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S6E4&5 - Itchy & Scratchy land & Sideshow Bob Roberts
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Jon, Michael and Matt watch The Simpsons episodes 'Itchy & Scratchy land' & 'Sideshow Bob Roberts', and discuss what they say about society.
Follow us on the Socials:
Jon: @Meroka.bsky.social
Matt: @mattperspective.bsky.social
Michael: @buttonmashhorse.bsky.social
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Transcript
Introduction and Cartoon Nostalgia
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, this is Mole Man in the morning. Good Mole Man to you. Hello and welcome to Mole Man in the morning. Mole Man!
00:00:12
Speaker
That's Mole Man on a roller coaster. Oh, okay. I got that he was going fast. I thought you'd fallen down a hole. yeah there's A hole full of spikes and crossbows.
00:00:26
Speaker
Yep. Yes. Lots of that cartoon violence are coming. m I love cartoon violence. What was the most violent cartoon you guys watched as a kid? Oh, we're going straight into this. i who Derailed it at the 52nd mark. It's a quick question. You could have just answered it and we'd be done. I assume it was Tom and Jerry for all of us. a Very good chance, yeah. I would go with Tom and Jerry.
00:00:48
Speaker
Tom and Jerry or Wile E. Coyote was also pretty violent. Popeye had his moments. Yeah, true. There you We can move on now. Okay. There's a lot of punching going on. Yeah, i suppose so, yeah. i' know An implied kidnapping and sexual assault.
00:01:04
Speaker
Bluna was a bad lad. Yeah. Jesus, Michael. Okay. Sure. Anyway, we are
The Simpsons and Societal Commentary
00:01:12
Speaker
Mole Man in the Morning. We are a podcast about how The Simpsons has a lot to say about society.
00:01:16
Speaker
i am your host, John, and I am joined as ever by my two animated co-hosts, Matt. I'm dead serious about these episodes of The Simpsons. And my...
00:01:28
Speaker
Adley Hall, podcasterino. Hey. It's a genuine highlight of my week hearing Michael say that. It's my only purpose in life. ah But I would like to say a personal thank you to everybody that bothered to listen to the Clip Show episode of our podcast last time it came around. Thank you for your dedication.
00:01:50
Speaker
There were not many of them I'm gonna level with you. We promise you that these next two, there is something here.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, though the Clip Show is like, I actually think, our least viewed episode on YouTube by a margin. By a good margin, currently. So yeah, Clip Show's not popular. Who knew? i think a lot of people find us by searching for Simpsons episode titles and like, who the fuck is looking for a Simpsons Clip Show? Like nobody's gonna find that episode because nobody's looking for that episode.
00:02:24
Speaker
Anyway, some episodes that people might be looking for are Itchy & Scratchy Land and Sideshow Bob Roberts, which are going to be season 6 episodes 4 and 5, which we are going to be going through today, talking about what happened and what they have to say about society.
00:02:40
Speaker
Did anyone else notice that in the title of Itchy & Scratchy Land, there's no space between Scratchy and Land? It just says it's itchy and scratchy land. Whereabouts? On Disney? At least on dick yeah on Disney Plus for me, there was no space between scratchy and land. It just says itchy and scratchy land.
00:03:03
Speaker
Wow, I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder. I hope so. They deserved it. Anyway, before we talk about itching scratchy land, we have far more pressing business to attend to, which is what the hell are we drinking?
00:03:16
Speaker
I once again ah splurged. There is a part part reason for this. I couldn't be fucking arse watching The Graduate. I will watch it. So I bought myself something that I wouldn't normally buy.
00:03:29
Speaker
I bought myself Bacchus Premium Belgian Raspberry Beer. It sounds fucking foul. ah So I might enjoy
Humorous Drinking Anecdotes
00:03:40
Speaker
it. I might not. But this is essentially my little forfeit for... um Not watching The Graduate.
00:03:46
Speaker
For not watching The Graduate. Yeah. So. Belgian free stuff. I think. I've told my head probably quite sour as well. So it's really hitting the matte notes though. Yeah. It also has like nothing on the bottle. It was all on this like little green.
00:04:01
Speaker
Like wrapping around it. So the bottle is pure green. So here we go.
00:04:11
Speaker
so weird so weird it's like do you know when you leave like ribena and it's definitely started to ferment it's that prison wine ah is ah it's been left about oh no no the longer i'm the more i drink it ah and i have to drink this throughout the podcast oh that's my own that's my own should have watched the graduate should have watched the graduate Michael, i have ongoing medical problems, so I am sticking to ginger ale.
00:04:45
Speaker
I am an old man. You're allowed to say ginger beer. No, this is actual ginger ale. Ginger ale and ginger beer are different things. i thought I forever forget which one's which and which one's the good one. One of them's okay and one of them's meh.
00:04:57
Speaker
It's described as fiery and sweet, so it's more sweet than normal ginger beer. What I drink is is bitter and sad. okay John, what are you drinking?
00:05:09
Speaker
I've got Salt Brewery's iCat, which is a double dry hopped dipper. It's hoppy and tropical and it's 8% alcohol. No, you can't just gloss over the fact that you said dipper as if that's a normal thing to say in reference to a beer. What's a dipper? For people who don't know don't drink beer, a dipper is a double IPA, which is like more than a normal IPA. It's just more hops, more alcohol, more flavor. Just everything's dialed up.
00:05:36
Speaker
Okay. Thank you for that lesson. You also get tippers, but those rare. dippers I appreciate that I'm doing a podcast with two people that are drinking quite strong alcohol this time around.
00:05:47
Speaker
Mine's only 5%. and It's a Friday night. Why not? And I need to talk about American politics. I need 8% alcohol in me to talk about American politics. we'll get that we'll vote We'll get there. get there.
00:05:59
Speaker
See, the annoying thing is is this this beer smells really nice. Like, it smells great. it's It's the same thing as, like, coffee for me. I absolutely think i think coffee is devil piss water, but it smells amazing.
