Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show Live With Bill Oakley

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

For the third time, we take our show on the road to Portland alongside Bill Oakley, former Simpsons showrunner and Steamed Hams Society boss. Recorded live on October 2, 2024, at Kelly's Olympian in Portland, OR! We all dissect a favorite ep from Bill's time on the series, The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show. Bill has many fun memories and digressions about how this episode happened, with tales of the show you'll only hear on this extra-large live podcast. How is Poochie like Mac Tonight & Cousin Oliver combined? Who was their greatest enemy in the '90s Simpsons fan sites? Learn all that here, and then check out our previous live shows with Bill Oakley, both our 2018 edition, as well as our 2023 one! Support this podcast and get over 180 bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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Merchants Bank is a proud member FDIC. the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. Once in a great while, we are privileged to experience a podcast live show so extraordinary, it becomes part of our shared heritage. 2018 Talking Simpsons performed at Kelly's Olympian. 2023 Talking Simpsons performed at Kelly's Olympian. 2023, Talking Simpsons performs at Kelly's Olympian. Again. And then for a long time, nothing happened. Until tonight, because tonight we are talking to Bill Oakley about the itchy and scratchy and poochy show.

Come on out, Bill. Welcome, Bill. Yes. Very kind of you. Thank you. Thank you, Bill, for coming on down for this celebration of Pucci, the Itchy and Scratching Pucci Show episode, specifically, which you were a co-show runner of,

the executive producer. I picked this episode for us to do, as you'll recall. Yes. This episode has more behind the scenes stories than any other episode from season seven or eight, and I felt like I wanted to tell, I wasn't on the DVD commentaries, and I wanted to tell them,

and I also wanted to excoriate a certain group of people, which I intend to do tonight. Ooh, oh boy. Uh-oh. And I guess for all the people in the audience who know this episode very well, try to look surprised. We're also huge fans of the Pucci episode, and Pucci himself, like, this is such a... You had a list of ones, and yeah, Pucci was the first one I wanted to do absolutely yeah yeah though Bill right now you've been doing you've been doing so many live shows you just came

from a southern tour did you not yes for those of you who are familiar Josh and I did a little show called Mission Hill after we left the Simpsons thank you glad to see we have mission help fan this one mission the t-shirt in the audience tonight we have been on tour. We swung Mission Hill t-shirt in the audience tonight. We have been on tour, we've been showing a restored version of the show in movie theaters around the country. We've had 26 shows, we just got back from Dallas and Atlanta from the hurricane that we had to drive through

to get there and literally that was just a few days ago. So it's exciting to be doing yet another live show only days later. It's true. It's Bill has devoted to touring. We took comfortable flights that were less than an hour long. So it's exciting to be doing yet another live show only days later. Bill has devoted to touring. We took comfortable flights that were less than an hour long. Very easy. How has the Steamed Ham Society been going, Bill?

It's going very well. The Steamed Ham Society, for those of you who don't know, is a club. My main profession these days is food-related stuff. Steamed Ham Society, named after the Steamed Ham Sketch, Sketch which I wrote is a club for people who like to talk about food. It's a discord. Join up if you want go to steamedhamsociety.com. It's doing very well. Like the Pucci episode it where to begin? Written by David S. Cohen February 7 1997. These are just basic facts about the episode before he became David X going he was yeah so I guess where where did poochie begin for for

you guys in in the writers room when did you guys decide you were gonna do a an episode about itchy and scratchy getting a new friend I'm pretty sure it was David Cohen's idea that he pitched like this it been, it was lost in the midst of time, the exact origins of it. So many large elements of the show are drawn from things that happened in the years prior to this being written. I think when David came up with this idea, everybody just jumped on it immediately,

and everybody was pitching out, oh, it could be just like this thing that happened last year. Oh, we could talk about all TV Simpsons, blah, blah, blah. I think David wrote a brilliant first draft, which is like, what's broadcast is about 80% of his first draft. The itchy and scratchy episodes had always been a little inside up to that one. But this one was like, it just took the front door off

of the writer's room and just dove right into the show and the making of the show. And it's really surprised me that it's so popular with the making of the show. Yeah, and it's really, can you surprise me that it's so popular with the general public as well? You know, they have these poochy merchandise, they have poochy shoes and all this stuff. This stuff is, it's all pretty inside baseball, or at least it was 30 years ago,

and the fact that the general public seems to really enjoy this and has taken certain lines from it and worked them into their daily lives Is very satisfying when the the episode like they I noted that the episode debuted with a sergeant pepper opening Like it's almost like a marker of time Did you when did you guys know that that episode was the one that like surpassed the the Flintstones? Number because it's that that's what the episode is is 167th episode Flintstones ran 166 So you like this is the one that killed Flintstones

It's still I recall that being mentioned, but it was not a factor in our thinking Someone cheered about the death of the Flintstones. They're correct Like I guess it poochie is the great gazoo or maybe Roy. He is great. Yeah. Oh keep in mind That's one of the things which we'll get to as we talk about this. The final desperate seasons of struggling shows where they add extra characters is one of the major inspirations for this,

such as the great Gazoo. And even, as I recall, in the late Flintstones, that they had that Adams-style family move in next door too. Yeah, yeah. They had like, and a Shmoo. They also like teamed up with little Abner Shmoo. So yeah, we obviously we were taking some some guidance from those late years of the Flintstones too. Well, yeah, I mean, the episode begins like our first clip is after it. But the episode begins with like the Bart and Lisa aren't watching itch and scratchy anymore.

And Marge is asking like, what happened? So was there the feeling of like the kids are not watching Simpsons anymore? Was there a fear that the ratings were just starting to go down or something? Oh this is one of my long digressions. Maybe we should get into the thing that, I have a series of very long digressions for this.

Oh boy. Prepared for tonight, one of which is this. Well when do you want the first digression? Oh wow. Okay well here, why don't we show the first clip. Your question sets up a very long digression. Well, here, let's watch our first clip of the episode as they talk about the ratings that bring about crisis. Hey, Krusty, you look great. You get your teeth bleached?

Yeah, it's a new kind of polymer treatment. Hey, shut up! You're here because your Itchy and Scratchy cartoons are stinking up my ratings. Look at this breakdown of yesterday's show. Kaboom! What happened here? Lightning hit the transmitter? See, that's what I thought at first, but the... Hey, shut up! That crater is where your lousy cartoon crash landed It's ratings poison, but it's Ian scratchy is critically acclaimed

acclaimed yeah, I Got a replacement right now with a Chinese cartoon where the robots turn into bling wads But I'm a lazy lazy man Roger So give you one more chance Get out don't come back till you're fixed itch yet scratchy. Okay Mel, you can go in now. Krusty, I've come to solicit donations for the Rock and Roll Museum. I'll come back later.

Well, it's time for the decryspill. Yes. Okay, it's hard to remember now, but the Simpsons wasn't really doing all that well for several years. For quite a few years, this is the thing. The landscape of television is so different today with cable and streaming services and all this stuff than it was in the 90s, from the 1948 to the 90s, where it all depended on what channel you were on at what time. This is a thing that doesn't exist anymore but back then

there were four networks, four broadcast networks and what time you were on and what you were up against was a huge... that was all that mattered. The ratings were all that mattered. It didn't matter how critically acclaimed you were. It didn't matter how much merchandise you sold. It just mattered what the ratings were period. Okay, and I can't stress this enough, we had two other shows that got canceled because they were in bedtime slots for this exact reason and it was a mindless machine that only cared about, this is how, by the way, those of you familiar with the history of

Family Guy, it was a victim of this exact same thing. Family Guy got kind of mediocre ratings and was canceled and then only came back because the DVDs sold so well that they brought it back because they were desperate for programs. So at this time, The Simpsons went in season one and early season two was like in the top ten, right? And there was a night when they moved it to Thursday and it beat Bill Cosby who was the number one show, The Cosby Show. Then that was when Simpsons Mania was going on. Then it kind of settled into a rut. They moved it to Sunday night.

And around season four, five, six, seven, eight, it was doing okay, but it wasn't doing great. You know, we were on against Matlock for one, which is why we made fun of Matlock. And we were also on against Mad About You, which I just couldn't fucking believe that it beat us every week. It clobbered us, it clobbered us.

So we were often coming in third, because everybody over 50 would be watching Matlock. Everybody over 25 would be watching Mad About You. And we were getting a huge share of the kids, which doesn't matter because 18 to 49 is all that matters. So, the Simpsons was not doing all that well. And generally, from those years, it usually came in like number 58, number 60.

And part of the reason the show was still honest, because it was doing well for Fox. But Fox only had the X-Files and The Simpsons during certain periods. So they weren't going to cancel anything, except for Family Guy. But the honest truth is there was a lot of concern that the show wasn't going to be around all that much longer because if they got something better they might just

dump us. Like now the idea that the Simpsons would ever be canceled is laughable. Now it's laughable but at the time we were always like they never talked about canceling us but it was always like this thing isn't gonna be on for much longer and this is this is why we did a lot of the things we did when Josh and I took over because as you may recall most comedies did not go on for more than eight or nine seasons. Mash, Cheers, Murphy Brown all those ones from that era they would end after season eight or nine or 10. So we were convinced that the show was gonna end at season nine or 10.

One of the wrongest things anyone's ever been convinced of. But we were convinced that the show was not gonna be around for much longer. So we were like, let's have all the fun we can with this magnificent sandbox. So that's why we started doing stuff like 22 short films and the Frank Grimes episode

and the Simpsons spin-off Spectacular, and this, because they couldn't stop us from doing it. And we were just like, this is going to be gone soon. This is the funnest job we'll ever have. Let's just do whatever we want. And this was part of that. So coming back full circle, yes. This was part of the feed.

This was a part and parcel of the generalized fear that the show was tired, the show was on its last legs, and trouble was brewing. Okay, now there's a number of other facets to that, which I can also digress about later, which are brought up in this episode. Oh, nice. He's making our job easy. Thank you. Yeah, hey, let's stand back here. Yeah, I wanted to, that to, you mentioned the ratings thing. I looked up what you guys were up against

when this episode aired that night, and it was the NBA All-Star Game was on NBC, and then CBS beat you with Touched by an Angel, just a regular episode of Touched by an Angel. Yeah, but it was, for the whole week, this episode was like 17. Like 17, that's pretty good. That must have been some weird week then

because it was not, that's very, that's abnormal. No, the week before didn't do as well, yeah. Even like Who Shot Mr. Burns, which was the biggest event of that whole five-year period, got, was like number 22 or something for the week. It can't be emphasized enough that grownups weren't really watching The Simpsons in those days. Every kid was watching it,

and most people who love The Simpsons now watch it in syndication. And they watched it, and they didn't watch it when it was live then, and that was a huge problem. So, like, then you were figuring they were having these meetings in Fox, like what trustee was yelling at Alex Rocca there? I mean they had bigger problems at Fox.

