, tra la la. The George Burns joke, I forget that his last name is Burns, so I think, oh, it's funny

because George Burns is as old as Mr. Burns. Oh wait, they have the same last name. So canonically, Mr. Burns is George Burns' brother. And this is when they've decided Burns is over 100, because he says his little brother George, when this aired George Burns was 97. So they're saying he is older than 97 in this. This I haven't adopted son. I mean we got it for birth. But this hit different this

time when he was like would you like to stay with your natural parents. But I'm also not a guy in a limousine. So I didn't feel as bad. Your child won't abandon you for whatever guy in a limousine drives up. No, we're friends with the birth mom. So, you know, it was like, but it was just like, Oh God, it's weird. Like how things will hit you different. But it was, uh, it was also interesting. Yeah. Like, do we ever get a followup of his life with that, uh that with the millionaire or no, I assume that in the flashbacks where we've seen him like walking around the atom smasher factory that that's the billionaire who adopted him.

And when he torches whether the Irish guy. Yeah. There's a family resemblance with those guys. So I am creating the backstory that that's like the bloodless billionaire is like a great uncle or something who adopts him. So it's still in the burns family. That's what I'm thinking. But does not want George Burns at all. Also that it's funny when I'm an old man as a kid, I, I did think a George Burns has been old his entire life and all of his comedy is about being old I didn't know as an 11 year old that the George Burns did jokes With a wife who had been dead for 20 years when this episode aired and that was his entire comedy And if a billionaire is willing to take your brother, but not you you will hate God enough to be okay playing him in a movie

with John Denver 70 years later. Yeah, there's a trilogy of movies where he is playing God, right? Oh God, he definitely plays both. Range. Wow, man. That is ahead of the multiverse thing of everybody playing like five roles in movies now.

Like that's him being Ryan Reynolds before Ryan Reynolds played like eight Deadpool roles in movies now. Like every like that's that's him being Ryan Reynolds before Ryan Reynolds played like eight Deadpools in a movie. But but yes we we go out of the dream. Burns is dropping a snow globe which marks that Charles Foster Kane is dead. In this case it just shows that Burns sleeps next to many snow globes he breaks every night. And what a great draw. Wes Archer directs the hell out of this episode. Him and his animation team, they are like, hey, you know that amazing shot of the nurse

reflected in the broken snow globe? That's like one of the most groundbreaking shots in cinema history. Do that. Can you just do that, but in a cartoon on a weekly schedule? He did it. And Smithers comes in and wakes up Burns. And this is when Burns is in deep denial. Bobo.

Bobo. Oh, it's you. The bed pans under my pillow. Who's Bobo, sir? Bobo? I meant Lobo! Sheriff Lobo. They never should have cancelled that show. I see. On another topic, the preparations for your birthday have begun. I won't get what I really want.

No one does. Happy birthday, Mr. Smithers. Oh. Mr. Smithers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm All his employees have to help out at the party and I always get some terrible job Where is that dreaded pinata? And then Marge falls asleep in the middle of his flashback not caring This is not long from the sheriff Lobo reference in margin chains Yes, so we're not gonna give you guys the same history on sheriff Lobo Listen to the

margin chains one if you want to know how Sheriff Lobo's a spinoff of BJ and the bear. All right. But, but how does Byrnes ever heard of Sheriff Lobo? Like you got to, I mean, why would he offer free kittens? I mean, you know, you gotta go with the joke. I love that Homer truly does miss him. I also Harry Shearer, he's so great in this episode, just listening to it there, the longing in Smithers' voice as he dreams of the nude Mr. Burns. He just goes, hmmm. He wants it so bad. It's a deep, sad longing, which the Marilyn Monroe joke of it totally lost on me then as a kid too. Though I think I had seen Under Siege by that point, so I knew the idea of a naked person in a cake was a thing.

I knew that. I think Wayne did it in Wayne's World, and I just thought I have no idea what this is, and I saw it in this. Oh, right. Continue questioning it. I think it was an SNL that did it, but I just remember being like, why would you ruin a cake like that?

Oh yeah, and also SNL with Bill Clinton, they did a happy birthday Mr. President thing too. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, also note here, Mr. Burns' birthday, September 15th. It was just September 15th, and I did see a few people on Twitter celebrating old Mr. Burns' birthday.

And see, Homer then in the next scene gets his assignment as he is making everybody laugh at having dressed with both coat hangers in his shirt and pants, which is, Mike, did your comedy career begin similarly? I mean, I was bullied and I'm like, whoa, if I could get them to laugh at me, maybe they'll laugh with me. The transition from the bullied to a comedian is, and then roasting. I'm like, now I'm the bully too much power. And it's very classic. Mr. Burns too, that once he looks at Homer on the screen, he has

no memory of him and he for no reason goes like, you know what, he should do stand up at my party. Like that's what he should do. For no good reason other than just to involve Homer in the plot. Yeah. Smithers asked for snappy Sinbad-esque material. That's not in the script, and you can tell,

I mean me and Bob are always on the lookout for reused footage. Oh yeah, and hey, this is the same fall that the Sinbad show starts airing on Fox. That's wow. So they're making fun of their co-star, the guy who's on the same night as them. They're goofing on their buddy Sinbad. I have memories of watching years of the show. It's just one season. As a kid, I liked Sinbad. I thought his stand up was funny. I liked it and I've

watched I definitely watched houseguest I watched that and I watched then first kid he he did a Pete Holmes you made it weird which is what is one of the best he says things that would feel like lies from anybody else but they come off truthful for him he says this on the show that he has never bombed and every comic I've ever talked to about it is like, I've never seen Sinbad bomb. He's probably telling the truth. When we tell everyone, oh, everyone bombs, it's okay.

No, Sinbad has never bombed. Sinbad only kills. He just walks out and says, women be shopping. People start fainting. It's like The Beatles. Well, he also says, he says that he doesn't write, that he just goes out there and he's like, I just say what's funny and people laugh.

And it's like, and he does, like his origin was that he was in the military and I come for the Simpsons, stay for the Simpad origins. And he took someone else's name in the talent show and he won the talent show. Like he pretended to because the sign up had been like too late, so he just said, he stole Valor and he was a soldier, but he won the contest

and people were like, oh, you gotta do this professionally. And I mean, I know he's not in a good place now, health-wise, but he was a punchline then, but he is very respected and loved in the stand-up community. He's a, get well soon, Simbad. You are correct, Henry. This was the Simpsons Sister Show

for its first season, and only season. Martin was moved to Sundays. Wow. Yeah. Man, man, Martin off of Sundays. I mean, yeah, I I remember like 10 years ago I was on a plane a Southwest flight Just so you know, he's a man of the people flying on Southwest but like we were getting off the plane and

Everybody's standing up and like two rows in front of me Stim sim bad stands up and there's just like a buzz starts on the plane like sim bad was on our flight like every's like Oh my god I'm a fight with Sinbad like every we were all so excited just to see that he was on our plane. I hate that meme about you know he was in a genie movie and it's like no it's very clear he wasn't these are the films he was in these are the films he was not in everybody remembers. Yes that yes I feel like we're past that. I hope we haven't heard much about the Shazam movie that Sinbad was in. I hope we're done hearing about that now.

Yeah, it was clearly Kazam and it's Star Trek. Yeah, you're all there. Yeah, and if you didn't have friends, you knew that. You got two black men confused. That's the racist, like that's also what's bad about it too. Yeah, it is kind of, yeah. Oh, all these Genie movies look alike. Yeah, but also if you wondered where, I'm ashamed to admit that I could not place

where they pulled another clip from in this episode, but the scene of Smithers saying snappy Sinbad-esque material that is reused but reversed from Bart Gets Hit by a Car. Smithers says good thinking sir. Nice find. See I'm setting this up to let you guys know I'm not I'm not infallible because I couldn't find where they got the Lisa's shot from later in this episode. I love that when they did this they're like no one's ever gonna know. Henry New. We just want a new we just want a new line here. Why must you judge us?

We just wanted to punch up the C. We gotta make like over 20 of these a freaking season. But they thought by mirroring the image they could fool me. Well, they didn't fool me. But yes, so Homer is given his job and he is so excited for it. Now, Mike, is it important to carefully tweak someone's foibles as a comic or is it more important to know how to spell poo-poo?

I mean, I made my living doing the first so and I don't know how to do the second Have uh you you as a roaster have they gone over as well as they do for homer in this episode or uh, I mean it goes both ways like I I was the main point person writing for hand culture in 2016. And, and I remember the first the first draft, basically the way those jobs were to like, all right, we booked this person, you know, here's all the jokes that everyone's written about everyone. Here's the ones that haven't been used, put them in a script, you know, write your own stuff too. And we sent it to her and she just says, why would I say this stuff? It's mean. Oh, and it's like you're in culture, like nothing. But that was, that was our challenge was how do we

get her to be mean in a fun way as opposed to just being hateful. Right. You tried to have any fun with her at all. That was the worst. It was, and I feel, I feel like we were, we were lied to. She said she'd never seen a roast and she didn't know what it was. And then, then the whole thing was, you know, she bombed and then was like they sabotaged me and all of this. Like we offered her all the help in the world. I was up till two in the morning, the night before the taping of the roast,

trying to improve the Ann Coulter set. I think the only bit I remember with Ann Coulter was, man, I forget the comic. I want to say it was that Jimmy Carr guy, but he told her to kill herself. And that was like, it's not too late. You could kill yourself. And I was like, that was my favorite joke.

I had the joke for Nikki. the only person you'll make happy is the Mexican that takes your crack. It's great that we haven't seen her in a while, but I feel like in four years, she will be back and whoever the dem nominee is, they'll bring her out and say, even Ann Coulter likes us now. Oh no, she just, she popped back up recently. Oh, she did. Okay. I miss this.