00:06:12
Speaker
Just like I wouldn't drink coffee, I wouldn't drink petrol, despite the smell. Have you considered combining the two and seeing what happens? What, pouring some of this into some coffee? pouring petrol in my I'll get petrol. Give it some pep. Adol 3, see what happens.
00:06:31
Speaker
That's my next forfeit. Is to drink petrol coffee and bacchus. God. What a way to go out, innit? Absolutely. please Please don't take another forfeit, you might die. id better get the episode of Ulfaran hauled out in time then. if you If you do die, can I have your mumbo number 5 plates?
00:06:55
Speaker
Absolutely. That's a callback. It was the last episode. It's not that far back. It feels long ago. Anyway, that's enough for
Trivia and Sports Commentary
00:07:06
Speaker
derailments. Let's talk about Itch in Scratchy Land, which was an episode which aired on October 2nd, 1994.
00:07:13
Speaker
What on earth happened on that day? Well, brace yourself. Legendary Miami head coach Don Shuler defeats Cincinnati head coach and his son David in the first ever NFL meeting between father and son as the Dolphins beat the Bengals Wait, so...
00:07:34
Speaker
so the So the Dolphins and the Bengals beat each other? What the fuck has it got to do with... So the... the the the Sorry, the the captain of one team or the owner of one team...
00:07:47
Speaker
The coach. this The son, the coach. So the coaches were father and son. Yes. And the ah father beat the son as the Dolphins beat the Bengals.
00:07:58
Speaker
John, when they when i'm when I was explaining that, in the video one, can you put up the image of the woman with the maths going by her head? Because I feel like I was just not comprehending such a simple thing. No, it is phrased... I had to read it a couple times. It is phrased weirdly. might Yeah, my interpretation is Don Shuler was the coach of, I assume, the Dolphins, and David, I guess, Shuler, his son, was playing for the Bengals, so father beat the son, which doesn't you know normally...
00:08:28
Speaker
Nobody plays football long enough for father and son to be playing in the same match. so I guess it's just rather the family ah competing in the NFL, there albeit not necessarily both playing.
00:08:39
Speaker
Weird. Yeah, i it's just the way that sentence was going. I thought it was going to be like some charity boxing match or something. Beating up your son for charity. yeah Well, you know, you've got do you gotta to do what you've got to do. are you ready for the your Pakistan cricket update?
00:08:55
Speaker
Absolutely. Always. Pakistan cricket batsman Izamun Ullahak and Mushtaq Ahmed put on 57 runs and 8 overs for the highest last wicket partnership ever to win a test as the home team beats Australia by one wicket in the first test in Kharachi.
00:09:13
Speaker
Woo! How was the cream and strawberries in the beer at the match? That's what everyone goes to cricket for, right? I mean, it's in Pakistan, so I'd be surprised if they had beer. Is beer, like, not...
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay. I'm sure it is. Pakistan's a Muslim country, isn't it? Do they not drink alcohol at all? i have no idea about Pakistan's approach and attitudes towards beer. I've got to level with you.
00:09:39
Speaker
I know fuck all about Pakistan, man. I know it very little, I've got to be honest. mean if I know they like cricket. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize. Well, I genuinely don't know either, so I apologize for my ignorance, and I also apologize for my co-host's ignorance.
00:09:56
Speaker
Sorry, Pakistan, we don't know anything about you. We're so sorry, the one dude from Pakistan that's watching this. We'll learn something when The Simpsons does an episode about Pakistan. And I'm sure it will be done very tastefully. ah So tastefully.
00:10:10
Speaker
Sapu will be ah throwing right hands, I suspect, in that scene. Throwing right hands? Like how you specify which. no I don't think he shops the left or him.
00:10:24
Speaker
so This is fair. Fucking so stupid. Shall I ah shall do the number ones? Give us some music. Well, there's not really much point because the noble US number one, those boys to men are still making love to us. i Yeah, I'd get used to that.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yep, and it's still Saturday night in the UK. Weakfield is untouchable. And it's unfortunately not the Saturday night that I thought it was, which is a much better song. Saturday night at the movies. outti I was born at the ripe age and of 65. I'm drinking ginger ale that thought to me about age. I think I'm the youngest person on the show, and I'm 32.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yes, yes you are. yeah Right, what's happening in this episode? We must have a
Itchy & Scratchy and Censorship
00:11:14
Speaker
chalkboard gag to get into. I am not the reincarnation of... Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy Davis Jr. Okay. I know that name. don't know why it's funny. was a member of the Rat Pack.
00:11:28
Speaker
Oh, with Frank Sinatra? That's the Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Right, okay. He was the African-American in the group.
00:11:39
Speaker
At the time, it was very common for them to be high-profile entertainers. Yeah. I maintain my ethos that the only people that find the chalkboard gags funny is the person who wrote them.
00:11:54
Speaker
He was probably a big Sammy Davis Jr. fan. Yeah, I don't know what they were doing with that chalkboard gag. yeah Yeah, usually they try and make it somewhat relevant. m Yeah, it's just nothing on that one. Those are just some words that are on the board.
00:12:10
Speaker
mean, just double-checking this, and he died in 1990, so it's not even, like, a relevant thing. Yeah, recent-ish, but, like, not that. we I mean, we went into this whole thing about their relevant jokes not always being relevant with the fucking Mrs. c mrs Lisa Goes to Washington thing. like they they the The people that write Simpsons are chronically aged.
00:12:34
Speaker
I mean, not to nitpick the chalkboard gag too much, but also Bart's 10, Sammy Davis Jr. died four years ago at the time of writing this. Of course he's not a reincarnation. Why would he be? Yes, yes.
00:12:49
Speaker
That was more funny than the chalkboard gag once it clicked in my head. think this is the most in-depth universal feature of chalkboard gag we've ever We not need to analyze a chalkboard gag any further. You are correct. Let's move on to the couch gag. My God.
00:13:04
Speaker
like this one. And the couch gag is the beam one. Yes. Beam. beat Beam me up Scotty. A little bit ah little bit Star Trek humour. like it.