Us and the X-Files they were like okay those two those aren't going anywhere but all the 90 other shows they canceled you know it's been adequately lampooned but But there's a Herman's head shout out here. Yeah. So they were like, we were kind of holding down the fort, but it wasn't like there wasn't an enormous amount of confidence that was going to last much longer. Though I wanted to fan Chinese shows about robots that turn into blingwads.

Those are some of my favorite cartoons. Yes, we podcast about those too. Yes. Yeah. You guys also did this was his second appearance, but you guys brought back Alex Rocco onto the show. That was a big, big get. Because Azaria had played George Meyers,

not George Meyers, Roger Meyers. Roger Meyers. Fuck. Yes, but he had played him a couple times, but this was Rocco's return to it. Was it a big deal to get Alex Rocco back? I don't think it was a big deal. It was probably just a scheduling thing.

I mean, we always wanted to get the original actors from the old days, if possible, which is why we brought Roussey Taylor back to play Martin and things like that. And so I don't recall it being a big deal. Yes, in case you don't know, the voice of Roger Myers. Let's talk business. Yeah, let's talk business, Mike.

First of all, you're all done. The Coyote family don't even have that kind of muscle anymore. The Godfather is sick, right? You're getting chased out of New York by Barzini and the other families. What do you think is going on here? You think you can come to my hotel and take over?

Or maybe you know him from Sam's. You don't have to do it. But let's just realize that at this minute, we have the chance to change ourselves from people who say, but the money, the money, to people who take chances together. The Sibs clip didn't move the needle for us. No.

Nobody even remembers. Don't we all remember Sibs? We're going to be doing scatting about Sibs next year. And if you want to see what other Gracie Films productions are, that's one of them. Yes. You should have shown him getting shot in the eye. Why do you want to see what other Gracie Films productions are, that's one of them. Yes. You should have shown him getting shot in the eye. Well, I don't want to spoil.

Bob hasn't seen the Godfather yet. It's only been out for 50 years. But yeah, it's one of those voices. It's an iconic voice. And no men sound like that unless they're doing Rick and Morty impressions today. So you can't get a guy that sounds like Alex Rocko anymore. Totally.

No, it's a little mate. A guy who was an alleged mobster growing up then is a cartoon voice for a year for decades into like rest in peace Alex Rocco but after that scene they go with Bart and Lisa to an adorable thing of buying bra going bra shopping and they get approached by a creepy looking individual, which great design on that guy. We were like, yeah, make this guy look like an abductor slash molester. And they did a good job.

But they only get invited to a focus group. But so I guess before we see the focus group thing, you guys were like, something people don't understand about, maybe don't know about Simpsons is, there really was like a wall around you guys from executive notes unseen on most TV shows right like yeah that's why it was the best job of all time because I just I'm sure people who are fans of the show know this but it what happened was when Fox was starting out they were incredibly lucky to get

James L Brooks Jim, Jim Brooks, to work for them. He was the most acclaimed director in Hollywood. He won all these Oscars for broadcast news in terms of endearment, and he did the Tracy Allman show for them under a lot of strict conditions, and The Simpsons was a spin-off sort of of that. And the deal was that Fox could have the show, but they couldn't give us any notes. They couldn't, all they did, they couldn't even come to the readings of the scripts. They could just broadcast the tape that we delivered. And it was an amazing, that's, that's maybe almost a singular event in the history of television. It was a miracle. And part of what was happening

at this time was everyone else was, Jim Brooks was too busy to pay any attention to anything. And Matt Groening was gone most of the time time so Josh and I just did whatever we wanted. I guess he was doing as good as it gets maybe? Yes. Okay. Very busy getting getting Hank's area's then girlfriend to the Oscar nominated role. They were so happy to get it. Yeah. But so have you been party to focus groups after this scene that I never wanted to go to the Simpsons did not Actually the sims they did have focus groups on the Simpsons. Let's come back to this later. Okay, okay They they they did but Josh and I did a number of other TV shows and pilots

We never wanted to be present. Although I think it was possible to be present It's just too infuriating and heartbreaking. And so we would sometimes read the reports that came from the focus group, although I'd never personally witnessed one. That's what they're like. Well, why don't we see what it's like for a bunch of kids at a focus group? Hey, quit it! They like itchy, they like scratchy. One kid seems to love the speedo man. What more do they want?

Okay, how many of you kids would like itchy and scratchy to deal with real life problems like the ones you face every day? And who would like to see them do just the opposite, getting into far out situations involving robots and magic powers? So you want a realistic down to earth show that's completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots. That's right. Yeah, good.

And also, you should win things by watching. You kids don't know what you want. That's why you're still kids, because you're stupid. Just tell me what's wrong with the freaking show. Ah, mommy. Excuse me me sir. The thing is, there's not really anything wrong with the Itchy and Scratchy show. It's as good as ever.

But after so many years, the characters just can't have the same impact they once had. That's it. That's it little girl! You saved Itchy and Scratchy! Please sign these papers indicating that you did not save itchian scratchy. Now Bill, can you remember some of the more insane comments you've gotten from things like this in your history of being a TV writer, showrunner, creator? I don't want to go down that road. Oh.

I do recall, and this will be part of our later digression, that Fox did have run focus groups on The Simpsons with the general public. And somehow they relayed to us the public's suggestions. The biggest suggestion was just that we have more famous superstars on the show, you know, like Michael Jackson. People like that, and things like that. And that was really all they wanted.

It's like, we're not fucking taking that suggestion. Forget it. Maybe we'll have ones when we want them, like Johnny Cash, but we're not going to make that the point of the show. And they were always trying to encourage us to do things that might, I guess, bring us up from number 60 in the ratings to number 30. And fortunately, we didn't have to listen to them.

They came through four layers of bureaucracy that we didn't really interact with. Well, if you check Disney Plus, you'll find that Michael Jackson was never on the show. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He apparently said no. That's a guy. One of my favorite jokes, this episode is full of my favorite jokes, but the Speedo Man is so great.

It sets up that it's a great gag for just Nelson to prank Milhouse, but it's the way Alex Rocco says, seems to love the Speedo man. It's one of their regular characters. He's like, yeah, Speedo man, he likes him. His line readings in that scene are magnificent. That's because he keeps saying, just stupid. I mean, yes. Is this the first of many times in the episode it feels like you guys are speaking to your audience, saying you don't know what you want because your kids?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, actually, it's funny that grounded thing with magic robots that when we covered this previously with the creators of Steven Universe, they had mentioned that literally is what they wanted their show to be.

They did want it to be a grounded show but with crazy magic robots. And they even, Ian on his show OKKO put in, you win things by watching. He wanted to give away codes to download stuff. So you inspired so many creators with this. Well, and that show was a big success too, right? So good for them for taking our advice.

But I guess Lisa is speaking for you guys there then too. Just saying, like, you know, after, and to know in season eight of The Simpsons, which if you multiply it by four, is how many, you're close to how many seasons we've had now. Like that, you're saying then, like, oh, after so many years, even a great show, you get, it's familiar, right? Yeah, I think because the specter of Simpsons Mania,

when the show was beating Cosby, and it was in the top 10 every week, that the specter was haunting the people at Fox. And it's like, how can we get those days back? I think that was probably, I mean, that's probably every TV network executive's dream. It's something like that. To make the 90s happen forever.

It's my dream too. Now, in our next clip, this is the big one. This is the one where Mr. Bill Oakley is on the screen Oh boy have figured out how to rejuvenate the show It is so simple you egghead writers would have never thought of it What we need is a new character one that today's kids can relate to Are you absolutely sure that's wise, sir? I mean, I don't want to sound pretentious here, but...

Itchy and Scratchy comprise a dramaturgical dyad. Hey, this ain't hard, it's business! What do you got in mind, sexy broad, gangster octopus? No. No. The animal chain of command goes... Mouse, Cat, Dog. D-O-G. Uh, Dog? Isn't that a tad predictable? In your dreams. We're talking the original dog from hell.

You mean Cerberus? We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy. He's in your face. You've heard the expression, let's get busy. Well, this is a dog who gets bizzay. Consistently and thoroughly. So he's proactive, huh? Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.

Excuse me, but proactive and paradigm? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that. I'm fired, aren't I? Oh, yes. The rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky dog. I don't know, something along the lines of say, Poochie. Only more proactive. Yeah! So Poochie okay with everybody? Yeah, you know, it's good. You know, it's good. Woo!

There it is. Man. Yeah, I mean, Henry and I were never in the entertainment industry, but I think episodes like this prepared us to work with actual executives, and it was all true. Yes, yeah. They, they, everything, everything, including, I, I felt, I felt like many of the writers in there, but definitely the George Meyer, I felt like that, which I love, God, when you just watch every detail,

after George Meier says, I'm fired, aren't I? He is gone, like his character teleports away and is gone from the scene after that. We would just say the things that got us fired in Slack. Yes. We wouldn't actually say them out loud at the meeting. But wow, I mean, okay, so that was the writer's room there, or that was a meeting room for the writers.

Yes, that was, you know, in the episode from season four, The Front, the writers in that era had gotten to put themselves in the show, like John Vede and so forth, and so we saw this as an opportunity to do that as well, and so that's some of the writers, and the other ones appear in the recording studio scene, and so forth, so yeah, that's me and Josh

and George Meyer there taking these notes from Krusty and the network executive. And yeah, I mean, that's true. That's the way that network executives talked and always talked. And let me just say this, I don't think any, nobody who watches The Simpsons and likes it would ever have become a network TV executive. And they would never have watched The Simpsons. You know they might be watching today. They'd be watching Emily in Paris for example

But they would not have watched The Simpsons. They would not have understand what made it good They would not have liked people who worked on it And they would have a certain set of mathematical formulas in their head like the character needs to be proactive and so forth That they would force upon people who were writing TV shows for them. Again, we were blessed not to have to endure that. I think this is the first appearance of who would become Lindsay Nagel, who would just become the stand-in executive

for any episode's plot. I don't think she was named at this point, but she's named after a real executive, an HBO executive who was married to Dana Gould, who would become a writer for the show. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, but she stands for all the TV executives

that we have to deal with. No, I mean her proactive and consistently and thoroughly. I mean, we've also heard from TV cartoon friends that proactive is still being said in meetings. Well, now, the thing about this is at the time, I think, I, we all thought that was stupid, but I think when you think about it, what you're, what they mean, and this makes sense, is you want a character who's doing stuff. You don't want a character who is a victim of circumstance. You want a character who's out there making things happen.