She went after Tim Walz is on the spectrum, son. Remember, remember when he's at the DNC and his son says, I love my dad. Mm hmm. Just posted a photo of that and said, and they say we're weird. Ooh. And even Republicans are like, no, no, this does not help us too evil too evil Yeah, I felt like in Colter and people like Michelle Malkin they just couldn't keep up no no I mean, that's you know, that's the reality of those types of

Pundits and stuff they have to come up with way more new material than Comedy writers ever do you have because you have to have a take on everything There's things that if I don't want to write about I just don't write about anything that is progressive or hopeful they have to immediately be able to destroy it and as they get older they don't have the energy to just like go to watch Barbie and then talk for four hours on YouTube about why they hate it they don't they don't got the the fire in them that the new the younger hate mongers have no and you see it you see it where they're like flav it out and they just't got the fire in them that the younger hate mongers have. No, and you see it, you see it where they're like flavoured out and they just start repeating the words and it's like, no, no, it's not. It's like they stole the word woke and then

the people they stole it from were like, you can have it, we don't want it anymore. But yeah, this, I related to this with H Homer, the roasting. I've been in situations like this. My agency wanted me and a few other comedy writers to do a roast of the agency and to make fun of all the agents. And you know, there's another one of those, they saw the first draft and they pulled the cord on it. And this was, this was, this was 2016. So this was the year before like me too and all that. So some of the

blurbs would be like, this guy gives hugs that last too long. Make fun of them for. Yeah. Well, Mike had to agree to not roast us before coming on the show. Because despite being successful podcasters, we have incredibly low self esteem. the show because despite being successful podcasters, we have incredibly low self-esteem. Now, it's that was Smithers mistake was not vetting the script like like Ann Coulter did. Yeah, I could see your bones bob through your thin skin. Shut up, stupid. Mix it up at Maverick with our huge variety of great products at great prices. You and your friends don't need to agree on food, drinks, snacks or candy because Maverick

has it all. From coffee to energy drinks and from pizzas to hot dogs. Not to mention our bonfire burritos made fresh at every Maverick every day. No matter what you crave, Maverick provides endless possibilities to fuel endless adventures. Head in and start yours today. Maverick Adventures First Stop I also do love that Bart is supportive of every idea Homer has. Bart loves this.

He's like, he's high-fiving them. He's Homer's biggest booster. This reminds me of Blood blood feud when they're collaborating on the letter to Burns. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're great when they unite over burns. That is one of the things like this is a Mr. Burns episode, but the family dynamic is fantastic in this. And yeah,

there's something like I, I grew up like joint custody. One week at my mom's, this episode aired when I was at my mom's and then one week at my mom's this episode aired what I was at my mom's and then one week at my dad's it was a single father so anytime I see the Bart Homer bonding and we watched the Simpsons together all the time it's just I don't know it's comforting like there I feel like that was one of the things that went missing was they loved each other you know like Bart the daredevil there are always these moments of Homer truly like being a good father and caring about his son.

And even when he makes a bad decision, if it makes his son happy, like then it kind of was worth it in some ways. And then, but then it's also funny. Like this is clearly written in a room of mostly men when you look at, but what if Lisa and Marge glower together? Yes.

Like that's their big moment of like, I mean, Marge's catchphrase basically was, and then Lisa gets to do it too. They co-op it. Oh, I mean also Swartzwalder is as often been accused of not writing for margin and Lisa. And they also, yeah, Merkin will hire the first on staff female Simpsons writer, but not till season six. Is that, is that credit and didn't? Yes. Yes. That's great. Yeah. She's amazing. Yeah. It, but it, it, it, it's cool because like you, you really, you really have this, this, this

sense of the worst, like March still gets two of the best lines in this episode. I think Marge is the most underrated of the main characters on the show. Like, and rewards you as an adult viewer. I think there are like, she has the most lines that as a kid, you go over your head a little bit, but as an adult are just the funniest thing. I mean, I think the, ever since I was a kid,

I always dreamed of being in a Broadway audience is like one of my favorite jokes ever. Yeah, Marge's jokes are often the most surprising and they reveal so much about her character. With Homer, the jokes are funny, but you're like, yeah, Homer's dumb. Homer likes to eat a lot. He smells sometimes. We know where the jokes are going with him. Yeah. So after a very funny headline, it burns credits long life to Satan, which love that one of my favorite newspapers. This is going to date the podcast but there was a Trump rally recently where Elon Musk appeared and jumped up and down and there is now a famous I guess famous right now picture of Elon Musk shaking Trump's hand and so many people were placing it next to

the burns shaking hands with the devil photo from this episode. That's good though. Don't you look at it. The devil in that photo. It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell. He seems to be more subservient, Elon Musk, in that photo. By the way, if you listen to this like in December, this will be all forgotten. Yeah, hopefully. Or too relevant.

So then Lisa is the joke police pointing out that neither Bart or Homer know what incontinent even means. The joke is too smart for them. I also just love how Homer's reply to Marge of like, okay, stupid. Like so Dan's livery is so funny there. It is true when you're writing on roast, when you're in that mode, it is, it's hard to go home. You're just insulting everybody. The one I just did was the Tom Brady roast. I wrote on that. And it's like the entire, it's those rooms a lot of times are twin, 12 hours. And it is just stupid. You're an idiot. And then you have to like look at people you love. It's hard to go back. It's like being an

astronaut and getting out of the space station and re-acclimating to humanity. You have to get back down to the level of gravity of not insulting somebody's food choice at lunch. Yeah, the level of gratitude. It's sort of like when we watch TV or movies with our spouses and we are resisting the urge to give them trivia as the thing is playing in front of us. You know, I watched that Love on the Spectrum show to get back to that topic, Mike, but

the I've watched some of that Love on the Spectrum show and there's a bit on one guy's first date where he literally tells the Lord of the Rings movie trivia. And as he starts saying, I'm like, no, yeah, he's telling the story about how Christopher Lee knows what a guy sounds like when his throat is slit because that's because he did that grow up. But he's the guy is telling the Trivia as I know it I'm like yeah, I think that was first-date material for me as well with my Yeah, it's amazing. I'll just say this

You know, I've been married ten years now and when I when I told my wife like she knew I was getting Diagnosis and everything and when I was like so they said, you know, I have autism, she's like, yeah, I've been saying that for like, like you think I didn't know? Like I knew, she's like, cause we watched Love on the Spectrum and you know, she was like, man, you were, you were a lot like some of these. I can only watch so much of it honestly,

before I go like, I don't like that. I gotta stop after, after about 20 minutes of it. Yeah, how many times can a host of what a cartoon watch a girl go, I love animation and all animation projects. Yeah, yep. It's not a TV, it's a mirror, a mirror. Or the guy who loves Transformers and he's kept going like, well, you know, Optimus Prime

said this once, I was like, oh, when they, when they agreed to go to rise of the beast at the end, or although the best is they go to Africa, there's a couple and the guy, he gets on one knee and you think he's going to propose, but he just starts singing. Can you feel the love tonight? And the girl finishes the song. But we've all had that, we've all wanted someone to get in on a reference and share. Though also, yes, Ned loves hearing the nose news

from his neighbor when he's told he smells like manure. Flanders does not get treated well this episode. Merkin was like, he hated F Flanders it felt like he he gets insulted and then passed out. He's so chipper through both situations though it's great. Yeah. So we head to Burns' party. Cut from the script is a scene where the Pope is there and the Pope Mobile is attacked by a vaguely foreign anarchist as he's described. I have one question that we didn't cover and I want maybe our listeners to answer this if we can't why is Homer

Wearing this golf blazer that he steal this from a country club or something What's going on? There seems to be a visual joke going on there where he's got the little golf insignia on the blazer And he's holding a golf club like what was there a cutscene? I don't know what's happening here when he's practicing the comedy in front of the mirror Oh the Merkin said the golf club thing is it's Bob Hope it's supposed to be Bob Hope affectation though I don't remember Bob Hope wearing a full golf club outfit. Yeah, maybe Homer thinks if you have the golf club You need to complete the look. I don't know what's going on here, but there seems to be something some intention

Also speaking of things that could be dated. Hey,, we just passed Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, and so we made it there, and all the times, we've had to talk about Jimmy Carter a lot on recent podcasts because he's appeared in so many episodes. If he passes away before this goes live, I'm gonna tell you folks, he actually died six months ago. I've seen the footage. Yes, that 100th birthday footage was a little rough.

Little rough. But he looked like he enjoyed those planes. He was watching those planes with a rapt interest. But yes, no one-termers are allowed in there, so Joe Biden not going to be invited to this party either. Get away from me, loser. I don't know. Yeah. If he knew that was at risk, he would not have stood down.

He would be like, no, I have to, he should have stuck with it to get invited to the next Joe Biden party. All right. So the next Joe, Mr. Burns party, whatever. And this ends up being three Nixon's in a row because he's in the next one. Right? Like they just, holy crap. Like what an obsession. You're right. It's triple Nixon's an air order. It's three Nixon's. And I just wrote an article for Red Book and then he died like a year later or something. Maybe six months later, right? Yeah.

Pretty short. I looked up yesterday, that the guy who played Sheriff Lobo died three months after this. The policeman said, like, you're gonna bring my show back. He went into his agent's office, like, guys, the energy's out there.

We gotta get on this. We're in the zeitgeist. The word sheriff lobe haven't said on TV five times. It's more than any other time in the last 15 years. We have to strike while they're in time. It's just a thing to future TV creators. Have a funny name.

Name your show something funny and people will goof on it nostalgically later. Everybody remembers BoJack Horseman. We need more things things named like that. Shasta McNasty. Homeboys in outer space, the Brothers Grunt. There's so many great one season shows. You can't watch Alan Gregory anywhere,

but I remember that name. Yeah. So we go to the stage. There's a big Al Hirschfeld style drawing of Burns, the David Silverman drew. He loved that, the cartoon big Al Hirschfeld style drawing of Burns that David Silverman drew. He loved that the cartoonist Al Hirschfeld. He even made sure to put the daughter's name in Burns' hair. You can read the word Nina in there so he drew it perfectly as Al Hirschfeld. Bob's wife's name also appears in this episode. It's a great tribute.

Makes it even better. And then we get a series of photos. Marilyn Monroe one is my is my favorite because Unlike that Muhammad Ali one where it's clearly a pasted on face. That's his body so Burns did pose for that like that's him or It's a very good likeness Smithers paid for I like the Iwo Jima photo gag because if you think about it It's so crazy. It is an army of burns is raising a burns flag and the photo does not appear to be doctored in any way. There's no there's no soldiers with their faces taped over. This is this is a staged photo.

Well, I mean that was a staged photo too, but I think there were prosthetics involved multiple actors. Right. Does the Marilyn Monroe count as a running gag because Cause it feels different enough from Smithers' vision, but they are both Marilyn Monroe references. And they come to the close. Well, you're right. In both cases, Smithers is pasting Marilyn Monroe onto Burns.