00:13:15
Speaker
This is the first time we see this effect. Also, Simpsons Wiki seems to imply that the beaming effect is different. It's done in a different style from a different show the second time it is used, which is an interesting quirk.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah. It's weird that that that they didn't think to do this when they actually had Leonard Nimoy on the show. can't be having relevant things. Come on. That's fair. That's fair.
00:13:41
Speaker
They've got to keep their references niche, damn it. Yeah. Yeah, boy. All right, so the episode starts with an episode of Itchy and Scratchy, the last traction hero. This was like the most... This was so... I genuinely felt uncomfortable.
00:13:58
Speaker
Get ready to feel very uncomfortable. with this I don't mind violence. That's the thing. I've told you guys some of the horror films that I've watched. like I don't mind violence, but... but I don't know why, but this in particular, just that the slicing at the end of the bit made me just fucking curl up inside. It was unpleasant.
00:14:21
Speaker
so Basically, Scratchy pumps a load of iron and he gets super jacked. I love that bit, though, in cartoons of like doing like three or four lifts and you're suddenly like ripped. Yeah, doesn't Are you telling me that doesn't work?
00:14:33
Speaker
Oh, man. No, unfortunately. You're doing it wrong. you just You just end up in the ER with a bad back. You do see visual effects from working out a lot sooner than you would realize, and it is very gratifying. So I encourage everyone to lift weights.
00:14:46
Speaker
But the ha natural hazard of Scratchy demonstrates is if you lift too many weights, a little cartoon mouse will come and prick all your muscles until you bleed quite a bit and then slice them off with a chainsaw, which as Matt said, he found quite uncomfortable. Yeah, I find bleeding and then like removing slivers of skin more unpleasant than when people get like straight up decapitated.
00:15:10
Speaker
I don't know why. just the idea of like slicing off bits of skin. It's a bit more torturous, isn't it? And the fact that they then sit there and do an ad read. Yes. So after the kids have laughed, Ichi and Scratchy turn to the camera and say, they want to speak seriously for a moment. And this is, of course, the opening of Ichi and Scratchy Land, the violentest place on Earth.
00:15:32
Speaker
And they're cutting ticket prices in half. Scratchy pulls out the ah half price sign. but ah Instead, Ichi stabs him in the head with the scissors. And Scratchy pulls out his own brain and just candy through What is that noise, man? Fucking grim.
00:15:47
Speaker
We don't come back to the Christie Studios and Christie says, you heard the cartoon mouth rat. Go ask your parents, because he's not going to be doing anything, because he's just to be reading his new newspaper. This grown- and like, we say it's like adult newspaper, like for adults or something.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, um if we want to get into the like the level of violence at this early stage, since it is relevant, it should be noted that at this point, more stringent censorship laws have been brought in and Fox are really trying to like cut down on the violence in it. And in response, the writers created this, which like part of their design brief behind this was to make it as violent as possible.
00:16:24
Speaker
So Fox threatened that they would cut the itchy and scratchy parts out themselves if they tried to air it. And then the showrunner went and said, well, wife if you if you do that, we're just going to go and tell the media what you've done.
00:16:35
Speaker
And yeah, they I think they came to a compromise on the violence. but like Yeah, that's interesting because it's not that violent an episode after this point. No, no. I suppose it depends on what you consider violence, but there's not that much...
00:16:52
Speaker
physical harm done after this point. I don't think, unless I'm remembering wrong. There's a lot of fighting, but nobody gets hurt. Yeah, exactly. There's no blood after this point, other than a couple of people died a couple people down a car crash, but other than that. Oh yeah, a car crash. they deserved They slept at the wheel.
00:17:11
Speaker
It was their fault. So the kids go off to ask ah Homer if they can indeed go to Witch's Gratuland. I love this bit. So we get the, can we go, Dad? Can we go, Dad? Can we go, Dad? And Lisa goes, can we go? And then Bart cuts her off.
00:17:25
Speaker
Homer goes, no, no, no, no. Then finally says, ask him over on the last one. Oh, you mean he skipped the Bible bit. Yeah, I was going to he bought a for 15 bucks. Oh, yes, he did. Talk about a preachy book. Everyone's a sinner, except for this guy. Oh, i like that. I like that so much. That was a good bit.
00:17:44
Speaker
Kids run into the kitchen and say they're going to you scratch your land, but Marge says, nope, we're going to the Highway 9 birth sanctuary. And we get some front-facing Simpsons. yeah but Oh yeah, I wrote down good faces because they they they they pull some faces. That's awful. It's awful.
00:18:01
Speaker
Marge is quite psyched because they've installed a new bird feeder. and It looks like a diner. do i i God, I realise how old I feel sometimes when I relate to Marge.
00:18:13
Speaker
Because that sounds awesome. It does. Yeah. i would yeah i i'm I'm going to a bird sanctuary for the second time later this month.
00:18:24
Speaker
You are about the same age as Marge, so let me and check it out. This is fair. Bird sanctuaries are cool. Birds are so cool. Birds are rad. Birds are rad. I want that on a shirt. On some undies.
00:18:39
Speaker
On some undies. Because we're finally... No, we're not. No, we're are that so far We are so far away. We are then come back to Homer and Marge sleeping and Lisa wheels Bart in on a wagon and declares that Bart is dead.
00:18:55
Speaker
Between Tom and Marge to wake up and then Bart comes alive and goes, that's right, dead serious about going to itching scratch in the hand. This must be a reference to sort of that kind of Billy Mays style advertising.
00:19:08
Speaker
Like, this must be... I'm not saying it's ripped directly, but I imagine there is something very similar on, like, the Home Shopping Network back then. Entirely possible. i don't know' not I'm not aware if it's a reference or anything. We've...
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, but it's like the way with the way Bart says it, dead serious about going to itchie and scratchy, it very much comes across like ah like I said, like a Billy Mays kind of style advert.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah, Simpsons Archive has like ah like a horrifyingly long list of references for this episode. It is chock full of things, so who knows? I'm not surprised. So the kids finally reveal the Ace in the Hole, which is the Parents Island, and reveal what they have offers, which includes dancing, bowling, and fashionable shops.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, how many bars did they say? like 105. Yep, so they say over 100 bars and saloons and a world-class chemical dependency centre. That bit was good. That was funny.