Right? And I think that's what people like to watch. So, I what that said. But at the time though, I don't think any of us understood what proactive even meant because it was buzzword. And it was used extensively to annoy us. But I can understand why people like, people wanna watch TV shows about action heroes or whatever, firefighters. They don't wanna watch people sitting at their desk all day.

I guess unless it's the office, in which case they love it. I think we both really enjoy the, let's say, unflattering vocal imitations of you and the other writers. Yes. Yeah, when the actors... See, the actors would always take the opportunity to make the writers sound as nerdy as possible. Yeah, I think Hank Azaria's giving you a bit of an Ivy League spin. I like that. I think I did well... I came off well in that, which is why Mission Hill Josh and I

voiced our own characters, so this won't happen. No, yeah, I think, were you saying dramaturgical dyad around the office much back then? That was a little above my vocabulary level. Yeah, also, where were all the snacks, if that was the writer's room? It's missing out on all the butterfingers. I think this is supposed to be a more sophisticated writer's

room than the one you saw in season four. Oh, well, actually, yes. Since you mentioned that, yeah, they, I write. Or rather, it's like, I think we needed a conference room, as opposed to the writer's room, which is a different thing. Yeah, I had a minor history here of the previous appearances here. So yeah, in Itchy and Scratchy and Marge,

it was only the directors who were drawn into the episode. Yeah, that's Rich Moore and David Silverman and Wes Archer. Rich Moore would become black and one of the three nerds at some point. Right, right. And just use that design again. And that David Silverman is very different than the David

Silverman you'll see in this episode. But then, yes, in the front, that's when the writers really got into it. First you have John Vede. That's the John Vede character that you saw. And this is the front, that's when the writers really got into it. First you have John Vede. That's the John Vede character that you saw. This is the room, yeah. Now that isn't accurate depiction of the writers' room from that era. The conference room was a different... that was like the network conference room or something, you know.

The writers' room did look like that. Well, it did look like that, pretty much. With that much filth in on both, from ceiling to floor. Yeah, that's, that would be George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Sam Simon, and Mike Reese there on the couch. And then though from another angle, you also spot John Swartzwalter there.

Yeah. Though also in the episode, they even snuck in at the award ceremony, then there was Gina Reese accepting the award. And also even Matt Groening drawn into there too. And there's Schwarzwald and George with black hair. I think Jeff Martin is there too. Yeah, it does look like Martin with beady.

But yeah, they- If you're listening at home, this is all correct. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was, so you guys were just following that tradition then from the front. Oh, also from the front. Oh, also in the front they even put in the animators,

like this is the director cameo from the front, but it was a deleted scene. So they only got, only if you have the DVD can you see Jim Reardon, Rich Moore, David Silverman, Carlos Paez, Wes Archer, and I am assuming that's Jeff Lynch, but I don't know. It couldn't be. It doesn't look anything like Jeff Lynch. Brad Bird? Let's say Brad Bird. I don't know. It doesn't look anything like Jeff Lynch.

Brad Bird? Let's say Brad Bird. I don't know. He's drawing an iron giant. That might just be a fictional character. Okay. But yeah, unfortunately though, the poor directors, they got their candy up cut from the,

I think it's because of this, I believe it was the animal violence that got it cut. I think that's why. That was Jim Reardon lighting his stick of dynamite and putting it inside of a living cat's mouth. S&P. Oh, also that poochy okay with everybody, like that became just a catchphrase for you guys, right?

Just like, poochy okay? Like you just settle, just settling for it or something. Oh yeah, that, it was a very realistic remark and it encapsulated a certain kind of thinking that we sometimes suffer from. The Simpsons will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs.

Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit DejaDen.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Hey everybody, it's Henry here saying, where's Poochie? But a big, big thank you to Bill Oakley and everybody else who came out to our amazing Portland live show as Bill told us everything about Poochie. You guys I think are learning a whole lot on this podcast.

And we of course couldn't do it without Bill. Oh my God, Bill Oakley is the greatest guy in the world. And if you are not following him on all of the social medias, especially his Instagram with all of his great food reviews, you have to be following that Bill Oakley on all of social media. And don't forget to join the Steamed Ham Society on Patreon of Bill Oakley.

You stay in the loop on so many cool food things and his reviews, so many awesome things. Thanks so much to Bill for joining us once more at Kelly's Olympian in Portland. And if you enjoy the Talking Simpsons podcast and want us to be able to do cool stuff like this all of the time, you got to support us at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. This is me and Bob's full-time job and we're only able to do it because of folks who give five bucks a month to get so many exclusives at patreon.com slash talking simpsons every month they get a new episode of talking Futurama and talking of the hill us covering an episode of each

of those shows super in depth just like we do a poochy episode as well as a huge back catalog of us covering every episode of the critic many of our favorite episodes of Batman the animated series and if you love all this bill oakley talk every episode of The Critic, many of our favorite episodes of Batman the Animated Series, and if you love all this Bill Oakley talk, every episode of Mission Hill including the unfinished episodes that they had done and we interviewed Bill and Josh all about that a few years ago. Sign up today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons to see all you're missing out on. But if you want something even nicer than a vintage Mack tonight toy, you need to sign up at the premium level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons.

10 bucks a month gets you not just those awesome things I just mentioned, but also basically a triple linked podcast each month about an animated feature film. I'm talking about the what a cartoonoon Movie Podcast where we talked about last month. B-movie, the 2007 flop from Jerry Seinfeld and DreamWorks. We have so much to talk about in that insane movie, including tons of behind the scenes secrets Bob dug up that you will only hear on our podcast. And this month, to get in the Halloween spirit, we're talking about Hotel Transylvania, the Adam Sandler, Genndy Tartakovsky film

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other Pixar films too. Tons of Batman movies, tons of Spider-Man movies, tons of Batman movies, both Beavis and Butthead movies, and so, so much more, including our longest podcast ever, six and a half hours about who framed Roger Rabbit. Please sign up today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons to hear everything you're missing out on. And when you mentioned the other writers, let's I had stills from a little later in the episode just because we wanted to ask you because there were ones we couldn't identify either. So yes

so around the table here like we got you and you and Josh George Meyer. Steve Tompkins who's the one who says yeah you know it's good. Okay then other side is David Cohen coming up from the bottom, David Cohen, Ned Goldreier, Lindsay Nagel, and Krusty. Oh, Ned Goldreier, okay. So that's Krusty, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which, was there a particular reason it was George Meyer who's the one who sasses off in his exits the room, or was he one of the sassier guys with the executives, or it's just- We never encountered any executives, so I don't know how he met. He certainly would have been the one to say that had had it really occurred I don't know who picked I think the animators might have picked this too I don't know see I think it just said writer number one writer

number two writer number three and I think the animators might have decided who those were okay well then from a little later in the episode I'm zooming in on this guy here. So who's the guy in the purple shirt behind him? That's Dan McGrath. Oh, OK. But he's much taller than that, so it's kind of disconcerting. He seems very small and sickly.

It's inaccurate. Also, Bob and I were both wondering, is the technician guy anybody? Or is he like? I don't think so, I think that was made up. He has the sickliest voice I think of all the book limitations. Oh, you know, I think that was Harry Shearer doing an imitation of the guy who actually recorded our show

that was rather unkind. Oh. Oh. Yes. And I guess Mike Scully with the coffee cup don't know the guy next to him. That's not David Silverman Oh, it's Dan Graney. Dan Graney on the right Silverman on the left. Got it. Okay, Cohen on the far left All right. So yeah, that's Cohen with it. Okay. All right, mostly why we invited Bill here

Yes, he's killing us and then and then one last still from late in the episode We can only recognize the little guy in the middle there because it's a very tall man It's not nearly tall enough in that thing. That's Ian Maxstone Graham. On the right is Rich Appel, on the left is Ron Howie. Oh, OK. OK, well there you go. All right, see, my original thought on the Rich Appel one,

I thought that was Dana Gould. But I was like, no, this is before he even worked there. Rich Appel and Smithers separated at birth. Well, OK, well there. Now we finally have the answer of all the cameos. Who makes sure that the caricatures get in there? You guys meet with the artist to say, or the director to say, OK, here's who we want designed in the episode for the cameos?

I think we ask them to draw all the writers and then just said put them in, just make sure everybody appears at least for a fraction of a second, you know, because we didn't want any hard feelings on that kind of, on that thing. Not, that way no, nobody, I mean somebody had to be like, hey, where was I in this one? I think everybody who was currently working there got in for at least a couple frames. Oh, good. Oh, that's nice. Well, we do have a deleted scene.

Yes, yes. So this is the first of several deleted scenes that were on the DVD. And maybe you haven't seen this in a very long time, Bill. And we do hear actual writers' voices in this. So who do you think built those heads on Easter Island? Oh, I think it was giant ants. I don't know.

Dennis Rodman, he's a bitch. That's absolutely Josh Watson. Yeah, it's so John. Part of it sounds like Dan, but then that's Josh. I think Josh is the Josh. Yeah, that's weird. OK, no, I've never seen that. Were conversations like that time killers in the writers room back then?

Oh yeah, there were long digressions, but that I think was the original end of the scene until we determined that, you know, Pucci's good. It was the actual better end to the scene, but I think that was supposed to be slightly funnier although it wasn't, which is why it got cut. But yeah, there were so many digressions, I don't have to go into this. It depended on who was running the room, what time of day it was, or whatever, but there were many, many digressions, I don't have to go into this. It depended on who was running the room, what time of day it was, or whatever. But there were many, many digressions all the time.

Do you think back then you would have had more or less digressions if you had smartphones to be able to look up facts instead of just guessing at who won an Oscar or something like that? Well, those of you who've been to the Mission Hill Show have heard this story before. But back in those days, we didn't have cell phones. So the only thing you had to distract yourself

was with smoking and eating. And Swartzwilder smoked two packs a day in the room with unfiltered camels with a thing. And then the rest of us ate. We ate and ate and ate and ate. I lost 65 pounds when I left the Simpsons. So, and honestly, it's your question. I think that like, just, it was very boring,

you know, to work there, even though you're making up funny stuff, it takes an hour to make up funny stuff. And it's the same guys all day long, you know, all 50 weeks a year, 12 hours a day. And so, you're desperate for entertainment, which in most cases was provided by eating. Eating everything from Oreos to a multi-course lunch that you would order every day,

a pie that you would order to take home at night, and whatever, and some cocktails. One time I ordered caviar, I'm sure you heard this before, I finally broke the system when I ordered caviar one night, and that got out. That became a thing that people in Hollywood were talking about.