That's his very specific fetish this episode. Yeah. And the famous boxing photo is Ali versus Liston, the 1965 fight. I think the most famous photo in all of boxing. Maybe at that point at least. It's gotta be. It's gotta be. Yeah, I immediately knew what that was there. And if you watch the clip from the fight, it makes the photo even more amazing because what Ali is doing is he is like hitting his shoulder. So he's like mid-swing hitting his shoulder. Like it's less than a second when he does it in the fight if you just watch the footage So to get that shot you think like it's frozen in the perfect moment. Like it's it's an amazing photograph

Yeah, but now it's time for things to get a little punk rock as the Ramones appear on the Simpsons There are several fine young men who I'm sure are gonna go far ladies and gentlemen the Ramones appear on The Simpsons. There are several fine young men who I'm sure are gonna go far. Ladies and gentlemen, the Ramones. These minstrels will soothe my jangled nerves. I'd just like to say this gig sucks! Hey, up your Springfield. One, two, three, four! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday, Bernsy! Go to hell, you old bastard. Hey, I think they liked us. Have the ruling stones killed. Ugh, sir, those aren't- Do as I say! Ugh, I love that. Every second of that't do as I say. Oh I love that every second of that I love so much. Burns is shattered face as the curtain closes on him it's such a great great drawing.

The pan across all of them is such a great shot too. God they killed it so hard here and yes the now I really get the joke of several fine young men because Joey Ramone is 42 in this episode air, Johnny is 45, like they are no longer the young punks they were, that's the guy. And only Markey and CJ are left out of the four Ramones portrayed here. Who do you think booked them? Did Smithers book them?

I wonder, how did they end up there? Yeah, it's interesting because like, it's so funny that the Ramones, like I had no idea who they were when this came out. I remember, you know, because I grew up on The Simpsons, like a lot of us, and I thought Spinal Tap was the biggest band in the world just because of how they were treated in the Otto episode. And then this, I was like, they don't seem that important. And then it turns out they weren't.

I think by this point, maybe I had seen Beavis and Butthead watch one of their videos and that's all I knew about the remote to this point as an 11 year old. My big two pop culture references to them are this and the movie carpool with David Paymer and tom arnold Because the kids all sing i want to be sedated. I remember the beavis and butthead one I think they watch well, I remember them watching The the christmas song they did the uh, merry christmas. I don't want to fight tonight I think they did that one but I I also I think a year or two later

They covered spider-man theme. Yeah, they did. Yeah. Yeah year or two later, they covered Spider-Man theme. Yeah, they did, yeah. It's funny when you were talking about the re-use, the Ramones' entire career was re-use. They took the same chords and song and just sold it as multiple albums. And yeah, that CJ Ramone is the one who says, go to hell, you old bastard. he he was the young newer Ramon replacement

he replaced DD in in the group, but He was the only one I could find who ever gave an interview about doing the Simpsons like CJ did some interview Like in the last 20 years and all he said it about is like yeah, that was cool I loved getting to swear on the show. Like, that was his. That's all he had to remember to remember it. Though Merkin said that they were big Simpsons nerds who, after they did the show, were calling to ask questions to explain jokes in the show after. It makes me feel less lonely.

Though now, yeah, I think right now the, uh, the widow, the Ramones widows, I think are suing each other. Things aren't things aren't happy in the world of the Ramones these days. Well, now they're just a clothing brand. Yes. Yeah, they've they've cashed in pretty good. They're the Ramones family members, though they've most of the Ramones have been dead for like 20 years, or close to it. And on that note, let's move on to the, well actually, no, from saying that to having the Rolling Stones killed, they're still, the Rolling Stones still hanging in there

with the Ramones long in the dirt. And the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards end up in an episode? Yes, yeah, 10 years or eight years later, yeah. So maybe they just killed the other two guys because they're You can make your own Simpsons can I think the Rolling Stones just went on tour or are currently on tour? It's insane Yeah, it's it's it's it's rough. It's like watching AI We see everybody giving them gifts Marge gives a dust buster. Originally in the script, that isn't there. It is Lisa

says, oh, what do you have a guy who gives everything? A poem! And then Burns puts it on a pile of poems everybody's given him and then he goes in. There's a nice visual gag where a lot of people got him ties, so all the treasures are just sitting on hundreds of ties. Yeah, and a full-on unicorn as well. He won't turn his head slightly. Then also another great animation bit when he's shouts angrily next it then cuts to match cuts to Burns's the drawing of Burns's smiling face. It's a great like that's that's great direction like again Wes Archer one of the best one of the best. And then we get Homer's standup begins with, I also love every second of this too.

I have some sad news to report. A small puppy not unlike Lassie was just run over in the parking lot. Oh! And now it's time for the comedy stylings of Homer Simpson. ["Homer Simpson's The Last Supper"] Are you ready to laugh? Poor dog.

I said, are you ready to laugh? Quiet, you awful man. You know, Mr. Burns is so cheap. What? I mean, you know, Mr. Burns is so old. How dare you. Woo hoo. Tough is so old! How dare you! Woohoo! Tough crowd. Better bring out the big guns.

Here's an impression of Mr. Burns that you might find a little cheeky. And Mr. Burns, blah, blah, blah. Do this, do that. Blah, blah, blah. I think I'm so big. Blah, blah, blah. Destroy him. Bl blah, blah, blah. I think I'm so big, blah, blah, blah. Destroy him.

Blah, blah, blah, look at me. Boom! This party is over. (*punches landing on floor*) (*punches landing on floor*) You're gunfire there. We did start a few of our early live shows with the announcement that a dog

was just killed in the parking lot. Yes, it's a great setup. Mike, have you gotten an introduction that bad? Oh man, yeah, this is... Well, you know, often, especially when you're starting, you'll perform what is known as an ambush show, you know, like a show at like a restaurant or a bar where the audience doesn't know that comedy is going to be there. And you're basically ambush. And so the are you ready to like having to be the first comic on one of those shows where it's, it sucks because like there are comedian who can be delusional enough to be like, I'm gonna I'm actually

making their night better. And then there's some of us who are just so self aware. I'm like, I feel really bad about this. But yeah, I remember less than a year in, I was doing a Halloween show, and KRS one was supposed to be the headliner. And he had canceled, they told the audience he wasn't gonna be there. and then I had to go up. And no one knew who I was. I wasn't very good. It was it was brutal. It was it was I still remember it. I was wearing a Mr. Fantastic outfit because it was Halloween night with the fake muscles which Mr. Fantastic didn't even have muscles. And then this was the worst part was because it was supposed to be like this like concert thing and all that. They still let off the fog machine during my set.

So I'm getting heckled and someone throws like a water bottle and all that. But I have no idea where anything's coming from. Nothing that bad ever happened to us. But in our early live shows, we performed in the bar and restaurant area of a club. And we had a show where a lot of our fans were there, but directly in front of the stage was an old couple, probably in their 60s or 70s, having a nice dinner. And I just was wondering, do they know what's going on?

Do they know why we're here? I feel like it's one of those things where, we come here every Saturday and get the same thing. And they're not gonna change their plans because two nerds are on stage talking about a Camp Krusty or whatever. We used to take our son here, God rest his soul. And I remember the first show I took my wife to, this is how out like what I didn't know. I took her to a show I was doing at a Mexican restaurant.

And she like afterwards, you know, she's like, so so people eat and then you just do comedy while they're eating. Yeah. No, I think I've had a coffee date at a place that then turns into Oh, wait, this is open mic night. I thought we were just I picked a safe coffee place. Oh, dude, what you do when you do like open mics that are like all different You know not just comedy that like you follow someone doing a poem about some really heavy stuff And then you gotta go up. It's yes This resonated hard with me Actually Bob, I remember that old couple you mentioned when they came in they had set up a table for us

That's where the projector for us playing the clips on the screen was, but it was sitting on one of the like the dining tables. And that was the old couple. They're like, well, there's a dining table. Oh, that seat's open. There's a projector on it for some reason. We'll just sit here. And they'll never listen to a podcast because the podcast of them means your dinner is ruined. I was mostly worried about them because that was a pretty rough part of town and I just wondered how they got in and how they are going to exit to get to their car

without getting fleeced. That was, yeah, that was in the Tenderloin, which was already, this was the Tenderloin seven years ago, but it was already pretty rough there. Yes. We've had to, yeah, we, that was a very nice venue that we performed at several times and the people who worked there were very nice,

but we did have to tell people attending eventually like, you know, maybe don't drive your car there. Like maybe just take the bar. Walk with a friend in that club. It no longer exists. Yes, yeah, it no longer. But thank you Piano Fight for giving us a place to perform early on in our podcast career.

Yes, we really appreciate it. But also Homer can't even get through his setups, but without insulting Mr. Burns. But he bails on him, which is that's poor stand-up technique, right Mike? Yeah, I mean, but also poor stand-up technique, which a lot of people, when you're bombing, rushing to the closer, when you're just like, I know what's going to get them, when you're bombing, rushing to the closer, when you're just like, I know what's going to get them. And just, you know, doing that. You know, the the the but thing of it is, yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the because literally, stand up is just filling time that everything in stand up when you're doing comedy is just you have 15 minutes, you have 20 minutes, right. So I've had those

situations like I just could do my closer early. and and even if it works, then I'm up there for 14 minutes and I'm not able to match the energy of what I just did and now I'm just gonna disappoint him again because they're like, wait, he could be good but now he's still suck. Actually, you mentioned how we're trying to like top it is his closer Bart. They cut a joke where Bart suggested you could have it smoke a cigar

You can see why for taste reasons they cut that perhaps Yeah, you know advertise cigars, especially as a thing in children with like, you know, Disney Plus would have to put that in the warnings now But you've never been beaten by the police while performing. Have you? I was punched once. Oh damn. Yeah. Yeah. I was making fun of some I was I was like I this guy was

like a hippie and I didn't realize how many drugs he was on. This was this was uh at a 5 PM open mic in an Italian restaurant and winery. Um I know I just keep bragging about my career and I was like, um deserve this. I think he was at least on like three different drugs. He could have killed me.

You expect mellowness from a hippie, not a sucker punch. Yeah, exactly. Also in the original script, they cut a line where the droopy voice guy says, can't we learn to love? I love that guy. We missed out on him. So yes, then Homer has a giant lump on his head and this is where listeners

I have to admit defeat. I could not find where this scene of Lisa talking is from. I guess you'd have to scour season two because she's got the little line behind her mouth in the ADR scene. I was searching season two listeners. I give it to our audience. I've come up short a couple other times and somebody found it in the comments. So I send it to you guys. My methodology was, I was like, well, the other clip was from another West Archer episode. So maybe they pulled it from that.