00:20:02
Speaker
Home was happy about TV town and Margie's happy about recipe-related bumper cars, which leads to Bart and Lisa. What does that mean? This pumps Bart and Lisa to look at each other for a very awkward amount of time before they start. Yeah, there's a weird cut here. I did not know what happened here.
00:20:19
Speaker
They're happy and dancing on the bed and Marge is still reluctant to go because every time they go on vacation, she gets horribly embarrassed.
Simpsons Vacation Antics
00:20:26
Speaker
Marge wants them to promise is what happened this time and Homo asks what she's on about and Marge begins reminiscing, which includes a trip to the Amish country, where we see that Homo was sticking ice creams on everybody and laughing about the fact that no one was fighting back.
00:20:38
Speaker
i taught think I don't think that's true. I'm fairly certain the Amish would just fucking deck you. i I think that... Are they not pacifists? I think they're supposed I don't know. Maybe. the um my Most of my knowledge of the Amish people... I know this is weed. I'm going to i'm gonna level you. Most of my knowledge of the Amish people comes from Weird Al Yankovic's Amish paradise.
00:21:01
Speaker
Our Amish pacifists. But this is specifically a reference to the movie Witness, apparently. Christian pacifism. Yeah. There you go. So everyone's looking mortified as Homer is having the time of his life until a mule kicks him away, because presumably for being a jackass. The mule is not a passive host, yes.
00:21:21
Speaker
And then we see them at the beach and everyone is running away because Homer has dressed up like a shark. We didn't see Bart awesome the see why that was embarrassing, that wass just funny. Yeah, I was thinking this, I thought, they had one they had one good gag for why Madge would be embarrassed, and then they had, like, the most tired, overdone beach cartoon gag ever, and I thought, you guys didn't really think about this one.
00:21:46
Speaker
Almost amused with himself until Bart comes up with having done the same thing. Almost says, shark boy, and runs away. Yeah, that was such a weak way to end that gag. Like, why not just have Homer be scared of the shark coming and then Bart reveal himself? Like, I know that would be almost more cliche than what they did. and Yeah, I think that's probably why they did this, of that. It would have at least been funny.
00:22:10
Speaker
Marge says that she wants them to do things together as a family, get lots of exercise and have wonderful memories of their vacation. The kids are sure that they'll do that. We then go to Homer packing his suitcase, which includes a lobster hat, fishnet speedos, wheelie shoes, and an invisible dog lead. And he says, well, I'm packed.
00:22:26
Speaker
were heales invented When were Heelys invented? Because he says wheelie shoes. He didn't say roller skates. He says wheelie shoes. I presume Heelys are like a trademark. Are they like avoiding using a specific like trademark brand?
00:22:40
Speaker
ah They are an American brand of roller shoe roller shoe Roller shoes are shoes that have wheels There's a number of tricks um Yeah, Heelys themselves weren't actually patented until 1999 So Heelys didn't exist then he They would have just been roller shoes If you go to the roller shoes page There is nothing on it Yeah, this is not a well-researched area of human endeavor. Someone needs to find out more about Healy's rollers, whatever. Dear HBOMMERGY, have an idea for your next video.
00:23:14
Speaker
We see that so Grandpa's been left in charge of the pets and uh... Marge asks him if he wants to write down any of the instructions and Grandpa insists that he's not senile and uh... Family drive off and Grandpa panics because he wants to know what the last thing about Grandpa's little helper was. I thought this was a setup for a B-plot and this went nowhere. Yeah, absolutely was just gonna say the same thing that I'm amazed this wasn't... This wasn't a B-plot. Maybe they did have a B-plot and they just had to cut so much of it for other material that this was all that was left. I'm not surprised. This was a pretty, like, jam-packed episode.
00:23:49
Speaker
The bit big ends with Grandpa looking at the pets and going, which one of you is the mailman? is the mailman? prompts the pets to look at each other. Yeah. i did not get a little laugh about that. So, in the car, Homer says, how's the family make a pact? They say, this will be the best vacation ever, or they're all going to disband and join other families, which everyone agrees to.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yep, that's fair. Me and my family used to do that every year. Albert the kids to fasten their seatbelts because they're off to Itchian Scratchyland, comes up to the interstate and is immediately date locked in. They take the sign to some other state, which is what's written on the sign. it going Oh, that's actually even funnier because, like, remember on the the Springfield state flag it says not just another state?
00:24:28
Speaker
Yep. So the next state over is some other state. That's great. That's fucking hilarious. didn't even notice. Glum toothpaste!
00:24:39
Speaker
Homer says he's got his secret weapon, which is just honking the horn. so Homer would think that's a secret weapon. We don't get a lot of advertisements for flickies. you Okay, so I'm fairly certain this is a Bucky's reference, but I don't know if Bucky's is that Bucky's is pretty old.
00:25:00
Speaker
I'm not familiar with bookies, so... Yes, you are, because I i took a picture of it while I was in America. well I have forgotten about bookies, then. Bookies, gas. Okay, Simpsons Archive reckons it's Stucky's. Stucky's? don't know what Stucky's is, but... It's a southeast US restaurant chain.
00:25:17
Speaker
Ever since 1982 was Bucky's and what they pass is like a diner pet. ah I don't know if it is a petrol station. It's i don't know.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, I would assume that Americans would know better about what it is a reference to, but it gave Bucky's vibes to me. Mm-hmm. All we know is that we drive past the signs and it's getting closer and closer.
00:25:39
Speaker
But finally, ask could they could stop at Flickie's and Homer says no. And when they drive past the restaurant, we then see the next one is 25,000 miles away. What is the circumference of the Earth? It's just occurred to me that's probably the circumference of the Earth or something.
00:25:51
Speaker
That probably is like the only Flickie's. Maybe that was the joke. Yeah, that would be the implication is that to get to the next Flickie's, you have to drive drive around the Earth. 40,000 kilometers.