But they didn't stop us. I think we recently discovered the Butterfinger BB dispenser. Yeah, that was delicious. We used to get those. We had a discussion about this recently. The Butterfinger BBs were these whopper-like things with Butterfinger in the middle. The Butterfinger made it, and they were delicious-like things with butterfingers in the middle that Butterfinger made and they were delicious.

And we used to get a lot of them, they sent us a dispenser that was like a globe that you would rotate and they'd roll out. And we all enjoyed it so much until someone poured water in the hole in the globe and it became a big gross mess. And this was just last month. We were all reminiscing about this on Twitter

and it was Mike Greasezo pointed out that it was Conan who poured the water in there. And we were all like, that fucking guy. He owes you guys. No, yeah, that great account on Twitter, Dinosaur Dracula, like he found a vintage one of those dispenser things too. I think that's what my... I don't know why they don't make those things.

They're so good. Butterfinger BBs. Crazy. Well, Butterfinger only recently got a new deal for Simpsons endorsements again. They got, for the 100th anniversary, the Simpsons are back on the bar now. Good, good. Advertising it. But yes, I guess after it goes to the writers now we get to follow the

Cartoon creation to the next step you go to the director in this case David Silverman with a very different look than how he looked to be the itchy and scratchy Marge episode No, no, he was supposed to have attitude um What do you mean exactly? Oh, you know, attitude, attitude. Sunglasses. Can we put him in more of a hip-hop context? Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer.

Give me a nice schmear of surfer. I feel we should rostify him by 10% or so. by 10% or so. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Hmm. I think he needs a little more attitude. Oh, yeah. There you go. There it is, right there. That's it.

I love it. Oh, I love how Alex Rocco says, I love it. His performance is so good. But, yeah, so that this. Yeah, I love it. It's so good. His performance is so good. But yeah, so that seems like an artist's nightmare of having three executives hanging over their shoulder explaining how to draw everything. For sure, but the thing is, I think as we discussed,

that type of character has worked for decades. And it's actually not inconceivable. I mean, how many characters like that have you seen in your lifetime? There are many of them. Joe Camel being an example that we were discussing this evening, but there's been hundreds of characters of that type, especially in children's stuff,

but also in grown-up stuff like Camel Cigarette advertising that, and Mac tonight, and Max Hedlund. Wait, wait, oh, Bill, no, please you're actually, Wait, wait. Oh, Bill. No, please. We actually have, We have a digression this time. Yes, okay, great, great. We have a gallery of Poochies.

So they're not serving the same function as Poochie is in the show, but in terms of being over designed and wearing sunglasses, they are Poochies. So we're going to show off some Poochies. So first we have Chester Cheetah. By the way, this is all pertaining

to Bill's interests as well. Yeah, thank you. And we could see, Cheetos presents Chester Cheetah. By the way, this is all pertaining to Bill's interests as well. Yeah, thank you. And we could see- Cheetos presents Chester Cheetah. I'm Chester Cheetah. I'm just a cool dude in a loose mood. See, he's got kind of a rap, like Poochie. He's proactive.

Yeah. Yeah. He's not sitting around. He's out there making things happen. He defines himself as a cool dude, like Poochie. No, that first picture of him is the cover of his Super NES video game, too. That's how much kids loved him.

And he's got attitude. He's got sunglasses. He's got attitude. He's got two Super Nintendo games. Well, then the next one, too, is we've got, well, there's a number of them for Kool-Aid, but. Yeah, there's also Purple Sorus Rex, but he is not as clad in sunglasses as this guy

Yes, yeah, we got Huge sunglasses on that guy. I think some of these characters were rostified by maybe 20% Oh, yeah It's charcoal Barry Finn for sure. Yeah, characters were rostified by maybe 20%. Oh yeah, Charcoal Barry Finn for sure was rostified. No, and I just love, like if Charcoal Barry Finn had been successful, he would have fully replaced Kool-Aid Man. And so it's like Kool-Aid Man is like introducing his replacement there and just happy like, oh, look at this guy. He's fun.

The Kool-Aid people are telling him train this guy, and then we'll talk to you later. And then of course at Kraft macaroni and cheese they got their own Pucci as well. Yeah he was around since the 80s but this is very... Yeah I mean that's from an early aughts but he had been wearing sunglasses before that. I think in that video some of the noodles were wearing sunglasses so that counts. They're pretty cool too.

And yeah, you would think the kids would have enough of the McDonald's Playland pals. Yes, look at these dead-eyed losers. If only someone cool came along, let's say with a flying piano. When the stops come out to play, baby, a twinkling show, ooh, dinner at a sight. Yeah, the nighttime is calling, lifetime in the At McDonald's Your dinner is Mac tonight Yeah, McDonald's was like, what if we hired a sleep paralysis monster to sell you food at night? And kids of the 80s love the 50s song Mac the Knife. Yes.

They love it, they want to hear it. They want to hear a song about a guy who stabs women. Yes. And think about how much they want to eat McDonald's. While eating a Big Mac at 10 38 PM. Yeah. No, I mean, Bill, you have an affection for Mack tonight, especially. Oh, yeah, I'm a big fan of that sort of thing.

Is Mack's Headroom coming? No, no. No. I wanted to see Mack's Headroom. OK. But yes, this era from the mid-80s to the mid-90s was possibly the apex of this type of character and it was everywhere. But again, as somebody, I think in the audience said Sonic is one of these characters. They're

very popular for a reason, especially with kids. And I think that the Poochie, it's a pretty realistic scenario that they would want to add another character to poochie and get into how realistic it is after the next clip I think you're gonna show one well also like that nunchuck that poochie has to that's like oh yeah he's also Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle but well on the topic of Mack tonight though I do I do also have a special effects for back tonight I actually just went to Orlando and when I was there found one of the few surviving official Mac tonight That are in this if you go to Orlando the only reason to go to the world's biggest McDonald's is

To go to find the surviving Mac tonight that is there. There's him from another angle. It's still, it's up there next to the Play Plays. We took the picture quickly and I was like, I have to take this pic very quickly and get away from the Play Plays so it doesn't look like I'm photographing children playing in the Play Plays. They got it set.

I think that really is one of the only official Macktonites still at a McDonald's. This is making me want McDonald's a lot. It's really working. It is a Mac tonight, but okay. So that's just a smattering of some of the poochies out there. Far too many to list.

Yes, but poochie is also part of a dramaturgical dyad in this episode with a second character that joins the show. Hey, Lise, look, they're adding a new character to Itchy and Scratchy. Hoochie the dog. Adding a new character is often a desperate attempt to boost low ratings. Yo, yo, how's it hanging, everybody? Morning, Roy.

Yeah, hi, Roy. Hey. Now, I think we've heard in interviews that there was pressure to add a younger character to the show. Not in terms of being a child, but like a teenager. Yeah, I'm going to get into that. Okay, so people from people who grew up when we did were familiar with this happening, as we discussed in the Flintstones. Shows that were in this, their fifth, sixth, seventh season, were often adding new characters in

a desperate attempt to stay relevant. Most notably, I think for many of us of my age was Cousin Oliver. Oh, okay. Well. Oh, I'm stepping on your... Yes, okay. There it is. Well. Great minds think alike. Yes, Brady Bunch final season. Also, because Cindy and Bobby had gotten kind of old and little kids wanted to see a little kid so they added cousin Oliver but this is every show did this and Happy Days especially

there's so many shows that were adding new characters in their fifth, seventh season. This was something that had come up and I want I have to be discreet about this because there's been a lot of misinformation about what happened and I can't say specifically what it was. But I think perhaps on the heels of those focus group materials I was talking about, someone very powerful within the Simpsons universe said, I think it's time we have to add a teenage character to the show. And we were horrified. This person was a powerful person within the Simpsons universe,

so I'm not gonna say who it was, but this was when David Merkin was running the show, and he said, okay, so we've been told we should add a teenage character to the show, and every writer was just sitting there silently going, this is no, it's gonna be the end of the show, people are gonna use this as an inflection point to say we jumped the shark.

Let's just pretend we didn't have this conversation. And that's what happened. Wow. Wow. You just let it, like you just let it pass over, like they'll forget about this. That's the way things work so much of the time. Wow.

That was Homer's, in Homer Goes to College, his plan was to hide and hopefully everything will be okay. And then it went, but this worked out that way. Wow. Yeah, yeah. A lot of things tend to work out that way, but this in particular was just like, let's pretend, we're gonna say we discussed it,

and we're working on it or whatever, and then this person will eventually forget they made that suggestion. Why, because when you went on to do Mission Hill, one of the things you mentioned was like, you wanted to make it not like the Simpsons and talk about the generation of people who aren't on the Simpsons.

So Roy does address that, you know, a guy in his early 20s is not on the Simpsons or late teens. Right, I mean, Roy is quite obviously, is poochy, is just a human poochy in every way possible. So I mean it's supposed to be very clear even to the dimmest viewer. That they are a dramaturgical dyad. I guess it's just Roy and Kearney

who are the 20 year olds in this universe. Oh that's true, yeah. No, I love Homer's. Hi Roy. Yeah, hi Roy. Like he does, I got, no yes I love Homer's. Hi Roy. Yeah, hi Roy. No, yes, we did have, we had a collection of Roy's as well. Yes, starting with Cousin Oliver, Robbie Wriste right here.

Oh, it's okay. I can get it. Well, if you insist. See, you don't, why do you make it that the character sucks like that's what I never got about like so cousin Oliver's here and also he sucks and everybody doesn't like it he's accompanied by a trumpets everywhere but but yeah as well Scooby got his scrappy-doo? Alright shadow creature, you're dealing with Scrappy Doo now. Prepare to splat! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr arguing with my own kids when the Scooby-Doo movie came out. And spoiler, the end of the Scooby-Doo movie is that Scrappy is the villain.

And it horrified all the kids. Because they were like, Scrappy's so cool, Scrappy. And I was like, why do you like Scrappy so much? And they're like, well, because he has puppy power. That's what they said. So in my experience, kids loved Scrappy, I think, was a huge success. But if you were, I mean, I didn't like Scrappy as a kid.

I can say I didn't, I'm being honest. I skipped those Scrappy episodes when I was a kid. I'd check a different thing on USA Cartoonish Press. But that movie was made for Gen Xers, who all hated him. Yeah, and I guess the premise of Scooby-Doo is it's funny they're afraid of monsters, but what if one of them wasn't? Yes, yeah.

Well, and our final example of a Roy is very specific to Fox One, because on the seventh season of Married with Children, they got the appropriately named Seven on the show. Oh! I love you, you big lug. Give me money. Do you know where your knee is?