But yeah, I could not, I searched through season two. I was like, man, when was Lisa sitting on the couch in season two? I checked like the Eighth Commandment episode, like, no, she's not drawn like that. And that one could not find it. So please, I, I, I ask you listeners find this Lisa for me, but I do like that she, she can't believe it for a second that Homer won't moon to people again and he's, he's got it ready for aunt Selma's birthday very soon. Then we, we cut

back to another citizen Kane scene of this is like the ending of the movie of walking through his huge collection of stuff. Burns has just as much, which includes a nude photo of Mark Twain and the original version of the Constitution with the word suckers in it. Both great lines. Also, a fantastic animation on Burns giving Smithers the thrashing of a lifetime. I confuse this one with the scene from Homer Goes to College because it's when Burns is giving the man the beating of his life with a baseball bat and they're back to back in production order.

This was going to be a runner for Burns, I think. I have a Simpson nerd thought question complaint. Aren't Patty and Selma twins? You're right. He should say it's both of their birthdays, not just Selma's. Unless he only wants to spite Selma. Oh, that's true. I was just looking, I was like,

I think that, ah! Maybe he's snubbing Patty. Yeah, he's snubbing Patty. Or maybe Patty is such a downer, she's like, I don't want to celebrate my birthday, just have it be Selma's. Or perhaps Patty has seen his ass the previous year. Ah, hmm.

Patty is the lesbian, right? Yes, now she is. Yeah. So that, you know, it's not going to it wouldn't gross her out or anything. She's just going to be numb to it anyways. But I could ruin some of it. So so Mr. Burns wonders what happened to his his little bear, Bobo, even as he sat in his collection and as and this is when Smithers figures out that Bobo is missing which is why the search begins

here. So we get dated signs here. First we see Charles Lindbergh. He flew it across the Atlantic with him and when he lands in Paris just so happens that Adolf Hitler is there and he catches the bear and he apparently has him through the entirety of his rise up the political rankings up to the bunker. He has Bobo in the bunker with him next to his gun. That is so dark.

I really want to know how it got from the bunker to the North Pole. We're missing some connective tissue there, but I'll allow it. Also in the pan down, like you pause it like, oh, that's like a dead Nazi soldier with blood everywhere. Like that's a very intense drawing for Simpsons. Also Charles Rundberg with a teddy bear could go to a way darker place than it does. That's yeah. I will get this for my child. But yeah, the Hitler thing is amazing. I'm currently like working on a thing with a Orson Welles type character. And I've been I watched like tons of hours of Orson Welles interviews. I just think he's like the funniest. He does one about meeting Hitler. Oh, wow. And I forgot what show was on. He's like, honestly, I can't remember anything about him at all.

He was nothing. It wasn't until a thousand people were standing outside his home saying, Zick Hile, that he had a personality. It was like the meanest take ever. He's like, I had the faintest idea of who the man was because he left no impression. Well, Matt Groening, not a fan of the Hitler jokes, but this shows you, Merkin's getting more power

than he can get through some more Hitler in the show. Why is that? I think he might just think it's a hacky subject or perhaps too dark to go to. Well, it's funny to think back on these Hitler jokes. It's definitely me as a kid in 93. I just thought of him as like, you know, he's a character in movies, I thought. Like him as like, you know, he's a character

in movies. I thought like in The Last Crusade, oh, is that Hitler guy? Like he's, he's bad in some way, right? Well, it's also it's like I'm Jewish. And I imagine some of the writers, the Simpsons were and it's like, it's empowering, you know, the same with like the first appearance of Captain America punching Hitler, like, you know, Charlie Chaplin, the Great Dictator. It's like, no, I like when the Captain America movies don't have Nazis, it's like, I want to see the Nazis get beat up. Oh, yeah, Henry, there is a deleted joke here.

Is that the connective tissue between the bunker in the North Pole? Well, it definitely puts it in a place between the North Pole, but it does not explain how it got from the bunker to the North Pole But yes the the cut joke that a reference in the commentary, but it's all there in the table draft This is the second biggest cut in the table draft is it was also there when Kennedy was assassinated So yeah, they here is the joke. So there's Lee Harvey Oswald at the book depository. He is pointing his gun in the air and he is saying noisy crows, they'll ruin the president's visit. Hey, look at that bear. And then he points his gun downward and fires three shots accidentally. And he goes, Ooh, I did bad. If they left that in,

that would have been a classic bit we'd all be talking about today. That sounds great. See, and I'm sure what someone probably did was like, you already got, look, you got the Marilyn Monroe, Mr. President bit, you gotta pick one. I really do love noisy crows. They'll ruin the president's visit. That's why he's shooting a gun near the president,

to kill crows that might interrupt it. Also, poor Ava Braun not in the bunker in this retroactive history. Yeah. Adolf Hitler was a monster, but he was married. Now, upon rewatching it, I'm thinking this joke is darker than I thought because I guess, because you only see Hitler,

we think that everyone else has already killed themselves or killed each other in the bunker his dog was in the bunker yeah yeah I forget the order in which the suicides and murders happened but if I was everyone else just let Hitler go first they'd be like okay Shows up, forget it. Oh yeah, you first buddy. Yeah. And the payoff, the, the APU, uh, the, the, uh, the North Pole ice. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah.

That does feel like a Merkin joke and that he loves putting jokey misinformation into his episodes. And I think some kids probably believe this, that ice his mind at the North Pole. Well, it also you know it's a similar gag to the rotating cupcake wheel. Here's this horrible way a innocent goofy thing happened. Was the bowling pins was that during Merkin? Oh, that's a Merkin one too. Yeah. Okay. So he loves like, you know, process and you know what I said, pin pals. I take that back listener. That was Maggie makes three.

That's what that's where it's from. I don't want to be wrong. Yeah. No, you're right. I definitely think a thing, a style of David Merkin's comedy is just about all this, this innocuous thing in American life. There's something horrible underneath it that caused it to happen. And you don't even care. Like nobody even gives a shit at this. And it's a kind of joke that you can do in animation. That'd be way harder to do in live

action, you know, of like, what is, how does this thing happen? We just go to the North Pole and then they bring the ice and you know, the way they do that cupcake wheel shot where they just like zoom up, it's like fantastic. It's great. He actually tells a similar joke on the commentary where I think Wes Archer is talking about how he has the robo burns and Merkin says,

well of course if you buy those toys, they'll fall apart and they're made of things that will give you cancer. Yes, right. No, I think Merkin was drunk on the power of what he could make animators draw for him. Because when we watched All Again Alive in the last few years, there's so many great crazy ideas in it too, but he is up against the budget all of the time and they run out of money. He wanted a whole episode where they're trapped in a submarine in a

In the shower and it's filling with water and then the sub falls through the the roof and they did that But then they ran out of money and had to do like a clip show Soon after her. I remember if you if you guys want a quick fun, Greg Daniel story. Oh, yes Oh boy. So when I was on upload, you know, there was a scene and This was really good advice Yeah that that I learned from him, you know So I had like the last joke was like an extra and he was like, you know We're gonna have to pay that person this much. That's a guilt thing. This is that he's like is your joke worth that much? The production and I was like, yeah, and then he was like, you know, if you could

give it to a main character, you know, because he, you know, that that was the practical reason. But then also the reason for making it better for the show was your main character should have the biggest laughs anyway. Wow. That's great advice. But he did also he's like, Yeah, I don't want to pay for it. I guess when he was on King of the Hill, he could say, Oh, Dave Herman can do this character. Rarity got him in the room or Toby Hus. Oh, yeah. I mean, the Simpsons, they they had the spoils of, you know, any one any of those three guys could do any male character they wanted, even even when they shouldn't have.

Well, speaking of that, yes. I was. No, yeah, I also love that this is forever dated is 1993 like just a big 1993 on the screen to let Viewers know as they pull it up on Disney plus 31 years ago this episode air And yeah that up who not only kills many men through getting harvesting ice But also he sells it to Bart as a bag chock full of heady

goodness. A head bag. Yeah. Ooh, a head bag. Yeah, that's so great. It's so, I love how he has to pause like, heady goodness, like just so he, Appu has to sell everything and Bart buys it and just passes it off to Maggie and it's basically 10 minutes at the act break.

This is one of their longest act breaks too. Bobo has the basically the same origin as Captain America. You're right. Frozen in ice. From the 40s. Hitler. Brought out years later. Just when America needs him. You know, you mentioned that of like, yeah,

Captain America with the Nazis. It was that was so annoying in the first movie where they have to make this point of like in the first MCU movie that like Hydra has to in the Red Skull has to be like, you know what? I don't like you Nazis. I'm breaking from you guys. Hydra is a separate group from the Nazis. We're not not I was like Why must this be the clarification here? And then and then because there were in so many of the MCU things like what do they stand for what are there? What are they fighting for they're just the bad guys They're vague fascists of no political or racial beliefs. I see maybe it's like we don't want to put swastikas on merchandise

But then there should be a scene like we're the Nazis. That's who we are. And we're going to redesign that symbol. Step one. Yeah. Yeah. I would bet Disney was just mad. They're like, well, we can't copyright a swastika. That's it. Yeah. That's it's public domain. But if we could, Disney buys the third rank.

Oh, Hitler's now a Disney princess. That works. He's in Wreck-It Ralph 3. Well, Mike, you mentioned upload. I was curious, like, do you guys think about timing out act breaks on streaming shows like that or is that not a thought anymore? It's not as much of an issue. But you know, there is the thing of like, you are still limited by time.

And, you know, you don't want to go so over. And yeah, it's not as big of a thing, but it's still something, I think, because of the ad. Yeah, because of it's now with all the streamers have ad breaks anyways. It's such a big thing. but for a while it wasn't. Even when people would be doing sample scripts and stuff, it's like, you don't really need an Act One and Act Two as much as you used to, it's just scene, scene, scene. But now it's like, we're basically back where we were

with networks and advertising and just on the computer. Even when I paid Amazon Prime extra for like, Networks and advertising and just on the computer. Even when I paid Amazon Prime extra for like, no really I want the very much no ads tier. Then I put on invincible and they're like, well you're still gonna get like three ads, but for Amazon shows, that's not really an ad, is it? Yeah, it's all ads.

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endless possibilities to fuel endless adventures. Head in and start yours today. Maverick, adventures first stop. So we come back from the act break and I feel like Smithers is partially trying to seduce Burns here, don't you guys think? Yes, but we're learning that Burns is an early member of the fursuit community.