00:26:03
Speaker
24,859 miles, miles. yeah so that It is it just the only flakeys you have to circumnavigate the Earth to get to the next one. Well done, Simpsons. I now understaff the joke. That's actually very good. I like that now. That's clever.
00:26:18
Speaker
Then see the family drive up to a checkpoint for the fruit and vegetables. And Homer begins to panic as Mike says, we don't have any. And then Homer says, the whole trunk is full of them. So weird. What is this a reference to, man? We then see Homer hold up his pamphlet.
00:26:32
Speaker
Homer holds up his pamphlet, which says, smuggled vegetables, the road to easy success. The squeaky voice team asks if he's got any fruits and vegetables, which prompts Homer to panic ah through the checkpoint as ah squashes and tomatoes fall of his boot.
00:26:45
Speaker
dispe de to The squeaky team goes, it happened again. Why is there a fruit and veg checkpoint a state border? Because you wouldn't want to smuggle veg across state borders. I thought this was like them going to Canada, but then obviously the next scene kind of disproves that. So I was just very curious why there was a... I think, again, it's one of those for the bit.
00:27:06
Speaker
like yeah I assume so, yeah. a bit but As someone who's done an American road trip, they don't typically have any sort of checkpoint between states right? No, they don't. no The only time we saw a checkpoint was when we were going into California.
00:27:22
Speaker
Oh, interesting. because it's Because it's so close to Mexico. oh all right. So it wasn't and it wasn't really a checkpoint between states. It was more just a, this is one of the only roads that you would go through if you were coming from, like, Mexico into California to the wider America, I guess. Because I remember they they... Because obviously I'm fucking English, so there was a brief moment where we were like, oh shit.
00:27:47
Speaker
because you know what America's like at the moment. m But they they because the government had shut down at the time, they just like looked at the car, looked at us, and went, yeah, go on through. They were not getting paid, so they did not give a shit. which his Government shut down quick, smuggle some veg. I think I also told you we got into the Grand Canyon for free.
00:28:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you did mention that one, yeah yeah. But we also didn't get to go through the Painter Desert ah big because it had been shut down, so that was a shit. Shut down the desert. Yeah, the whole desert. You weren't allowed to go and hear it.
00:28:19
Speaker
Good God. I'm going to turn on the radio and we see that there's a big theme of the signs of evil. yeah Some other states are apparently big on evil. Yeah, judging by the possibility of what this state is, just we'll get to it in a second.
00:28:34
Speaker
if it's if If they're passing, if this might this might be a joke at Utah's expense. is what i'm saying okay right very heavily religious very like you know all they talk about is religion kind of thing might be a uh a joke at utah's expense maybe maybe well sort of getting to that point ah but let's see the family makes a stop at the five corners where have five different states touch so everybody's paused immediately and googled this was it just me and I contemplated doing it but did not actually follow through on it Where is this? is this like I know there's four corners. Is there actually a five corners somewhere? Well, exactly. Because i googled it because um I knew that we were going to want to talk about the continued discussion of where the fuck is Springfield.
00:29:17
Speaker
Peru. so there is No, there is no five corners. There is a four corners. Is there a five corners in Peru? Did you check Peru? I don't know if Peru has states.
00:29:28
Speaker
ah So we'll have to we'll have to check. I actually accidentally wrote it as Four Cornets. So I like the idea that there's a place in America where you could get four Cornettos. But anyway, there is the Four Cornets monument, which is between Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. So that gives a vague idea of where of where Springfield is, kind of.
00:29:48
Speaker
But we've always kind of thought that it is generally Midwest. It's America, so off like it's kind of like in the center. Or in Peru. or in peru lisa lisa eventually asks have we stood in five states long enough and helma goes no no yeah i thought this was because it is one of those things where it's like it is neat like if i'd gone to the four corners i don't think route 66 goes near it but if we'd gone there i would have been kind of like intrigued but i would have been bored very quickly but you just everyone knows they have at least one friend that would be fucking fascinated by the idea of being in five different states at once
00:30:26
Speaker
I have just pulled up the picture of the Four Corners monument. It does look a lot like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's pretty much spot on. It's just five corners instead of four. Yeah. I see the family driving at night now and everyone is starting to feel a bit tired. Marge says they should find a motel, but Homer says he's not tired at all.
00:30:43
Speaker
In the next frame, we then see the car skid off the road into a hole and burst into flames. Wow, glad that wasn't us. The family have actually stopped at a motel are looking down on the scene at the window. Why does Marge never drive Homer's car?
00:30:55
Speaker
Homer's car. Yeah. Yep, alright. Sometimes you don't need a complicated answer. What a stupid fucking question, Matthew. Maybe she's not insured on his car.
00:31:07
Speaker
that's That's reasonable. ah I don't know why, like as a family, you wouldn't and set up your insurance so that people could drive it, but like maybe maybe she's not insured to drive that car. Maybe Marge was drunk.
00:31:19
Speaker
You never That does sound like Marge. She was probably fucking plastered and masturbating in the fucking front seat or whatever that freak was doing. Thinking about Lee Majors. Thinking about Lee Majors!
00:31:31
Speaker
Who isn't?
00:31:35
Speaker
I was reading Love in the Time of Scurvy. Oh, my apologies. Sorry. Should i should i soothe you with some saxophone while you do it? May I look at your bountiful bosom?
00:31:48
Speaker
I'll look at John's bountiful bosom. Well, who's not looking at John's bountiful bosom is Homer, who is getting confused by the map, so decides he's going to take a shortcut. And Homer ensures Marge that you can't get lost with these ah modern cars because they've got silico chips and such.
00:32:05
Speaker
He then joins us on a dirt road in a triumphant music playing in the background. And the next show, we see the family actually arrive. But the car has seen better days, which includes a US missile and a upcoming decoration banner in the background. The back wheel has been replaced with a wagon wheel. There's like a school crossing sign attached to I didn't even notice that. I didn't notice that. Chickens are coming out of Marge's hair. That's so good.