Yes, I do, so give me money. Oh, kids, why don't you take little Seven upstairs? Come here, Seven. To be fair, they did kill him later. Yes, yeah. They eventually killed him on the show. He went back to his home planet, it's fine. I didn't know Seven was an alien. He, I guess, yeah, no, he, it was, they added a little kid in the Seven season of Married

with Children, and then he just vanished from the show. They really did give no explanation for him. And they put, Bob found a great still, they put him on a milk carton in like his eighth season of the show. But that was very similar to Simpsons, a long running show, and it sounded like they took executive advice of like,

what if you gave him a new kid? Like a, yeah. Exactly. So they had the same pressures but not the Jim Brooks wall there. But yeah, so Roy is in a long tradition. Did you guys consider having like a poly shore type do the Roy voice or was it always gonna be, you know,

Hank doing it? I don't think we ever considered it having anyone. We didn't want to hit the outshine Pucci, so we kept it low, the down low. I mean, I, the down low. I mean, I love the Roy design. He is so great. He instantly just walks in there and takes over.

But every character ignores him as well. They take him in stride. That's part of the obvious, stating the obvious, the joke. Homer goes, yeah, hi, Roy. It seems like he's been there for years. And that's the joke, is that they take him in stride. And he comes, he appears in the series, he disappears in the series,

without anybody blinking an eye. Also that headline, funny dog to make life worthwhile. That's another of my favorite, favorite headlines. Then after that, we have the public auditions for Pucci's voice, which Homer is convinced to try out for. ["Pucci's Voice"] Homer is convinced to try out for it. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Oh, a talking dog. What were you guys smoking when you came up with that?

We were eating rotisserie chicken. Can you just read the line, please? Ruff, Ruff, I am Poochy the Ragging Dog. You're perfect! In fact, you're better than perfect! Next to you, perfection is crap! Ruff, Ruff, I'm Poochy the Rockin' Dog! Hi, I'm Troy McClure.

You may remember me from such cartoons as Christmas Ape and Christmas Ape Goes to Summer Camp. You're even better than this guy! Take a hike, you bum. So I guess how often was the cleaning staff taking tiny chicken skeletons out of the writer's room? Everybody was eating. That was the heyday of rotisserie chicken. People frequently asked us what we were smoking,

and the answer was nothing. It's true. That's a true statement. Nobody ever smoked anything. They were having rotisserie chicken or Oreos's a true statement. Nobody ever smoked anything. Having word history, chicken or Oreos and a whole pie. That's, I mean, it's just so great that it is the pot reference joke character asking

the writer of the show, do you guys smoke pot? Yes. That is what's so perfect. And I mean, also too. Pot was illegal at this time by the way. Yeah. That's what people listen to this podcast. Okay.

Well and Troy McClure, I mean we love him every second he speaks but that was such a clever thing that he would have been a Hanna-Barbera voice actor on like a shitty 70s cartoon as part of all the other things. And like Christmas Abe at Christmas ape goes to summer camp. That's, God, I love that so much. Like they had a hit with Christmas ape

and they decided, well, what do we do? What can we do next? Well, I guess he goes to summer camp. It's kind of like how the Grinch eventually showed up on Halloween and no one knew what to do. Yeah, exactly. God, that's so good. But yeah, actually in voice casting,

how often is it that you get that kind of reaction of, oh, you're perfect, and then instantly, like, nah, the next person, they're more perfect. Or does it work like Homer insulting you that makes you hire the person? That doesn't work quite as well in real life. I would say, generally, it's much harder. You don't have that many perfect candidates for your role.

You have one that's okay. Well, after all these performances, Homer does get the job. He insults Alex Rocco enough and then forgets. It's so funny. But in between those scenes, there's also a couple deleted scenes more here. Oh wow.

I never saw any of these deleted scenes. I don't know. What do you think Marge? Should I audition for Poochie? Absolutely! I think it's a great idea! Really? But you never want me to do anything.

Well, now that you mention it, maybe it would be better if you sat this one out. I mean, what if you don't get the job? Where would we be then? Sorry Marge, you made up my mind. I'm auditioning for the part. Yeah! Go, Jake! Go, Jake! Great! What are you doing, homie?

I want to look sharp today for my first performance as Poochy. But it's just a cartoon. Nobody's going to see. You know what? That's a darn good idea. Those ring any bells, Bill? Any memories? No, not really. It sounds believable.

They seem like they were animated by our animators. This was not AI. No, I love that one there. I like the first one because Roy, we get a little extra Roy there, just a little extra Roy, getting in on the family hug. That was nice. The parts of that scene that you didn't show

are my favorite parts where Homer says, they say haven't you ever listened to your own voices? No, I prefer to listen to Cheap Trick. And the thing where he goes, and I do this at least once a month, is go hey this is Homer Simpson's howdy to all the ladies out there in Radio land that part it's still it still rings true to me you know you guys on Mission Hill you did do

voices on it and now after the Simpsons like it feels like every cartoon show the creators do voices on it were you guys jealous you couldn't do as many voices on the Simpsons like creators do yeah but the actors witnessed it the actors have a lot of power on that show so they wouldn't have stood still for the for us doing our own voices and I also I liked Marge pointing out that like she actually is agreeable with Homer and Homer reminds her of her game but yes so after that, it's time for Homer's first day at the job.

OK, Homer, let's get a level check on your voice. That's Harry's impression of the guy who ran our recording. She smells by the sheet store. Wait, wait, let me try it again. Relax, Homer. You'll do fine. I'm June Bellamy. I do the voices of Itchy and Scratchy. You? But you'll do fine. I'm June Bellamy. I do the voices of itchy and scratchy.

You? But you're a lady. She's a lady alright. A beautiful lady. Hey, it really is you. How'd you get to be so good? Oh, just experience I suppose. I started out as Roadrunner. Meep. You mean meep-meep? No. They only paid me to say it once. Then they doubled it up on the soundtrack.

Cheap bastards. You folks ready to begin? I guess. Is this episode going on the air live? No, Homer. Very few cartoons are broadcast live. It's a terrible strain on the animator's wrist. -♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, Universe version of June Foray. That's right that's June Foray. Yes yeah in case folks don't know June Foray she was the queen of voice acting. She is there. The voices of Rocky and Bullwinkle as well

as a host of other characters belong to June Foray and Bill Scott. Why didn't you tell me before? I didn't think you'd believe me! I don't! But it sure helps the plot! It was on the Simpsons! Rub-a-baby buggy-bumper babysitting service! Hello, this is Mr. Samson. Did your wife just call a second ago?

No, I said Samson, not Simpson. Thank God! Those Simpsons! What a bunch of savages! Especially that big ape father. Doh! And though she is voiced by Tress McNeil, who I would say is the June foray of today. Absolutely. Yes, yeah. So it's kind of fitting that she's playing it. But yeah, having June foray in what was supposed to be the first episode of The Simpsons

Some Enchanted Evening was you know a passing of the torch type deal They wanted to do which was very sweet, but you so that you create this June for a character That would be working with Homer. It's such a great I I love that she still is mad at being ripped off by Warner Brothers for her one It's very believable as someone who's being ripped off by Warner Brothers for her one meeting. It's very believable as someone who's been ripped off by Warner Brothers. Ha ha ha ha. Well, and yeah, so that, well, I'm

glad to know now that that is not Harry Shearer mocking a writer, it's mocking a. Mocking the recording engineer, yes. How similar is that to the recording set up for an episode of Simpsons? Well, it's changed over the years. When we did it, it was not like that. It was not a small room like that.

That's more like a recording studio where someone would do an audio book or a solo. Ours was a big room that was like an old time radio show with the actors having music stands and they stood around and there were microphones dangling over them. And this was back in that time, they mostly recorded in person together or usually?

Yes. Okay, all right. But, but well, that's, everybody's pretty remote now, I think. Yes, I think some of them record from other countries. Yeah, I think the other side. Their lives changed after they made that $70 million. But after that scene with June Foray,

then comes the scene that inspired us to make this podcast. Yes. Hi, question for Miss Bellamy. In episode 2, F09, when Inchi plays scratchy skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we, to believe that this is some sort of, uh...

Uh... A magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that, Blondie. Uh... Well, uh... I'll field this one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says, genius at work, spend all of his time

watching a children's cartoon show? I would draw my question. Ah, excuse me, I'm Esther Simpson. On the itchy and scratchy CD-ROM, is there a way to get out of the dungeon without using the wizard key? What the hell are you talking about? You're a lifesaver, Homer.

I can't deal with these hardcore fans. Ahem. So at this point, we should say, there is no Q&A session at this panel. Yes, no Q&A. But it's like I'm looking in a mirror. Yeah, I know. For those of you, since this is an audio podcast,

you can't see the shirt that's being worn right here It's the genius at work sure yes, which is a real like that was a real it was not invented for this It was a real shirt that you could buy that people wore in the 70s and so forth much like nuke the whales Which is another thing that people think we made up That was a real poster that you could buy was in the back of like national ampoules and cream and stuff. And the mail order ads, that was a real thing. Though this one I'm wearing you can buy it to our T-Public store, the Talking Simpsons T-Public store. And they're almost always on sale for some reason. Like everything in our store. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? I'm just glad that Bill never answered any of my questions.

What the hell are you talking about? Yes. No, I mean, yeah. I live, I am Doug, the nerd in this. Like, that is me. I've had all these questions. This is why we wanted to have a show, to ask people these questions like but why did that happen? Why did Homer do this? That in this scene like but it's okay so Bill did you guys go to signings or conventions back then and get these kinds of questions?

Is that what made that you this scene appear in the episode or Or where where did this come from in real life? We actually did let's save it until we get to the internet part. Oh, okay. All right? We didn't, we never encountered, rarely encountered real fans. We didn't go, Matt Groening would go to Comic-Con

and sign things or whatever, and I think we had a, maybe once we had a panel there or something like that, but it was always Matt Groening that people wanted to interact with and have him autograph stuff. So we did not encounter things like that in real life. We encountered them online. That's my next large digression coming up later.

Well, I mean, you guys probably did get asked questions about specific Simpsons video games back then, which would have like wizard keys. They would be there. Yes. Though I don't know if you could help us with what all things have to be painted purple in BART versus the Space Mutants.

Yeah, I think in this time period they'd be asking... What the hell are you talking about? So we're saying don't ask Bill for help with virtual BARTs. Well though, Bill, I actually do have a mega genius at work moment from that very scene that I've been thinking about for a long time. Okay, so in that scene, when the three nerds from college are asking Homer the question,

here they are in that episode. So the one in the middle is Benjamin of the three nerds. That's his design how he normally appears in most episodes. But when sat next to them at this question, he has black hair and a different colored shirt. Now, my question is, do you think that he was intentionally miscolored by somebody

in this scene about pointless mistakes that happen in an episode to confuse a viewer to complain about why is his hair black in this scene instead of orange when it is about such a needless, a pointless mistake? I don't think that's the case. Oh.