That's not in the original script of him asking Smithers to leave the suit. That's an extra level of perversion they add to us, Burns, there that I love. I love Smithers' role in this episode of he really does just want to do anything to make Burns happy. He's really trying to please him. Yeah, I mean, they're in a toxic relationship, as I've always said in many, in many essays. Yeah, but Smithers is the Harley Quinn. Yes. Yeah. I mean, we're in a, we're also covering a later era of the show and I feel like they often forget about Smithers where they really didn't in this era. He's a vital part of the Burns dynamic. And when he's gone, you're asking like, well, why isn't Smithers

helping what Smithers thinking about this? He's just so vital. Yeah. Smithers barely did anything in the new episode I just watched, the white lotus parody one. He basically just holds onto the hounds throughout the whole episode. And he kind of like, he really serves a purpose in terms of like the line in earlier episodes where if Burns does go too far, if he is too evil,

Smithers sometimes will be like, but sir, you know? And it's like, that's important to have in, you know, a show with, you know, big character dynamics. Like you can see when Burns is being unpleasant in a way that even Smithers has turned off. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a huge plot point in the Who Shot Mr. Burns thing. Absolutely.

Yeah. So Burns sends Smithers off on his way. He starts covering up Millhouse being missing on the milk cartons, talking more about creating Simpson storylines. I'm assuming this is the result of Bart tipping off Millhouse to the feds and he's been kidnapped briefly. This is the closest this episode has to a B plot. Right. This is the closest this show this episode has to a B plot

Merkin didn't do not he did do B plots, but it does feel like he wasn't as into them as Gina Reese were and we then see Homer learning about the bear from Kent Brockman This is like Merkin made Homer dumber There's no two ways about it like to to great effect made Homer dumber. There's no two ways about it. Like, to great effect. But that Homer does not get it so much in this is so good. And he's perfecting his screw the audience joke where when Homer goes moldy, old, and then it's a complete mislead.

He loves these jokes that mislead you. I'm gonna get something to eat. And it's also logic be damned if it makes it funny, or the fish tank. Yeah. Yes. Did they have a fish tank? I don't know. Makes joke better.

Who cares? Oh, also we have a great scene of a robot bobo nearly killing burns, which I wish more rich people's robots would try to kill them these days. That'd be nice. I love how Frank always gets rehired and he's not that good at his job.

All of his stuff malfunctions. He's the only professor in town. They got no other options I guess. Yeah. This bear is more violent than the robot loyal workers they unboxed in the Union episode. That's true. Well you know that this bear was got in physical contact with him. Who knows what those loyal workers would have done if they reached him. And he certainly didn't fix the technology when he sold it to itching scratchy land. You're right. But I like that we're creating continuity here that did not exist. It never was meant to. Yeah. We go back home. Lisa's meditating. Bart's throwing a football. It takes all of these things converging at once in some gorgeous animation for Homer to first realize that they've had fish that magically appear. There's a wiki page for the fish and the wiki page

says they've only appeared in like four episodes, but they only have fish when they need it for a joke. In a few months, Bob, in season 15, we're going to be talking about how Snowball 3, the cat, drowns in that fish tank. Oh, I just remember when he gets pinchy, he's making sure there's enough salt and fresh water in the tank so everything in there is half dead. Right. But mostly the Simpsons don't have fish and Homer's right to notice that this is a magic fish tank.

But he finally, finally realizes they have Bobo and now it's time for a family meeting. Bobo, it's Mr. Burns' bear all right. Well, Burns isn't getting this back cheap, I can tell you that. He's gonna have to give me my own recording studio. Do all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, onions, sesame seed bun. Ah.

Homer, you're drooling on the mic again. I think we should just give him the bear that he cherishes so much. Ha ha ha ha ha! Better show that eye back on. No, let's send Burns the eye in the mail. He'll pay more money if he thinks the bear's in danger. Yes, we'll send the eye. I'm sure he'll offer us a fair reward

and then we'll make him double it. Well why can't I be greedy once in a while? Great gag that Marge breaks her character game that she's just like, you know what I get to be greedy for a joke once too. I'm not just going to be a wet blanket. That's a great joke. You know what's fascinating about that clip you just played. The worst joke in the thing is the dream sequence. Like you don't need it. It's not that good for all those things that Homer could have done with the money. It's kind of a flat joke. And then it's, you know, then it goes to all these funny family jokes that are great. But that one kind of, I don't know, kind of a stink. You're right. It's the least funny part of the scene great but that one kind of I don't know kind of it's the least funny part of the scene but a frame of that scene did invent the meme character Lomer when Homer's squishing himself down for a brief

time if you followed Simpsons memes Lomer L-O-W-M-E-R would appear in memes what if like that scene also created garage band? Someone was like, but what if I make my own recording studio? I don't have to be so rich as to befriend a billionaire and give him a bear. And I don't think I knew what this was, what he was singing, but then McDonald's brought back the big Mac jingle in the mid to late nineties. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I worked at McDonald's seven and a half years.

So I know this song very well. This is hell for you. Yeah, it's, yeah. But it, it's, I love too, because it's like, the music doesn't sound like what the guys are playing instrumentally. Yeah. No, it's, well, this joke hit me me harder because oh wait, I live Homer's dream now

like I'm in my spare bed every day recording studio We did it. Yep. So there is a big cut from the original script here to basically Homer goes on several misadventures of almost losing the bear on the drive to Burns' house, including he leaves it on the top of the car and drives off. Then he almost trades it with a random Arab trader of bears. And then the last bit is it spontaneously burst into flames as he drives up to the mansion. But then Homer offers it up to burns. And

I goddamn do I, this is another of my favorite moments like Burns saying crying poverty and being surrounded by money like that is one of like perfect illustrations of like rich assholes to me I love it so much. Yeah it's a perfect gift to post whenever there are layoffs. Yes yeah. When Disney laid off I don't know 100 Pixar employees that's when the ceiling broke open and a crown landed on Bob Iger's head. Is it Bob Iger? I can't I forget which Bob's in charge.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah. It was previously Bob Chapek. They were they were giving Bob's a bad name, Bob. David Zaslav said that the strikes would end because they love their jobs too much. And I mean, these people would work for free. Yes. What was that? Oh, it was would work for free. Yes. Oh, it was like in a Hollywood Reporter Deadline, it was an anonymous comment from an executive

about like, we want these people to lose their homes or something. That was it, yeah. That if it gets to that, because it was like in summer and he's like, it'll get to October and they'll, it wasn't that we want them to, that's like, they'll get to the point

where they're going to, and then they'll come crawling back. Woof. And we did. So it was a weird time. I was, my son was like six months old. I was striking with a baby. And it was weird because like the people that I was striking with would be like, we got a strike baby.

I'm like, I can't afford childcare, but it was also people striking. We're so like, there were, there were signs, like there was one that said reboot the guillotine, like there were signs like kill Zaslav and stuff. Like, I was like, you know, we gotta go back in those buildings. You know, the point is to, to be friends with them. Did I say kill Zaslav? I meant thrill him with good writing. The epitome of like how lame Hollywood is.

I remember the second week of the strike, I think. Imagine Dragons performed for the strikers at Netflix. And you could see footage of people stepping out of their Netflix patios, like jamming to imagine dragons, you know, the ones we're rebelling against. They got a free concert. Did you get, did you get any free food from, uh, from Drew Carey or Jay Leno or anybody? I went once. I went once to, uh, yeah, it was Drew Carey. Yeah, it was great. I had a burger and fries at Bob's Big Boy, thanks to Drew Carey.

The people of Seinfeld. I heard Drew Carey even covered the tip at those things, right, like he? He did, but I think some of those writers needed to learn what that was and do it themselves. Well, so Homer is making his own demands to Burns and just like the WGA strikers, he didn't break on the first offer.

He turned it down. He didn't cover the tip and some people complained about that. That's what it was. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so it's not free. Go back to Harvard.

So so then Homer leaves with the bear and Burns thinks he's going to crack and then Homer literally cracks. There's a sound of a crack as Homer decides he's going to pick up the phone. Another great gag. That's that's right there in the script. It's in Swartzweiler script. It said audible crack. This is when Burns comes to the door. He's fighting the whole family.

Great animation of everybody diving on top of him. Even Maggie gets on top of the pile at that point. And when he comes to the door, his family members are all attached to him. Even Snowball. And so Homer makes his request and listeners will hear in the original or one of the original ads that I was able to find the vintage ads Homer actually asked for One bazillion dollars. So it was a late change that he asks for three Hawaiian islands, but here's where the negotiations break down

Give me the bear. The bear. The bear. Here you go, Maggie. The deal's off, Mr. Burns. The bear stays here. You've made a mistake, Simpson. Big deal. Who needs his money? We're getting by okay Done you gotta help me. I had three people on the way over here, and I don't have any insurance

So how's by you great into this act of a very short act of just Abe Crashing through the window this shows you how good punching up can work in in writing because in the original script they have a funny enough scene where after Homer says we don't need his money, the mailman outside like trips on Bart's skateboard and says he's gonna sue, that's alright. But Abe Simpson crashing his car through the front door that like right after Burns leaves that has much more punch to it. Henry, that's great. Daniels was right. You give the joke to one of your characters and send us just some random postman.

That's good. Yeah, it's true. But it works way better. Maybe he was right. He was there. He was like, come on guys. Or he learned that then, you know, it's so funny. Like when he goes the bear, the bear, I just kept thinking to myself,

name a comedy that won best comedy at the Emmys that isn't a comedy, the bear, the bear. And I guess because it's an act break joke, you forget about the people that grandpa killed. Yes. Or the wall. Or the wall, yeah, the wall's back in act three, don't worry. The mistake on most 30 minute shows is that they don't, that they are trying to be funny.

They need to be mean and sad. But yeah, so we come back from the break. Now we have some fun Burns and Smithers misadventures here, which is great. Like, despite the fact that he had an entire police state to beat up everybody at his party, now the missions are just smithers and burns. It's so I love them doing the jobs together. Well, first we start with them trying to ninja

their way into the place on a basically a zip line that gravity stops them in the center and they're stuck all night until like it's six in the morning. They called the police. Then the fire department takes him. It's a great idea that you have to imagine the awkward scenario. You only see the end when they're sitting in the ambulance with blankets draped over them drinking cocoa. It's so good.

And also that's where they knock out Ned. Ned gets another one line and then knocked out. Yep. And then comes another of the greatest scenes in Simpsons history as they're able to break into the house via the garage, but then their ceiling lock is thwarted. Mmm, 64 slices of American cheese. 64.

63. Two. One. One. Have you been up all night eating cheese? I think I'm blind. Good day to you. For the last 31 years, whenever I see a huge pack of American cheese, I do think of this joke. Like, you see it and you're like, who could need 64 slices?