00:32:27
Speaker
This bit reminded me, weirdly enough, of just something from Spirited Away, the Studio Ghibli movie that has just stuck with me for years. In the dub, or the English dub, of Spirited Away, when they're initially driving into the forest, the wife says, I think we're lost, and the dad responds, we're not lost, I have four-wheel drive.
00:32:47
Speaker
Right. And that has always stuck with me because what the fuck? And it it gave me very similar like vibes when Homer said that. I don't know why, but yeah, that bit has always just stuck with me for a fucking year. um We're not last. I have four-wheel drive. what does that mean?
00:33:03
Speaker
Also, i I would like to speculate about a a potential reference in there. Is the wagon wheel an Oregon trail thing? Is that what they're going for with that one? but Maybe. Maybe. may be The film declares once they arrive, let's never speak of the show again. So it obviously didn't go wrong.
00:33:20
Speaker
We don't see the family of parks and how we tell everyone in the Itchy lot, which looks exactly the same. There are two lots. They are massive. There is Itchy and Scratchy. Brilliant. We don't go all Jurassic Park as a helicopter is taking to the island and the pilot says...
Theme Park Chaos and Satire
00:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, I was very just like childishly, I was like, I just understood that reference. i I did not pick up on that reference. like i was My brain just went, that seems like a really inefficient way to get people into the park. Yeah, I thought of that at first, yeah, when I was like, wait, they just parked, why are they now on a helicopter?
00:33:49
Speaker
And again, the answer is, for the bit. Yeah, but um yeah, yeah. But, yeah, as soon as I saw the logo with Scratchy, ah yeah, I was like, hey, Jurassic course it's Jurassic Park logo, right. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, yeah, and yeah. Sorry. So the pilot just says that they're off to the amusement park where nothing can go possibly go wrong.
00:34:08
Speaker
Possibly. Possibly. Everyone looks and like themselves worried and then he oh, possibly. Yeah, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong. It's just his attitude. He's like, oh, possibly go wrong.
00:34:21
Speaker
That's the first thing that's ever gone wrong. It's just so good. I don't know. That dude's delivery. Whoever it is, fucking give him a fucking prize. Mm-hmm. We then see the family at the entrance and the theme of it is itching scratchy bonking themselves on their heads as a the ticket booths of large bombs.
00:34:38
Speaker
And we see that the rides out of action today include the head basher, the bloodbath and the nurse's station. nurse's station. Elmo asks for one adult and four children.
00:34:50
Speaker
yeah vi Yeah, that was funny. And further the seller asks, sir would he like to buy some itchy and scratchy money? And Homer asks what it is, and she says, it works like regular money, but it's fun.
00:35:01
Speaker
So Homer is tilted to doing it by Bart, and he gets $1,100 worth. $1,100 worth, man. That's mad. Homer can do it on his nuclear technician salary.
00:35:13
Speaker
Well, we also established he does not get paid a lot last time, so. Maybe he had a really short shift that day. yeah So Homer wumbles into the park and then realises the signs everywhere that say we do not take it in scratchy money.
00:35:26
Speaker
Is this a reference to something? Because I don't, I mean, i yeah, I didn't pay much attention when I went to theme parks as a kid, but I don't remember them ever offering like Disney books or Alton Towers books. they did. there were disney Disney dollars was a thing that existed.
00:35:41
Speaker
They were discontined i discontinued far later than I sort of appreciated. i thought I thought the gag was they'd already been discontinued by the time this episode came out. No, Disney stopped distributing the currency in 2016. However, they will still accept them in the future. Fuck me, that's bananas.
00:35:57
Speaker
Disney dollars were created with anti-counterfeiting measures such as micro-printing, reflective ink, and imprinting on the front and back of the bill. That's so expensive. Because they thought people would forge Disney dollars. What the fuck? That's... You can avoid people forging Disney dollars by not doing it. But just taking money. such a back-asswards way of solving a problem. It's insane behaviour.
00:36:24
Speaker
This is probably where the signs went up. Yes, yeah. We then see that ah one of the places called Tavern on the Screen, which ah is ah which has a giant axe that you've got to get past through to get through the door.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it comes down with some fucking welly. no yeah I'm being very British today. yeah So Marge declares it such a violent motif. Bart says, it's a pretend violence, which is beneficial for children.
00:36:50
Speaker
This leads to Barley's punching each other. Which then isn't pretend violence. Yeah, but the it's The Simpsons, which is a TV show, so it is pretend violence. It's meta. We then see a part of the manager there's no need to murmur, because they're as concerned about violence as they are. That's why they're always careful to show the consequences of the mayhem.
00:37:09
Speaker
Watch them point out that she watched an episode where the Ichi pulled out, scratched his lungs and played them like a bagpipe, and in the next scene he was perfectly fine. and Just like in real life. He then tells to look over there and runs away. like yeah I love the noise you mean, NYE! I really appreciated that.
00:37:27
Speaker
Then see the family are ordering dinner and Bart asks for a brain burger with extra pus and Homer asks for the eyeball stew and Marge is embarrassed spit but Bart points out that he was just ordering a cheeseburger because they have violent names for everything. Marge then orders the baby guts and the waiter tells him Marge disgusts him.
00:37:42
Speaker
At least he has to point out that's veal. Okay, so again, for the bit, but how the fuck did Madge not realise they were ordering food when she is holding the menu?
00:37:54
Speaker
And then how did she not realise she was ordering veal when she was reading the menu? Why would she just order baby goats not knowing what it actually fucking is I mean, again, for the bit, but also, like, I assume the menu's just not very explanatory, but then how do the kids know what the hell it is? So I don't know.
00:38:14
Speaker
We don't see Maggie dropped off at the daycare, and a woman showed Maggie that Maggie will have a good time, and Maggie's just put into a ballroom. Babies love the ballroom. They love the ballroom. He's just put into the plastic balls and immediately sinks through Just watching her sink and then just whack against the glass. That's so funny. Was Eyebrow Baby there as well? it? I don't know. I don't remember. I know there was a recognisable baby.