I think it's a magic shirt. I don't know why they didn't color it according to the original model, but that's probably, you know, the thing is, the people who make the decisions about what color shirt someone those guys can't rewrite the script so they they were probably following someone's direction now did someone direct them to do it as an Easter egg I seriously doubt it all right well I'm gonna have to stalk Stephen Dean Moore next yes you could maybe he has the answer for you, seriously.

All right, well okay, this is my extra genius at work question here, but the mystery remains then. I guess whenever there's an animation area, we can just say they're being meta. Ooh, it's a reference to animation mistakes. But yes, I love that signing that also it's all nerds there who are being, like, that you had a certain opinion of your fandom, which I don't know why,

that they're all nerds pushing up their glasses and asking questions. No one liked that here. Glasses technology has gotten so much better. No one's pushing up their glasses anymore. And there actually is another deleted scene right after this in the episode. It's a scene of the further merchandising of Poochy, which I'm assuming this got cut

because there's an animation error in it. Hey, a scratch and sniff Poochy card! Smell it! Ha ha! Well, it smelled pretty cool before you punched me. Really? Now we're even right right I guess the punching they briefly swap souls during that again it's a reference but yes I I

would assume that's one of those like like, retake budget, couldn't redo it. Yeah, I think it was probably cut for time in concert with also being an expensive retake. Though I do love that the joke of it is, like, the rollout of Pucci has begun before the episode even begins. Like, there's already scratch and sniff Pucci cards out there and all of these toys. I think the Brillo pads that sign with Pucci saying Brillo pads on sale at the Quickie Mart with Puccichie cards out there and all of these toys. The thing with the poo was the Brillo pads, that sign with Poochie saying Brillo pads on sale

at the Quickie Mart with Poochie on it. That's a much faster version of a joke like that. I think that's why it stayed. And, but now it's time for a big couple of clips here because the Beagle has landed. Big Premieres. Oh, Poochie's based on me. Is this seat taken, little girl?

I'm not a girl. Are you blind? Yes. Hands. Dope, Mr. S. Shh! Everybody, it's coming on! Once in a great while, we are privileged to experience a television event so extraordinary, it becomes part of our shared heritage. 1969. Man walks on the moon. 1971, man walks on the moon, again.

Then for a long time nothing happened, until tonight. Behold the future of comedy. Puggy! Poochie! Yay! They fight and bite and bark They fight and fight and bite and bark Fight, fight, bark, woof, woof, woof And Poochie and Squashie

And Poochie show Huh? Huh? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh uhhhh I'm the third Bonzarelli, I'm the Kung Fu Hippie, from gangsta city, I'm a rapping surfer, you'da pull that bitty. Oh, poor cheetah's wild outrageous dude. He's totally in my face! Wiggity wiggity, wear it up, black eye and party! When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory? Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on? Mitch, help me out here. Quiet! You're missing the jokes.

We do have the entire cartoon because no one else anywhere to go right now. Yeah. No. I had to pause there because it's like, God, I love... Quiet! You're missing the jokes. That's a real thing. That, okay.

First of all, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory? I say that very frequently. A lot of people say that. That's I think that that's become more of a meme a verbal meme And also quite you're missing the jokes is the thing that was very commonly said When we were watching the show with other people like one other family and someone was are talking this happens all the time when you're working On comedy show if you like we're gonna sit down as a family and watch the show people start talking If you feel like the joke they're still talking about it and they they're missing the next one, or they're set up for the next one.

Then they get confused and derailed. This is a very common syndrome. So quiet, you're missing the jokes, is right out of real life. I love the fireworks factory. I've just seen that so much in film commentary, TV commentary. People just say, why am I going to get the fireworks factory? It just say, like, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory? It just means, like, why is Lost making us wait for them

to get to the fireworks factory for so long? But the important part of the rage that Millhouse feels that people need to remember is the tears afterwards. Like, you feel both of those things while waiting for the fireworks factory. In the defense of everyone, that's a terribly written episode. The writers did a terrible job of introducing Pucci. There's no plot, there's no... like, you know, everyone who hated it was right to hate it. Well yeah, let's see the rest of it here.

Catch you on the flip side, dude-masters! Not! Hey, kids, always recycle. To the extreme, bastards! That stunk! Well, what did everybody think? Homer, I can honestly say that was the best episode of MP&GMP I've ever seen. Yeah, you should be very proud, Homer. You, uh, got a beautiful home here. I'm gonna go get a beer. Ha ha ha ha.

Ugh! So, it was pretty okay, huh? Mom, can we go to bed without dinner? Yes we can! Well, at least I liked it. Didn't I? Oh, you don't want to know what I really think. Now look sad and say, Jo.

Jo. I think Ned was heading off to watch Oh, you don't want to know what I really think. Now look sad and say, Joe. Doh. I think Ned was heading off to watch Touched by an Angel. I think people remember the mill house being angry about the fireworks factory, but the punchline is the driving past the fireworks factory. Yeah, God. That's so pert, they've been set up the fireworks factory the entire time and he drives straight past it

off into the sunset, the end. Like that is such a perfectly written bad cartoon. I know Cohen mentioned, do you recall that, this is on the commentary, but do you recall that he originally wrote it that Pucci was supposed to be a rich dog? That was one of his original ideas and then before becoming the cool Poochie character. I don't recall that, but it sounds believable. But yeah, he says, he slam dunks and shatters the board. He says busted. He's a kung fu hippie from Gangster City.

Like, he's everything for everybody. The zoom in and out on him with the guitar, that's another of my just favorite shots of him. He's got, Pucci is so great. But yeah, of course everybody, I guess this also, you've had this feeling of like when the thing's over, like oh, nobody likes it,

but nobody can say anything. Oh yeah. And if you think. But I love that Homer hears Nelson say it, and then just the smile on his face, like so, what did everybody think? He's completely oblivious to Nelson. He gets stuck.

But okay, so it comes back from the commercial break. We see everybody's turned on Pucci and that, well first every, we see that Marge, I love the do the don't have a cow. You guys reference don't have a cow. You guys reference don't have a cow, how, Bart only says don't have a cow after season two, ironically. Yeah, yeah.

What's none of us have a cow? That's such a good, but then comes in a really, another big moment, maybe the biggest moment of the episode as far as what people have mean. All that matters is that the fans of the show liked it. Last night's It's Ian Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the internet within minutes,

registering my disgust throughout the world. Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain? As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me. What? They've given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? I mean, if anything, you owe them. Worst episode ever.

You know, that was very funny, and it still is, but when you go on to make a Simpsons podcast for 10 years, you get similar comments. It's true. But they're wrong there, too. Yes. And if anything, they owe us. Yeah. I guess well, the patrons are getting it for free. But no, sorry. Yeah. Okay, here comes a very long and multi pronged digression. Okay. Oh, boy. Okay. Let's roll back to the late 1970s. We got an Apple II computer in like 1970,

1981 maybe, and got a modem, 1200-bot modem. You could dial up stuff. This is way, way before the internet. We had a subscription to a thing called The Source, which was run by Reader's Digest, which is one of those things that was pre-compuServe. My very first experience with being online, and there was online community,

they also had things like airline schedules and whatever stuff, not minimal stuff by today's standards, and it cost like $10.95 an hour. But it was the precursor, it was a precursor of being online. And then in the late 80s I had Prodigy, then I had CompuServe.

And then AOL. And that was all prior to what we now know as the internet. The thing is, the internet is so ingrained in our lives these days that we don't realize what it was like before that even existed. And so I had experience with some of those things, as I just said, some online bulletin boards and things of that nature.

But the real precursor of all of that, the Big Daddy, was internet news groups. Internet news groups were around probably since the 80s, early 90s, and they were online forums. And this, I'm specifically working my way towards a discussion of the forum called alt.tv.simpsons, which you may have heard of or you may not have heard of because it's probably, it's heyday 30 years ago.

But what happened was, when we worked on the show, you never got any feedback about the show ever because TV critics would review the show, TV critics didn't review shows that had already been on for four years. Maybe once in a while if you did something special, they would, they write a review and it wouldn't even be in that many papers and you'd see you'd see it but like that was it and then or you'd ask your friends and you're never gonna get an honest answer from your friends about about whether the episodes are good or not. And so like we just were broadcasting, writing these and broadcasting into a vacuum and I can't stress that enough. Like you don't, you had no idea what people thought about these things when you broadcast them at all. So, you know, you want So you were hungry for feedback.

Did people like that? Did people see that joke, that thing we put in? So shortly after we started working there in season four, we found a big pile of fan-folded computer paper that somebody had printed out. And it was a whole bunch of posts from alt.tv.Simpsons on what was called Usenet back then. And it was a very early precursor

to what we know as the internet. And so it had all these, there was a whole bunch of people commenting on the episodes, and these were season three episodes, so there were whole comments on all the episodes. It's like, wow, this is very interesting, people. They liked that, they saw that, they didn't. So this, and I think Jake Hogan had had somebody print that,

somebody who worked at a computer science department. Because the thing is, you couldn't get on Usenet. The average civilian had no way to get on Usenet. You had to work at either a company that had what was, it was called internet access back then, or you had to be at a college, generally in a computer science department, right? And so, around season four, I was like,

what if we could read these posts that people are posting? What if we could see them when people are posting them instead of getting a printout six months later from somebody? So we were, I was like, let's figure out how to get on this internet thing. And so we had our Macintosh SE computer, and I think at that time we had a 2400 baud modem, double the speed of the one I had as a kid.

And we had to have Fox install a special line for the modem because they had Centrax phones back then with extensions and you couldn't dial out without dialing nine or something like that. There's complicated, so they had to install a special phone line in our office for us to have this modem. And you also, like where was I going to get internet access? You couldn't just call up AOL. You couldn't call CopyServe. You had to go through a college. And UCLA wouldn't give it to me because I wasn't a student.

But we found this service that would allow you to access the internet that normally only computer science people and tech workers could get on to dial up, use that. This was the beginning of a bad period. So you could call, and I actually had to learn UNIX commands. There was no interface, there was no whatever. I had to have this book of like UNIX commands to like read the news group or scroll back or read the next message or whatever. And we were doing this in our office, this was in early season

five, and we were seeing the posts. You know, there's posts coming in 10, 15, 20, 50 the night of the episode from people. And again, I stress that these are people, 100% male, who worked in tech or were somehow involved in college computer science or worked at companies that had, high tech companies that had access, some reason to be attached to this service.