And the answer is, you. For the last 31 years, whenever I see a huge pack of American cheese, I do think of this joke. Like who, like you see it and you're like, who could need 64 slices? And the answer is a man like Homer is going to eat them all in one night and each and take time in individually unwrapping each one. This was a Mandela effect for me because he only counts four of the 64 cheeses. And in my mind, it was way longer. But it's, this is a great joke.

I hate American cheese. Like I, I am proud white trash, but my God, like I was at LA comic con and we spent $11 on a grilled cheese sandwich and it was American cheese, which does not melt properly. It's, it's really no different than the plastic it's wrapped in. No, it says more about America than cheese. Whoa. No, I think I actually haven't eaten it in such a long time. I haven't bought it in a very long time, but I did think maybe it was in the single slice version, but it was cheddar and not American. But I just had that type of cheese.

When I went to the, Kura Sushi is nearby where I live, and they're having like themed Pikmin sushi. Yeah. And so I had the egg sushi they had there was like a grilled cheese on top of the egg sushi. And I had it, but I was like, this is just a slice. They're like, this is a square slice of cheese. They heat it up slightly on top of the egg it's seemed very cheap this

joke has probably made people lose weight I think I think of this gag when I eat in the middle of the night and I feel shameful yeah no I've had to drop I I have dropped to my late-night snacking as well I've had to get very strict on it and well I also just make sure I don't have whatever the 64 slices of American cheese is to me that let's say individual ice cream sandwiches. I can't have those anymore because I'm like, no, I know I won't just eat one. I can't trust myself in the freezer. Where did Burns find the upper body strength to stay attached to? That is, you know, it is the same joke as the last one, but I love them both together. Like there's a time cut of them stuck somewhere, but I love them both together. It's way funnier than

if it was just one of them for sure. It's such a great observable thing too, that like every kid has had suction cup toys and you know that the suction eventually does wear out So that's what happened with Burns and Smithers like so you just hear the sound of it like oh it ran out You know, that's what happened and they just like exit like nothing happened. Did you? And Homer is blind for me I also love the staging everything about this I love I love the staging of how Marge enters the room saying like, have you been up all night eating cheese? And like the, the way Kavner emphasizes cheese. So funny though, just like Hitler jokes, Matt Grating hates food monster jokes with Homer. I, I, I, Merkin got this through, but the

idea of Homer stays up all night, just just eating cheese like a garbage food dumpster. He he it works so good. I'm glad it wasn't cut out of some hate a rule against Homer the food monster. Well, it's also when you have a mandate of I don't like any type of this thing. It's like hear it out. What's the context? Like it works really well here. Though listeners, if you haven't watched Matt Groening's recent podcast interview

with Jay Cogan and other Simpsons writer, in that Groening recognizes like, look, these were guidelines that I realize now that I made these rules that made you guys just do the jokes more because I suggested you shouldn't. So that- Yeah, you're a real Hitler about Hitler jokes. No, I mean, Mike in a writer's room room does being told like guys, no more jokes about

X or Y. Does that inspire you to try to find a new way to do a joke about something? It does until the end when you're on deadline and it's just about getting it out there. So it depends on the job. Like a thing like the roast, like the roast, you are specifically told this person will not take, you know, have any jokes about this thing. You cannot write anything about this topic or that topic. I won't say what those are. You could look up some of them. I'll give you one Donald Trump, you weren't and I wasn't there for that. But this is my favorite one, Donald Trump, you couldn't

make jokes about him having less money than he says. But the thing is, so if you know everything about those shows, you know, this is award shows too, don't make fun of this person for that, or don't make fun of this. The whole thing is right quantity and just writing a bunch of stuff that people could pick through.

And if you know it's not gonna be used and you're just wasting everybody's time. So there is that, I think like, a lot of those shows are like three weeks, four weeks. So the first week is like, okay, we're gonna get out of our systems, but by the end of the show, you're just writing stuff you could use.

And I think that that's like almost, I think some people probably get fired for stuff like that, where they just keep poking and bringing in stuff that like, no, this is not gonna air. You know, if you write a Simpsons script and it in stuff that like, no, this, this is not going to air. You know, if you write a Simpson script and it has like inappropriate stuff and things like, no, you're not going to be the one to reorganize this 35 year television show. It was like, like spec scripts used to do that. I've just like, this is the one where everyone dies. Oh, right. So after this, we then see Homer is being mocked at work

by, again, a bunch of extras, not Lenny and Carl. Now I'm just thinking of like, wait, I'm thinking of the Greg Daniels rule now, Mike. Although they're saving Lenny and Carl for the best bit. I love how it's not even a joke, but it's just so blunt it makes me laugh their little exchange. Yes, yeah, Homer's being

whipped. That's what makes the dessert tray spin around. And the way Lenny says, what do you think makes that moves? Who cares? Just who cares? Not trying to be funny, just who cares? Just move on. Nobody even thinks about it.

Also, I love that Homer thinks like, oh, after lunch, can I get to whip you? Nope. Yeah. So. That's an extra that's worth having that fat fat guy in a hood. Yes. So then Homer's trying a different attempt. He's going to teach Maggie to love, love a new box instead, which it almost works. But then

Homer has to be written as dumber than a baby for this next joke. Maggie I know you like the bear, but wouldn't you be just as happy playing with this box? Maggie see the fun box No, bye bye bye bye Hairdryer mind you must hate me for not taking mr. Burns's money My box! My box! Hehehehe! Mmm, I think we need a new hair dryer. Marge, you must hate me for not taking Mr. Burns' money. I don't hate you. I'm proud of you. You came through for your daughter when she needed you the most.

Oh, thanks Marge. But it'll take a lot more than that to comfort this tortured soul. Hehehehe! Hey boxy! Hehehehe! Give me that! Oh! Mike, how much does your baby like boxes? tortured soul. Bugs. Mike, how much does your baby like boxes? Oh, yeah. It's one of those things when you buy the toy. They like to buy things. Rugrats is an episode on this. And it's true. They love if it's the point that if I open one of my toys,

which will be his when I die, I'll just give. I remember I got the the Batman and Robin builder figure Mr. Freeze wave and I just started giving him the boxes to play with so I could build the Arnold Schwarzenegger Mr. Freeze. But yeah, boxes they're amazing especially if they can climb in them and peek-a-boo that they have so many purposes they can put their other toys in them. Yeah, I love how horror calls it boxy like I mean the the the misdirect of you think he's gonna want to have sex with The hairdryer joke, okay, I'm gonna maybe I'm stupid here. I didn't fully get it was that he also was playing with the hairdryer I think it just here's another reason why we need money And it's just the way just a visual gag in the background have Marge with the half wet hair

So she drives from the bottom up apparently okay that that threw me Yeah, this is where the only deleted scene on the DVD is and it's really brief though I need to explain it visually first, but but the clip is funny, and I they kept it in. So right after the box scene, this would give away what happens on the TV, so maybe that's why they clip it, they cut it out, but Burns and Smithers are standing in front of a cartoonish pair of levers, one that says TV and one that says beer on top of it. They're like out of the Batman Adam West show. And so they're standing in front of it and they have this exchange. Tell me, Smithers, what are Homer Simpson's

two favorite things in the world? Beer and television. Now watch this. Sir, those levers aren't connected to anything. I know that. That's good. So, yeah. But I guess it does blow the gag of Burns taking over the TV in the next scene, but I just like that Burns has,

for some reason, these two levers set up in his home to pull on to represent that he's going to do. I love the Burns on TV stuff so much that in my mind, it is the entire third act, but it's really just 30 seconds Yeah, after some scathing Barney commentary. It's it's 1993. Everybody hates Barney every though It's a good joke that Homer is watching Barney while Maggie is playing with the bear like this Barney's on for Homer I want to believe that whoever Barney shoots was related to the three people Abe Simpson ran over It's a rough week for

that family. That Barney, you know, they just made a doc about like the Barney phenomenon and about how much everybody hated Barney or the death threats they would get. I forget all, I shouldn't watch that. I didn't give that a watch. Well, I know they're rebooting him. My issue with, I mean, I was always too old for Barney, but they're bringing him back. He's not, he doesn't sound dopey enough. He should sound like a big dope.

I'd say I had to go to AA meetings with my dad the weeks that he had me. And Barney was one of our favorite characters for that reason. We saw Barneys, we knew Barneys. My dad was like, I was a Barney. Oh, oh, sorry. Yes, we were talking about Barney's. We knew Barney's. My dad was like, I was a Barney. Oh, oh, sorry. Yes, we're talking, we were talking about Barney the Dinosaur. Yes. Oh,

but yes, no, Barney, Barney does kill a woman. That's true. That's right. I was confused for a minute. I thought, did I miss something? Yeah. Did I look away while Barney the dinosaur snaps somebody's neck I love you you love me we're happy family was the AA oath that we would say oh yeah that's a bring it back party I just it was like oh but did they get rid of Barney it's a light touch on Barney Gumbel in the show these days, but he appears some he appears documentary The Barney the dinosaur yeah, you could tell that was just someone just sick of that show I Could tell you yeah, you're raising like a young kid the amount of whatever it is They're into that you have to watch is insane. Yeah Barney's world on max

And I think the documentary Henry is mentioning is called I Love You, You Hate Me. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And I think parents today are lucky they get to watch, you know, like Bluey with their kids instead of Barney. They say parents love that Bluey. I think I don't know your Bluey feelings, Mike. Bluey is pretty great. It's like genuinely sad at times.

And you know, you can't Bluey and Barney. Hey, they have three of the same letters, you know But he does an infertility episode. Whoa, like why is our aunt so sad? Yeah, man Well, they'll also in this case though burns interrupts Barney and takes it over Homer changes the channel and birds then runs all the way to the soul mass transit system studios And then when Homer changes the channel, he wrote like he physically runs from place to place which is so great he doesn't just take over the airwaves he goes to each studio to show that he's bought every channel in Springfield has there ever been like a modern movie or something where someone takes over

every computer and phone screen because if you took over the TV now, no one would notice. Only people over only sports viewers and people over 60. And then they go to complain and accidentally hit three people on their way to the stage. Yeah. The, the soul mass transits is I went on a, on a, a sad rabbit hole of, cause did you guys see the new Beetlejuice? Yes, we did. Yes, yeah. There's a Soul Train reference, right?