00:38:42
Speaker
Almost then excited because the robot, the 12 o'clock robot parade is on. He says, we've got to hurry up or we'll miss the 12 or 5 parade. We then see what's happening and the robots are having fun smashing each other in ballots and machine guns in some case.
00:38:56
Speaker
Has anybody seen Westworld? Can you guess what's happening in this episode? It it is. Funnily enough, funnily enough, like you mentioned Westworld. Westworld was written by my Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton also wrote Jurassic Park. This is a very Michael Crichton episode, yes.
00:39:15
Speaker
When they wanted to make Jurassic Park before the one we know and love, they realized they couldn't afford it so they made west world instead as far as i'm aware it's partly because as well at the time everyone had had kind of gone on board with dinosaurs because dinosaurs were in like loads of wacky western there was loads of western films like westerns with dinosaurs for some reason so they were like dinosaurs dinosaurs were just massive in them yeah so they
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, so they would they were just like, you dinosaurs are kind of overplayed, so let's do something else. What else does Michael Crichton have that we could buy? So they bought Westworld instead, and then obviously years later, they did Jurassic Park the way we know and love it I keep meaning to read the original Jurassic Park, because in that, apparently John Hammond is way more of a dick.
00:40:08
Speaker
Because loads of people our age don't realise that John Hammond is the bad guy of Jurassic Park. was that because old man but just Because he's a friendly old man, yeah. No one realizes that he is ultimately the bad guy.
00:40:20
Speaker
I mean, I think a lot of people were complacent in things, but sure. It was the guy turning all the security systems off. I'd argue he was probably slightly multiple. Nedry, yeah. Yeah, but Nedry wouldn't have done it if he'd just been paid well.
00:40:35
Speaker
I he was a dick. blame blame the rich so the i always do Blame the rich for the actions of the desperate. You can put that on a shirt. That's a good line.
00:40:46
Speaker
Or a pair of undies. He declares that this is so much like his dream as he's worth watching the parade take place. And the family are interested by the axes and Lisa's particularly taken by the baby axe.
00:41:00
Speaker
And Marge says it's cute, but she's sure it's sharp and probably dirty. And the the same guy from before shows up and goes, it's dirty, yes, but dangerous. Nope. These are stay-of-the-art animatronic robots that are trained to attack each other, but not the guests. We don't go all Terminator as we look inside. I don't know. It says to kill Scratchy, but to show off, it's sir circuitry to Homer.
00:41:23
Speaker
And Marge points out to Homer, this is why his robot didn't work. What robot? This bit just ends. What the fuck is she talking about? I need to know more. where Why isn't there a flashback to explaining the robot? No, this isn't Family Guy. You don't get a flashback. No. Also, one of this that one of the things this kind of reminded me of or made me think of is it's kind of balmy that Five Nights at Freddy's took so long to exist when mascots have always been terrifying.
00:41:48
Speaker
And yet it was only fucking whenever Five Nights at Freddy's first came about that anyone really did anything with that. Someone in the comments of this video that's extremely pedantic and just likes correcting me, please tell me where there's stories about evil mascots. And if you say it, I will stab you because that doesn't count.
00:42:07
Speaker
okay We then see the family get into the logro onto the log flume, and Marge says this is what she was hoping for, spending the day together as the family. At that moment, there's this very steep drop, and then arrows and cannons start firing at the log flume. God, that looks like... Like, I love a good roller coaster, but I feel like even I'd be a bit like, na I'm all right. Yeah, that's a lot.
00:42:30
Speaker
They stop just before spikes, before going down into the buzzsaw, which they just narrowly avoid. Yeah. Oh, the idea, like, again, yeah like, the sharp things near eyeballs, that's another thing that I'm just like, no no thank you.
00:42:43
Speaker
There's, um if anyone, ah again, another, like, super niche reference for me, if anyone has seen Zombie 2, Z-O-M-B-I 2, you'll know what i'm talking about when sharp things near eyes. No, thank you.
00:42:55
Speaker
this is enough to put Marge that part of spending time as a family is spending time apart. At point, Homer takes that to reference Parent Island. So Marge says, asks the kids they're going to all right, but then the kids have vanished but because they're getting back onto the log flim. There's a lot of, like, good noises in this episode. Like, again, the guy running a new and, that but when the kids get on the thing again, they make, like, little happy giggles as well. Like, ah Yeah, there's a lot of like good little, just I don't know what you'd call them, but just like burps and stuff throughout this that's quite fun. yeah
00:43:27
Speaker
We did see that Homer Marginal on Parents Island, which includes going to Itchy's 70s Disco, which was established in 1980, apparently.
00:43:36
Speaker
And Homer says, it's like the 70s, down to the smallest detail, which includes um the bartender looking like John Travolta. Yeah, looks like. Poor Travolta. and Which also, this this episode came out like just a few days before Pulp Fiction.
00:43:53
Speaker
Wow. They don't have a great deal of faith in him. Like ah a week and a half after the episode aird Pulp Fiction came out and revitalized his career, because actually he hadn't been doing terribly well at that point. That's kind of funny.
00:44:05
Speaker
yeah That's kind of funny, yeah. That's great. see the kids in the gift shop and Bart starts looking the personalized plates he starts going trying to find his name but when he gets to Bert it immediately goes into Bort Bort Bort I literally have that license plate I have the Bort license plate amazing think I think we got that for you as a Christmas present yes yes come on board you talking to me no my son is also important there's a lot of boats in this shop lisa then asks who these characters are and uh bar says there was an itchy and scratches friends hour and uh goes through the friends that they created which includes disgruntled goat uncle andon ku clam clucks clam man jesus
00:44:49
Speaker
Lisa says they weren't very funny but but that's what the girl had his moments what's this beard this smell padded like like what um I think it's kind of a reference to I'm trying to think of what was out at the time but I know like the Muppets did similar things Tom and Jerry tried to introduce new characters maybe it's a Looney Tunes reference There were a lot of, um and I remember this specifically in Cartoon Network, because I did watch it as a kid.
00:45:15
Speaker
There were a lot of attempts to have like um kid versions of like the adult things. So they had Tiny Toons and Scooby-Doo pre-investigations and stuff like that.