Okay, so we started to read these posts and some of them we agreed with, some of them we just thought were fucking insane. And I don't know, like everyone has, this is one of the things, this is a digression within the digression, everybody has a different sense of humor. This is one of the things that we've learned,

we've learned over the years. You know, sometimes, some people think Jimmy Fallon is hilarious, right? Some people think, some people love, I think you should leave on Netflix. But a large number of people hate it and think it's very uncomfortable and they don't want to be near that show, right? So people have different senses of humor.

And The Simpsons uses a lot of different types of humor. So some people like certain things and they don't like other things. And the best you're ever gonna get, even on a universally beloved episode, is maybe 70% of people like it. But another 30% of people hate it. And they're not shy about telling you.

And a lot of times, maybe they were just in a bad mood. This happened to me and Josh too. We'd watch episodes that are now considered beloved from season three, they'd be like, ah, that sucked. And you know what turned out? You're just in a bad mood that night. You know, you didn't want to be entertained. You just wanted to criticize shit.

And so that was part of it too. But being the kind of people we were, we were often focusing on the ones who hated the episodes more than the ones who loved it. And it was a very stressful thing because again, this was the only feedback we would ever get. And so episodes, but when you look at these things, especially today when people dredge them up,

there are a lot of people who really hated what are some of the most beloved episodes of all time. But their voice is just as legitimate, quote unquote, as everyone else's. So this all began, if you look back, I've read articles about this, it began in season four. I think the first episode where people started to hate it was the itchy and scratchy, the movie episode,

where a fair number of people were like, that fucking, that sucked, that was the worst episode ever, this show's over, this whatever. And so from then on, that was the case with every episode. That was the case, generally every episode had people, it was just the end of the world the show sucks the characters Aren't writing themselves the writers should all be fired This combined with the fact that the ratings weren't all that great caused a lot of stress

Amongst people and this was the only feedback we got and it's oh well you also got clobbered by Matt about you And and and Matt Locke and and the only people you ever talked to that watch the show are nine years old, right? So this has caused a lot of trouble, and the people, but people took it real seriously in the writers' room, because again, it was only feedback. So Merkin would say, what was the response on Nerdnet last night? And we'd be like, well, they didn't love that episode

or whatever, but sometimes they liked stuff or whatever, but their opinions did not align. I can say, certainly state now that we've had benefit of stuff and whatever, but their opinions did not align. I could say certainly say that we've had benefit of 25 years of history. Their opinions did not align with the opinions of the great masses of people who have sensed watch these episodes and they were hostile about it. They were mad about it. They wanted us fired. They were not shy about saying specific things. They also believed that they knew how to fix the show and we didn't, which became increasingly annoying as time went on.

And so let's just say we didn't have any affection for these people. We really didn't like them, and we're tired of every episode being the worst episode ever. In fact, somebody did a research on this, and apparently that was first used in an episode, a rec.arts.tv episode of Seinfeld, the first person to ever post worst episode ever

was talking about Seinfeld, but it quickly moved over to the Simpsons News Group, where every episode was the worst episode ever. And we were just so sick of that, in fact, that was around the time that we said, take this fucking modem out of our office. And if Fox come and remove the phone line, we're never gonna look at this again

because it's not doing us any good and these people's opinions don't align with our opinions of the episode or reality, but maybe we're wrong. Maybe they don't like it. Maybe if we actually had TV critics reviewing these, they wouldn't like Amir, we don't know. And the ratings aren't so great,

so let's just do whatever we want. And that sort of encapsulates what I began earlier, which is just like, we're gonna have as much fun with this as we can. We're not gonna pay attention to the opinions of the outside world. And that's where this all came from. I think that's my digression.

Wow. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I remember, I think I logged onto all TV Simpsons around this time and being naive, I thought, oh boy, time to talk about my favorite show and finding out something like two bad neighbors was the most hated episode of that Moment and not understanding and I think we all understand. That's a great episode. It's funny We quote it we understand why it's great, but it just it mystified me

Yeah There was there was a great article on cracked last month of a collection of like a bunch of old I cracked last month of a collection of a bunch of old, super negative reviews to classic episodes from the first seven years of the show that it's just shocking to see now. But yeah, I mean, they said, I think about Homer Goes to College, they were just like, oh, these new writers, they suck.

This isn't as good anymore. But also it's funny to go back and read them to see the little they knew back then about the production and what they guessed just from seeing names on the screen. And they weren't the only ones too, because as I said, the ratings were kind of so-so. And the network, in fact, I remember

early once the episodes for season five. Now beloved episodes like Rosebud, which everybody says is in the top five episodes all the time. These are being broadcast. People were complaining. And some one of these people got the ear of the president of Fox who had to publicly apologize for the fucking writing, which made us like, oh, these writers are new. They're just getting their sea legs. And we were so fucking mad about this. And we weren't new. Conan was there. It was still, and then the episodes then the episodes now again that episode and many of those are considered among the best of all time. The network apologizing or having this quote for the

writers just getting their sea legs you gotta give them time to learn was infuriating. So you have to understand this this is what we lived through this for years. Well this this is where comic book guy became the avatar for the Simpsons fans. Yeah, and the worst episode ever, Lying Lived On. I think now that is just a free joke if you're writing a comedy. You just have someone say, worst blank ever to End of Scene. It's come up a lot. And yeah, like in the Radioactive Man episode, this is him like logging on to essentially the alt.Simpsons.

Absolutely, that's exactly what it was like. And then after this episode, they made it his catchphrase to the point that he wears a t-shirt of it while complaining that they're repeating a storyline in the episode, which, as Dan Graney told us, that was literally written for fans like us to tell them, fuck you if you care, that they were repeating a pony storyline.

Yes, I guess Henry and I are not holier than thou. We were a little cranky. Oh no, oh. Jesus Christ. These are good scores. No, you'll like these, Bill. Sorry, on screen right now. I remember some of these names.

They're burning into my fucking mind. These are classic reviews of this episode from alt.tv.simpsons. We're doxing these guys right after the show we got the middle initial Dale G. Abersold said hmm I guess the writers read this news group after all eh actually this was all this was still quite a strong episode and the numerous animation in jokes were the icing on the cake and it's always worthwhile to hear from Roger Meyers jr. all right

well Dale you're okay yeah well we're not reading the awful Don Del Grande's. Oh no. No, no. No, I want to point out that Henry and I, we were a little cranky in our misspent youth and we personally apologized to Mike Scully when we interviewed him. Yes, yes we did.

Twice. Twice, he's very nice. Very nice man. But yeah, so this is just some of the reviews that they, like another person does comment about the pathetic freaks who post worst episode ever reviews. Like, they knew they were being talked about.

It sounded like they enjoyed the being represented in this episode. I think this was long after we had the modem taken out, so I know this one. But, yeah... Keep in mind, by the way, that people didn't interact with the TV shows, with the possible exception of Star Trek that was having conventions in the 70s, people didn't interact with the

fans of their television show until this time. People who were writing for, I don't know, Mary Tyler Moore, for example, or whatever, Beverly Hillbillies, they never once encountered any of the people who watched the show. Maybe when they went home for Christmas or whatever they did, but that was it. Like you didn't have a barrage of viewers telling you their opinions or asking you questions about the show, it only began in these days. And now you just, I mean, do you think that

things are much more positive now in Simpsons fandom compared to then? Like just the, you get a lot more love at least for these these episodes than you did then. Oh yeah but these are 25 or 30 years old so they've had the time, people have had the time to get used to this sense of humor perhaps I should say. Having Bart literally shout at them directly to say like if anything you owe them like that, that had to be gratifying. There was some, there was a longer version of that rant

that George pitched, which we did not use, which was something about him accusing the viewer of sitting at home and masturbating while eating Oreos. I guess maybe someone other than Bart would say that. Yeah, that's why he didn't get in. Well, so then after that, we also see that Kent Brockman is dumping on the show. He's like, oh, it's finally over.

I guess he represented the mainstream reviewer. Critic, yeah. Finally happy that The Simpsons is about to be done at this point, I guess. But then we see something that executives in real life would never do, blame everybody else for the mistake. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit DejaDen.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Oh, what the hell happened? Well, I'd attribute the product value to fundamental shifts in our key demographic, coupled with the overall crumbiness of Poochie. Oh, you gotta stop this thing!

Ah, ha ha ha ha! Please! I'm getting egged on the street! Do something! Do something! Ah ha ha ha! Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, hi, Mr. Myers. I've been doing some thinking, and I got some ideas to improve the show. I got it right here. Uh, one, Poochie needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Poochie's not on screen,

all the other characters should be asking, where's Poochie? Three... Great, great. Just leave them right there on the floor on your way out. Listen, guys, we've got to do something about Poochie. There's only one thing we can do. That's all based on Jay Leno.

Ah yes, it's a shot for shot remake of the lead. We're a little tired but we're here to discuss and hear out everybody's opinion on what we should do about late night. Well I think this should have been settled long before now. Jay has the job. He's doing great. He has a great attitude. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Man, I thought we were here.

Yes, that's where it all came from. That's so great. Because yeah, that was from the Late Shift book, and then HBO made a whole movie of it with that guy. You can't appreciate that guy's fake lino chin enough in that clip. No, it's a good prosthetic. Not great in 4K.

So if you're wondering, why did Homer hide in the closet to listen in on it, that's because that's what Jay Leno did in real life. But no, so you have that cell of Krusty shaking you? Yes, I do. It's framed and in my house. It's the only Simpson cell I have up. That's magical. in my house. It's the only Simpson cell I have up. Oh, that's magical.

I love that. No, but yeah, I mean, this is what happens in Hollywood. Then the executives who forced you to put a Pucci in your show, when Pucci is unpopular, then they're mad at you that it happened and demand you fix the Pucci that's in the show now. That's exactly right. I mean, have you been given notes like that of, like,

where's Pucci? Likeucci like just letting people know. That's an absurd note that only Homer would give I think. Well in the first episode of The Simpsons that aired Marge goes where's that Bart when he goes away so she is asking where Bart is he was skateboarding he was cool. But yes they decide they're gonna kill off Pucci, which Homer can't stand. I can't just play the whole episode here. But I do love that Marge complains about the writers

and then says a hacky line about, it makes her madder than a yak in heat. Like, that's such a great meta joke. It feels like you wrote Marge a bad joke because she complained about the writers, for her to say. She also did that with ghost mud. Remember? That's right. Yeah. And yes also everybody's turning out and rolling around the kitchen table too. But this is when Homer makes a stand. Okay so here's where Itchy lunges at Poochie with a rusty chainsaw. Cue sound effects.

Rustier! Are you prepared to die, Poochie? No, I am not. Oh, cut, cut, cut, cut. Just stick to the script as written, Homer. You're supposed to say, please, cut off my head. I don't deserve to live. Never. Oh. Please, cut off my head. I don't deserve to live. Never!