There is a literal Soul Train, and apparently people in the African-American community are upset with Tim Burton about it, of like, you know, like, there are never black people in the movies, and then you make fun of us with a Soul Train reference. And it wasn't those things, like, I'm like, yeah, does Tim Burton even know what Soul Train is and someone has to explain it?

I mean, I guess it's the only place where you can see black people in the Beetlejuice sequel, but also that is the oldest joke. I've seen that joke used in this that context many, many times. Like you ride the Soul Train to heaven or hell or whatever. It's it's been used before. Yeah. And they had to build an entire set with someone going, but you know guys, it has been. This has been done quite a lot, you know guys.

Everybody's made it, like we've had 60 years of Soul Train jokes, or 50. You're just saying that so you don't have to make the train, Matthew. You're sick of building the train. There wasn't even a Soul Plane. Yeah. Many years, but No, I think I

chalked that up to Tim Burton stopped paying attention to pop culture in like 1986. Like he doesn't he thinks he thinks Soul Train is a very recent thing. Same with like MacArthur Park is very recent instead of like a very old old

reference. But you if you saw that Soul Train gag in the first Beetlejuice, you'd still be a little like, really? Yeah, no, it's that well, and you compound it with a hacky joke with like, you just ask yourself like, can you remember more than one black character speaking in a Tim Burton movie? And it's really tough.

It's really tough to think of one. I will say I did have to look up and see that Don Cornelius had been dead for years And that was not in the movie. Well Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to get more into this by the way We've all seen it it insists that the shrunken head guys are just naturally like that We don't see the headhunter man, but there are now several shrunken head guys. I'm like, well, so where did they come from? What's going on here? Why they all work with Beetlejuice why is it in his team maybe he got some of that powder oh that's true yeah I must yeah okay I mean I had a feeling the head shrinker wasn't going to appear in this

movie in the sequel what I like about this Soul Train joke here is that they set it up, the guy still says, Soul, really long to make you wait for it to be called the mass transit system. That train. And so, yes, Homer, the whole town learns that Homer is to blame

for the beer being cut off. It's also great that Burns thinks Homer replied to the TV when Homer didn't, but then Homer goes like, yeah, like he did say it. What's that you say? Mix it up at Maverick with our huge variety of great products at great prices. You and your friends don't need to agree on food, drinks, snacks, or candy because Maverick

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old man. But then their bullying sensibilities are won over by just Martin just appearing. And I have been the Martin in that scenario where just by saying something dorky, everybody realized like, wait, we could be bullying this guy like we why find justification it wasn't about a snapdragon it was about a mr. fantastic or something like that right yeah it's like guys it's spider-man's 30th anniversary have you read amazing 365 for Henry sick that fantastic 4 movie is good because I've been seeing you wear that hat a lot so you're back in this horse. It's my new favorite hat. I'm so hoping that movies could be I have been waiting my whole life.

There's that's the last thing. And obviously Marvel movies exist to give me things I want. That's on the demographic. It's the nuts and guns for me. And one of the few things left on my childhood list of movies I want to see is a good Fantastic Four movie.

Like I've had that denied in three decades of my life and I don't want that in my 40- You've already had 40 Marvel movies. He's starving over here. The first two things I did when I got on the internet the first time, which was at a school computer was yeah, I went on the Springfield nuclear power plant site and realized I know nothing about the Simpsons and I thought I was an expert. And I felt so small and then the other thing was I found out about the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie. I think I need a Wizard magazine to tell me about that.

I begged my parents to order it for me and we had a viewing party and yeah it was a hachi machi as the critic would say but still the best but best looking thing in a movie up until you know hopefully this one I hope so it's it's the first actual like blue-eyed Jewish man hired to play the thing so that's also nice no and I've been the I've been the marten I my my two front teeth still have a chip and they're knocked out because I was singing, singing in the rain, which I saw Bugs Bunny doing when I was taking a shower at a public pool and the kids shoved me.

Jesus. Oh, damn. Yeah. And it was the same bully who ripped the head off my Donatello. None of the other turtles, just Donatello. The nerdiest one of the group. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. you just had something against intelligence so after that there's another big cutscene that would have been very involved if they kept it in Marge is confronted at the supermarket by lunch lady Doris who's mad that she's missing all of her soaps dr. Hibbert's wife is mad that she's missing cross wits on TV. And then there's a long chase sequence through the grocery store that that's full of like stage directions and Marge like jumping in the car and speeding off and running down aisles. You know, 80% of the deleted scenes, you're like, good choice. Some of them are really fun, but you can usually get, okay,

I get why they didn't do that. Why that too, this one, it's all stage directions, which probably didn't go over great at the table. They didn't even look at what they were, they just saw. If you look at a page and it doesn't have dialogue and it's just explanation, yeah, we're not doing that. Though it did remind me that there was a TV game show called Crosswits that I was not aware of.

It's like a crossword puzzle. I had no idea about this. But then comes another perfect moment of Simpsons history as Smithers and the Burns have taken over making sitcoms. Smithies, I'm home. What? Already? Yes. home what already yes is it my imagination or is TV getting worse it's about the same oh look out Smithers I love this show

well well look who's come to apologize. They worked really hard to make that sitcom crappy. I noticed in the audio how abruptly the laugh track shuts off. Yeah, that's so good. I mean, that drawing of Byrne opening his mouth for yes, the best. I love it so much. And that's he's like home already. Yes. And yeah, I mean, this is Merkin's

Merkin both loves and hates TV, like he is obsessed with it, but also hates it. And as a guy who's trying to make good sitcoms, he hated how many bad sitcoms run TV then. So they just straight up have Lisa say like, is this worse than regular TV and over? It's like, Hey, I can't tell the difference. Like it's the same. Uh, sitcoms are just as bad. Uh, and it's like, is this worse than regular TV numbers? Like, I can't tell the difference. Like, it's the same. Sitcoms are just as bad. And it's like, you know, you're going on the Fox lot where a lot of these are filmed. And so a lot of these guys came from that world.

They're now on the cool, awesome cartoon that people love and will love 30 years from now. It's almost punching down if you say. No. Multi-cam sitcoms are dumb. Stay tuned for the Sin Bench. Funny thing is all of these bad sitcoms were absolutely kicking the Simpsons ass at this time.

That's true. You know the difference now is there is no more of this kind of snobbery because there are so few jobs to be had. If you are just a working writer, you did it. I have friends who are like, oh, yeah, I gotta go back to my job at the Disney Channel. And everyone else is like, you have a job?

I got benefits? Yeah. I've mourned before that. It feels like nobody wants to like say other comedies aren't funny out of like, you know, everybody's too polite but maybe it is just like everybody you're right like everybody's been brought so low they're like ah well that guy's got a job why should I be mean to the show even if I don't like it I'm sorry the bear this episode was 33rd in the ratings that week so with like

probably what it's 17 million viewers or something? Nineteen. Nineteen. Nineteen. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Eleven point nine. I was misreading something. OK, still. Wow. You know, I just went to a bunch of theme parks and going to theme parks. You sometimes watch, you know, live stage shows. We just watched the the Indiana Jones one.

And I did trying to go in and have fun with it at these big performances with kids everywhere. You wanna have fun and not be like rolling your eyes at it. I also brought very like, look out Smithers energy to it. Like Indiana Jones, look out, the Nazi's right behind you. Somebody say, quiet, you awful man. Actually, you know what?

They don't call them Nazis anymore in that Indiana Jones stage show it's all the same but they just say like enemy soldiers they don't say army base the real history of Indiana Jones and why why was the fourth one not as good as the others because the enemy soldiers in that weren't as fun as the enemy soldiers I know yeah it's hey, you just can't get it up for the commies anymore. That's why they just had to be like, look, it's Nazis again in the fifth one. We got there. They're 20 years older. Yeah, everyone should have food. We just don't know how to do it yet. Isn't as bad as kill people because they're different. But Homer thinks that a huge mob of people has come to his home to apologize, which this

is the first of the many, many, many mob scenes in Merkin's ears on the show driving animators insane. Yeah, I love how immediately peaceful the mob gets in this and Varts and her child where here they are going to go sing songs to the hospital and that episode they go to get some cider Just seeing a baby's tears causes them to see what monsters they become It's it feels like they're mocking the sentimentality of this episode. They are for sure. Hey, you know what? Here's another bit I got from the original script Mike from what you mentioned of like Casting of one-off lines in the original script fat Tony is the guy who says, what have we become?

But somebody must have said, eh, do we need Joe Montagna? Yeah, I noticed that he was in the mob scene. So they give the line to Jasper instead in the shot. Or, I mean, if he had said the Hibbert line, we give a bad name to the word mob, that would be perfect coming from Fat Tony. Oh, that would be funnier.

Someone was like, what if Legg says it? Ah, it won't work. word mob that would be perfect coming from Fat Tony. Oh that would be funnier. Someone was like what if leg says it won't work. So they leave singing high hopes and now at burns is fully defeated. Nobody will do the dirty work for him. So he is reduced to making Smithers bag on his behalf. But it's not good enough. Homer tells him it's not his bear. He can't give it away. Every everybody is respecting. They joke about this in other episodes and everybody's like, well, Lisa, this is your choice. But this is really big. They're like, you know what? This baby, whatever they choose, we're going to go along with it. We trust this baby's choices here. And so Burns must beg for Maggie. Maggie, I've given this a lot of thought.

I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement. Yes! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Beaten by an infant. What could be more humiliating? What a scoop! Okay, Maggie. You win, but I want you to do something for me. Hang on to that bear. Don't make the same mistake I made. Ah!

For me? Bobo? Smithers, I'm so happy. Something amazing has happened. I'm actually happy. Take a note. From now on, I'm only going to be good and kind to everyone. I'm sorry, sir. I don't have a pencil. Don't worry. I'm sure I'll remember it.

Well, we didn't get any money, but Mr. Burns got what he wanted. Marge, I'm confused. Is this a happy ending or a sad ending? It's an ending, that's enough. It's great when they can admit that like, is this a good finale? We're not sure, like what was the moral here? I do like that despite how crazy and mean the show

is getting in the mercantile years, especially at the very beginning, they're still gonna give you a little bit of emotion even if it's immediately subverted with an insane future scene. I love that it's an ending. That's enough. But it is amazing of like when you look even like itchy and scratchy and poochy and all that. Like this is meta before even that was.

Just like, yeah, it's a show. Like I don't know what you want from us. It's like it's so, it feels like something's, you know, Merkin said or somebody. Like someone like critiqued maybe even, you know, the network or something is like, it's so, it feels like something's, you know, Merkin said or somebody, like someone like critiqued, maybe even, you know, the network or something is like, hey, it's an ending. It feels a bit like a sequel to the joke at the end of Blood Feud where they're all sitting around the giant head and trying to think

what the moral of the story is and Homer's conclusion is, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened. Yeah. This time it's Homer who's lost and Mark has to be like, look, it's over, you watched an episode of TV and now it's Homer who's lost in Marjasky. Look, it's over. You watched an episode of TV and now it's done. Isn't that good enough for you? Yeah, Maggie's like, here's the bear.

I'm gonna shoot you in two years. She saw he didn't learn his lesson and that's why she punished him. I gave you Bobo for that. It is genuinely sweet and I think, I think as I was earlier, Homer has to be a good father for this show to work Or at least try to be a good father I I mean everyone has their theories on when it jumped or why it isn't as good like

When they made Homer too mean and he doesn't even like his kids like that. That's when it doesn't work It's like anybody would relate to what Homer does in this episode of choosing his child. It's a genuinely sweet touching thing and then to know that you know Maggie sees enough kindness in her life that she's willing to give the bear because a kid who grows up in a in a home where everybody hates each other is probably not gonna do this. Like the family has to be loving for that ending to work. And for the show to work, I think. I think like that's where it completely lost me when it wasn't about them like caring

for each other anymore. They just all become like monster. And Homer is just a full on like drunk monster all of the time who hates being around them. Yeah, he doesn't have to be perfect, but he has to at least make an attempt to be good. Also I love the animation on Burns failing to even budge Maggie on pulling on the bear. I was like how's the sand? Oh and we learned we learned the singular for paparazzi here in paparazzo. Well, he's lucky Maggie didn't have her gun this time.

Yeah. I also love what a scoop like that's so great. God. So yes, after all that, it's not truly the end as Burns is going to go to bed happy with his bear in a much better place than he was at the start of the episode. Now here's the last two big cuts from the episode

script, which were in the flash forward, they do two before they go to this. And first on screen is a chyron that says Washington DC 1997. And Canada has successfully conquered America by 1997. And it's the basically they like, it's the tatters of the American flag are being stopped on by the Canadian Army and they're saying like oh, I would say they did with the Austin Powers films That in 97 and he the Canadians did one at the box office, that's true But yeah, they then then one of the the soldiers say hey, what's this bear? Eh, and then tosses it like so first we see that flash forward to 97. Then we see

a flash forward to 2083, which is not so far away now, as I say, it's still 60 years, but in 2083 America is being taken over by spotted owls that have grown like mad because instead of being endangered, they are now taking over America. And Redwoods too, right? Right, and Redwoods too, yes. It's the classic John Swartzwelder anti-environmentalism comedy there, which is, it is pretty funny. We were keeping the Redwoods and spotted owls

in check until then. But then we get a real vision of the future of one million years from now. There you go. Ah, Bobo reunited at last. But I can't help but wonder what the future holds for you. Ah, yes. Wonder.

Don't! Don't! Bobo, I know I say this every century, but I'll never leave you behind again. Wait for me, sir. Yeah, real Futurama vibes. I think it's the first head in a jar on the show. And it should be mentioned that this is also David X. Cohen's first writing credit on The Simpsons. It's in this episode. So he's on the staff too.

Wow. Basically the co-creator of Futurama on this scene that even Grayning says on the commentary, like, oh yeah, I was inspired a little with this for Futurama, seeing this vision of the future here of a Burns in the jar. And Mike, I don't know if you see it in our Zencast or chat here, but I shared a pic of it because it's glued to my wall. I cannot turn my camera to show it, but I have a cell of Burns in his robo suit holding Bobo there. And I tweeted it out. That's me with Bob and his wife holding it in the picture there. But yeah. That's awesome. I mean, it is kind of a beautiful love story that Smithers gets to be with Burns for like

a million years. Yeah. Like he got what he wanted. He got his Bobo and I love that they're together the whole time. I love like the lore that's built in this scene of he loses him every century. And then he has him every century. Every hundred years they go on a bobo hunt together. And I mean, it's pretty good. Like I'm good in condition that bear still is a million years later.

That the, that other eye never popped off. Toys don't last the way they used to for the turn of the century, the turn of the last century. And I love the designs on all of the Planet of the Apes people. Like, and that Homer became the dominant gene in humanity. And now the only humans are homers as the animal class of the Planet of the Apes world. Well, like you said of like how, you know, it was important to end on this and not like the sweetness, but, but it all, but it all worked, you know, of just like,

here's this really silly gag, because we know we're a comedy show and we're giving you comedy first, but you know, we are still like a family show about people that love each other for the next few years. It does feel like a real statement of intent from David Merkin. This is how far we're going to go.

We're going to show you a character's head in a jar in the future where apes rule the world. One million years from now, we're show, yeah, we're gonna jump to one million years. This is not a dream sequence, this is the reality of the show. And it worked, I mean, he was five through seven, I mean, those are my favorite seasons.

I mean, I love a lot of four and eight too, but like, there is the, you know, he took full advantage of the fact that this is animated. He went to weird wacky places and but it but there there is also enough grounding in it for it to still feel simpsons you know in the classic way yeah no he he hired some amazing writers and and got some of the best scripts out of the show the and david silverman as the series director, him and all of the animators are at their peak. I'd say in seasons five and six, like, yeah, there's, there's a very strong

argument that five and six are the best and Merkin is part of that for sure. I mean, and you look like the joke density, I don't think 20 or 30 seconds goes by without a hard attempt at a joke. You know, even even the opening with the free kittens thing and then the O.E.O. with the whispering, like it just keeps hitting you. And look, like I think I believe this is one of the best episodes because I think the high level of the jokes that hit is just insane or how good they are. And I mean, they put jokes where they don't need to be.

I mean, that that's why I always say that this is the best written TV show of all time. You could have just done the pile of snow globes, but calling it never breaks snow globes like it is a room that is pitching on perfect ideas and putting the best hats on hats. The people often use that phrase to like disparage something. Oh, it's a hat on a hat. But like sometimes like people on hats. The people often use that phrase to like disparage something what's a hat on a hat, but like sometimes like people like hats. And if you have two fun ideas, it makes you know, a

visual gag even better. So I think like this, this to me is a top 10. Now, yeah, also, Mike, it's dangerous to tell you this is a toy collector. But if you want that figure of Burns and Smithers and Bobo, the combo, you can still find mint in box for about 75 bucks on eBay. I never got the Simpsons stuff. They didn't move much. The world is Springfield and now the super sevens are like too expensive. But I work with Pete Davidson a good amount and I wrote on the show Bupkis. We were going on tour, he just got into The Simpsons.

And his favorite character is Moe. And so if I'm on the road and I see a Moe thing, I'll get him a Moe thing. Wow, man. This is breaking, hey this is breaking star snoop here guys. Pete Davidson loves Moe. If you meet Pete, give him a Moe. Yeah.

Obviously, a lot of comedians love The Simpsons. Moe is often one of the favorite characters among comedians. I just bought a Vacation Smithers, because I saw a good deal on him at a comic shop I went to. I went to Mile High Comics, and it was like $15 for Vacation Smithers while I'm on vacation. You know what? I'm buying it.

That's where I bought the mo for The mile-high has they probably have the best Simpsons like they have a whole section And a lot of it's out of box, but some of its inbox and it's in have you ever been there Bob? Yeah, yeah, I went there a couple years ago. It's great. I think I think we bought like a Star Trek Deep space nine action figure. Yeah, I need about like an on car DS nine figure. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I bought I bought Peter Moe and he got me a 2.5 first appearance of juggernaut and like this is our first Wow Okay, wait first appearance of juggernaut that's is that X-Men 3? No, fuck, it's like 30.

You're thinking fat, not brawny. 3 is 12 is juggy. All right, then again I fail, and again I fail. Hey, knowing it is failing too, so. But no, yeah, in wrapping up thoughts on the episode, like you said to Mike, I think we are all in agreement here. This is one of the best. Absolutely.

Well, thank you again to Mike Lawrence for being a great first time guest. Mike, where can we find you online? What can you plug? What are you working on right now? Yeah, I'll plug some of the stuff I wrote on recently because residuals. But yeah, the Tom Brady Roses on Netflix.

You know, yeah, Bpkis season one. I mean, upload is a really fun show. I would say watch it if you haven't and then you like Greg Daniels. It's really great. And that was, I mean, that was an amazing experience that I got to learn from that guy. He is a pure comedy genius.

I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but the way that he thinks about comedy, like I was learning that stuff every day from him and it's stuff I still use. So yeah, support Greg Daniels is what I'm saying. Go watch the office on Peacock. King of the Hill reboot is coming soon, I think. Yeah, go watch the office on Peacock and then stick around for bupkis. Hey, you can make your own programming block at home. Yeah.

John Vede told us the same thing. He said, John Vede, who's been at all these great writers' rooms, he said Greg Daniels ran the best one that he ever was in. We'd love to have you back for tons more Greg Daniels stories or also learning about autism and in our own nerdy lives. I think every episode of this podcast is an office of podcast Thanks again to Mike Lawrence for being on the show Please check out all of his stuff

But as for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all the podcast ad free and one week at A time head on over to patreon.com Talking Simpsons and sign up for five bucks a month. That five bucks also gets you access to nearly 200 full-length mini series episodes covering things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Batman the Animated Series, Mission Hill, and The Critic. And that five bucks a month also gets you new regular monthly episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill. And again, that's only happening at the five dollar level,

only at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. There is a ten10 level as well when you sign up for that you get all of the $5 stuff naturally but you also get one very long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level what's going on there Henry? Bob's talking about the What a Cartoon Movie podcast where we go crazy in depth into an animated feature film and you know if you liked all this stand-up talk here we are having a fall of stand-up comedy on what a cartoon movie last month We did six hours on B movie. We really dug into that very poor

Jerry Seinfeld CGI film Bob did a ton of research you will learn secrets You'll know nowhere else about B movie if you listen to that. There's a ton of great stuff in that one. This month we are covering Adam Sandler's Hotel Transylvania directed by Gendi Tartakovsky, the total opposite I would say of B-movie in quality, and just in time for Halloween. And if you sign up today you get access to basically six years of What a Cartoon Movies, I would say over 200 hours easily of us covering Every disney renaissance film many classic disney films every toy story movie tons of anime from like studio ghibli Even beavis and butthead movies both beavis and butthead movies or if you liked all this comic talk

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Talk to the audience and we will see you then. Hey! No one thermos. You two huh? Hey, I know a good yogurt place. Get away from me, loser.