You can't just kill off a classic TV character. Poochy could be bigger than curly fries. But first he has to win back the audience. That's why I'm gonna read these lines I wrote myself with my own two hands. Forget it, Homer! We can do this show without you if we have to. But not without me. Oh, geez. Let him try the new lines.

All right. All right. We'll try it. Action. Hey, Poochie. You look like you've got something to say. Do you? Yes, I certainly do. Hello there, Itchy. I know there's a lot of people who don't like me and wish I would go away. And I think we got off on the wrong foot. I know I can come off a little proactive, and for that I'm sorry.

But if everyone could find a place in their hearts for the little dog nobody wanted, I know we can make them laugh and cry until we grow old together. And cut! Homer has never been more sincere or eloquent. Yeah. It's just to save Pucci. It's a marvelous speech, Homer wrote, on behalf of Pucci. But that's such a great, I mean, yeah, a great scene of Homer rejecting the script.

And that June stands by him and helps him get it. It's a very sweet moment. But as a viewer, by this point, I figure most kids watching are like, our teens watching, like, OK, that can't be, though, as Simpson's episode ends, this sweet moment of Pucci. But how receptive are people to getting new lines at the recording?

Are they as receptive as Alex Rocco or as Roger Meyers at the recordings? Nobody. I think it's very rare that an actor would go to that extent. I mean, I think on live action shows where actors have a lot of power, they do do stuff like that sometimes.

But on animated shows where they can easily be, you can have someone else do the voice, you know? They don't generally make stands like that, at least not that I have seen. Often they'll say, can we try, I have a line I wanna try, and you'll say sure, and then you'll record it, and if you like it, you'll use it. I mean, that happened, Harry and Hank did a number

of great improvisations, which people are legendary today. So we always let them do it when we wanted to. They didn't usually wanna rewrite the script, with the sole exception of Harry Shearer wanting to rewrite the entire George Bush episode, which we fortunately just kind of, just to read the lines, we'll let you talk about that later and then we left.

He was the post I read in that news group. Yeah, so Homer seemingly has convinced everybody so it's time to watch the new Pucci episode together. Poochie, you look like you've got something to say. Do you? Yes, I certainly do. I have to go now. My planet needs me. Poochie! Poochie! Wow, Poochie came from another planet?

I guess. Hey, that wasn't supposed to happen. Those Sphinx double crossed me. Poochie's dead! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha This document conforms to all applicable laws and statutes. Yeah! Oh. OK, what I want to know is, did people understand what was happening when the animation cell lifted out of the screen?

On the first broadcast, because people are, you know, if you're not familiar, what did you guys think the first time you saw it when you were kids? I think I'd seen enough cartoons about how they make their own cartoon where I understood what a cell was. I think at a certain point, a certain point and the voice changed to Alex Rocko's voice. You understood what was happening. Yes. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I don't I don't want to make it sound like I'm like, oh, yeah, I was a genius

I knew it there, but I definitely I got in the first airing. I think yeah I was a 14 year old who did nothing but watch cartoons. Yeah Yes, yeah, I think we all wondered whether people would understand what was happening there, but that's why Alex Rocco's voice is in there and stuff, to make it easier to figure out. But this animation cell suddenly stopping, the animation stopping and the cell lifting out of the frame is something that people hadn't, I don't think,

had ever really seen on television prior to that. No, I mean, yeah, that it's Alex Rocco doing it like that's so great because to me it implies that it was such a last minute decision. They're like, no, we're not going to animate the homeless people. Right, they didn't want to pay to animate one single cell of it. They just lifted that thing out of the frame and then put a hastily scrawled magic marker thing up there that said he died. And that is his face pauses mid-word.

And as he says, I have to go. I mean, that is such a, I've seen that meme to death now, too, like everybody raps, I have to go now, my planet needs me. Anybody instantly leaving a show, like they have to go, they were always a space alien, leaving you wondering, like, oh, wait, what? They were that? To leave you with a huh instead of even feeling sad.

This is packed with things that are now memes. Whenever a hated figure dies, I often see the poochies dead via frinkeak, which a person's name is dead and everyone is celebrated. No, I mean, I always love a picture, too, of Krusty screaming into the camera, too. Those are some of my favorite drawings. And actually, it reminds me a little of the episode

that we love, the Armintam's Aryan episode, where it also, but in both cases, it ends with a legal representative saying, like, legally, this did not happen, and this does not count, and this character will never return. That was you guys playing with, like, that one was too smart for me as a team.

Until I listen to the commentary, you guys and Ken Keeler, you and Josh and Ken Keeler talking about how, no, this is about not liking a change in a TV show. I didn't get that as a kid. That one did go over my head. It's pretty abstract for a cartoon. But yeah, so Homer, also this will be bigger

than 10 Super Bowls, I don't over sell it, that's another perfect line. Oh yeah, I use that all the time too. But yes, Homer was double crossed in the cartoon world when he sees the things there. And I was just reading about, you guys went through a similar thing like that with, well, like the Lawrence Tierney line, he had the line about blowing smoke up his ass.

They got cut from the first broadcast that you didn't know about like that. So you've had moments like that happen of watching at home and seeing the cartoon has been changed. Yeah, I mean, they didn't re-voice it. They just cut it out, which was not, they weren't allowed to do that according to the whole contract thing, you know?

Right. After this, Homer learns an important lesson about being in the media Tough break dad. I guess people just weren't ready for Poochie. Maybe in a few years good news everybody I'm moving into my own apartment with two sexy ladies Then I guess this is goodbye, Roy. Maybe we'll see you in a few years. Well, I guess I learned my lesson. The thing is, I lost creative control of the project.

And I forgot to ask for any money. Well, live and learn. Yeah! It's back to the basics. Classic. Itchy and scratchy. We should thank our lucky stars. They're still putting on a program of this caliber after so many years. What else is on? And they changed it right to mad about you. Yes. There was still time to see Little Murray. No, so I mean, yeah, Bill, that was, I mean, that's a gutsy move to end your episode of

a TV show with, and then you turn off the TV and you don't watch the show anymore. Like, you're giving the audience permission to stop watching even. Well, like I said, I think this was a rare time in television history when we got to do whatever we wanted. And if we had to take the network,

that episode would never have existed if we had to take any network notes from would never have existed if we had to take any network notes From anybody or studio notes, especially with that as you said the ending wouldn't have been allowed and all this other stuff So it was a rare time the insulation we We enjoyed at that time due to Jim Brooks allowed us to do things like that Which most shows could never get away with and the I also to the Homer made sure to not ask for any money So that way nothing is changed there. They're they're right exactly you'd never get away with. And also too, the Homer made sure to not ask for any money, so that way nothing is changed.

They're there. Right, exactly. Though actor scale, voice actor scale on those, I couldn't have been pretty, he'd have made like what, 500 an episode or something? Yeah. Though despite what was said in this episode that Pucci would never ever reappear,

that is not the case. Multiple appearances, multiple media formats. Yes. He has appeared in such episodes as season 10's Treehouse of Horror 9, where he gets run over. Though that is a treehouse, so not canonical, but he does appear in Little Big Mom in season 11, as well as on this Markdown Poochy merchandise. And... as well as on this Markdown Pucci merchandise. And. Shake it!

P to the double O, chip I eat on the dog. Who's to the extreme? What's up my gangsters? Pimps and hoes. My hood is clean and now it's close. A baby girl skank in a blue-haired hoochie. Pop a cap in the asses.

So says Pucci. I'm gonna fuck my ass. Rawr! If you played this in 2007, you would say it looks just like the show. Yes, yeah this is, this is Bill it seems like you've not seen this before this is the Simpsons game from 2007 and Pucci is a boss fight in the game. I've never seen any of that stuff. Also the last Simpsons game I don't any of that stuff. Yes, yeah. Also, the last Simpsons game.

I don't know how that happened. That's right, yes. Yeah, tapped out just is getting sunset. So maybe, and Poochie's all over tapped out as well. But yes, he's basically, the level is Marge and Lisa go into a Grand Theft Auto type game. And the boss of the game is Poochie. So, yeah.

Wow. Well, I know they had the Poochie shoes just came out like three months ago. So like he's, you know, the thing is that people still like Poochie. Despite our attempts to make him crummy, everybody still likes him and wants to buy his shoes. No, and also he even appeared in a couch gag there. If I could complain about that couch gag real quick.

Is this some sort of magic 1995 where Poochie existed? I know. That is the couch gag real quick. Is this some sort of magic 1995 where Pucci existed? I know. That is the couch gag from 2012 that was about celebrating 25 years of the Simpsons, nice in spirit. But when they had Pucci on screen for it as going through each year of the Simpsons, they stop on 95. This aired in 97.

Come on. Oh, for that blunder. Yes. But yes, and even to the point that there was a very expensive Pucci, $60, honestly too much for what he was, but a highly accessorized Pucci toy as well came out a couple years ago. Here he comes with his guitar, the surfboard, the fanny pack, all the accessories. Yes.

I think this time he was received as well as the real character because this toy line went out of business, right? Yes, it actually did, and it was marked down. I bought a marked down Pucci minted box of that Pucci from the Super 7 line. Bill, have you seen a Pucci out in the wild of that action figure either?

No. I think I've seen photos of it, but I steadfastly refuse to buy any of this crap because I should be getting it for free, I think. We agree. I agree, I agree. Also, Bill forgot to ask us for money. Yes, yeah.

Oh yeah. I have drink tickets. Yeah. But I guess, I mean, you know, final thoughts, but what, you know, now almost 30 years later, what is it like looking back on Pucci now in the world that Pucci has wrought? That's a large question.

I think that this episode is far more comprehensible to the average person today than it was back then because of the memeification of so much of it. I think that people, regardless of the fact that this is a satire of characters like Pucci, everybody still loves Pucci and characters just like him. So it's like, I always like this episode. It has so many great jokes.

As I said, David Cohen's script is almost, his first draft is practically what we broadcast. And there's a lot of hilarious material in here. And a lot of things that I still say from day to day. A number of things, more than the average episode for sure. Now I think in Media Lexicon, this poochy episode has said so many things like worst episode ever, or calling like, nobody calls character I I don't think people call these

characters like a cousin Oliver's scoot or a scrappy no not anymore they call them poochy and expressions like when are you into the fireworks factory yeah so so much it also and I can say this with certainty it hasn't changed the behavior of one single television executive. Well, now they would just, they would give a prompt to create a poochie. They wouldn't even be yelling at a David Silverman anymore. Yes, yes, sadly. They would type into the chat box, Rastafi by 10%. There's a computer farm rendering infinite poochies right now, somewhere.

But thank you so much yes And thank you so much for coming out we have been talking Simpsons Wow, infotainment.