00:45:27
Speaker
I'm fine them like doing the gag of, oh, they added extra characters, but then like the extended discussion between Bart and Lees about how good the extra characters were just seemed unnecessary. yeah. It all leads up to a man in an itchy costume coming and dancing, and Bart just immediately stomps the hell out of his foot.
00:45:42
Speaker
A poor guy. Seemed a bit harsh. Yeah, just bit... So we cut TGI's McScratchy's Good Time Food Drinkery. Sure. Which has a New Year's Eve theme every day, apparently. And we see Old Lands Lies start to play. And Marge asks the waiter that it must be wonderful to ring in the new year over and over. His response is Please Kill Me. Apparently this was a real thing. That would be soul-crushing.
00:46:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Seriously? i wrote I wrote down service jobs at Soul Crushing. But yeah, no, apparently, um yeah, the Pleasure Island at Walt Disney World had a New Year's Eve every night from 1993 till 2005. Why?
00:46:22
Speaker
Why Why? Why would you want to pretend it's New Year's Eve? because it's good we isn't it Because it's wonderful to ring in the new year every single day. is it though? Marge thinks it is. Marge is a fucking idiot.
00:46:40
Speaker
I don't think I've had memorable new year in about five years, to be honest. I've done fuck all for most of my new years. We're down to cut to the Itchies Minefield, which was sponsored by Laramie Cigarettes.
00:46:52
Speaker
Seriously, Simpsons must be sponsored by Laramie. They couldn't get away with doing this. Laramie didn't exist by the time this existed, though, did it? it Oh, would Laramie, like, disappeared?
00:47:06
Speaker
I can't remember, it was a while ago when we first looked it up. but We've already Googled this at one point. 1950s, yeah. Yeah. yeah so Okay, fair enough. Yeah, they'd been gone for like 40 years by the time Simpsons started using it.
00:47:19
Speaker
They're not promoting anything. The kids having the time their life being blown up into the air. As they leave, they bar a taxidish scratchy costume man by kicking him in the shin, which is very nice.
00:47:31
Speaker
is it like v it There's a point. There's a plot point to this. There's a payoff. Don't worry. It's a plant. We then see that Maggie's trying to claw through the balls. The babies don't seem happy. Add more balls.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yep, that's the solution that the women running this day get aside and we tend to see the babies being buried by more balls. Babies love the ball pit. They love it more when there's more balls. Obvious logic.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yep, so Bart Lisa are now watching the Roger Maier story and... that The narrator describes him as a gentle genius that loved all... This was so incredibly on the nose. I don't know if there is a more on-the-nose Simpsons bit. It's not very subtle, this bit. but It explains how he loved all the peoples of the world and they, in turn, he was beloved. No, no, no, no, no. He loved almost all the people. Almost.
00:48:22
Speaker
That was just... the almost is good. Despite this being so fucking on the nose, that bit, it took a second for it to click, but when it did, that was so fucking funny. The almost bit was great.
00:48:36
Speaker
He was beloved by the world, except in 1938, for his controversial cartoon, Nazi Superman or Superius. Oh, no, man. That was so grim. Fucking hell. Fucking hell.
00:48:47
Speaker
I did spend a while reading through Walt Disney on Wikipedia after this. I gather a lot of the allegations ah of Nazism are not particularly well backed up, actually. a lot of it's just some guy who didn't like him very much tried slandering him.
00:49:05
Speaker
ah Yeah, it as I was thinking that. i don I know he was like kind of a racist, but more in that sense of like everyone was at the time. Not that that makes it okay, but that that he wasn't particularly vehement about it, nor was he you know in any way progressive, you know?
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, like, like the, the only thing Wikipedia particularly cites of any, like, note was really that he, he gave a tour of his studio to a prominent Nazi propagandist about a month after Kristallnacht.
00:49:40
Speaker
Right, okay. So, uh, other than that, it's kind of like, i think we can all agree that Walt Disney probably, Walt Disney probably wasn't an awesome dude. But, yeah, I don't know. It's very, very odd bit.
00:49:53
Speaker
People can be complicated. It sounds like he just like wasn't interested in politics at all. He's just extremely apolitical. He's like, look, I want to make cartoons. Nazis? yeah Yeah, I guess that's happening, sure. Speaking of, can we all agree that Fantasia was awesome?
00:50:08
Speaker
Yes. Fantasia was rad, man. And Scratchtasia is a interesting. Yeah, it was insanely well-animate. It's like better animated than most of The Simpsons. Yeah, I wrote that in my notes. This is amazingly detailed. and Yeah, it's like it's like a it like double the frame count. It was crazy. Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah, no, this is like two solid good minutes of a Scratchy the Wizard having to deal with a itchy and then mini itchies and then having to pulverize them into literal vapor.
00:50:42
Speaker
i'm i'm One of the reasons I'm kind of curious it why this might it might have been scratchy in this situation instead of itchy is because if it had been a mouse in that outfit, they couldn't have done the bit.
00:50:57
Speaker
you know what I mean? It's probably why they did it. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I could be wrong. they could have just They could have had the idea of loads of tiny ah itchies inside Scratchy the whole time and run with it.
00:51:10
Speaker
But i've i'd I'd be willing to like put money that they that they thought, yeah, we can't actually, we have to have Scratchy. Quite possibly, yes. Yeah, we have to do it this way because otherwise it is straight up copyright infringement.
00:51:25
Speaker
It basically ends with a the itch is going inside the scratchy and scratchy falling apart from the inside out. Yeah, it was violent. Never mind. Yeah, there was more violence in the show.
00:51:36
Speaker
We then see outside that Cletus is taking a photo of the crazy critters, which is his way of speaking about the robots, which causes one of the scratchy robots to crash out as the manager she goes, no flash photography, please. As the discordant scratchy walks away.
00:51:52
Speaker
We still don't know him as Cletus yet. He's just still just a yokel. Yeah, he's described as a yokel. We then see that Roger Myers' next thing was a pinnichio, and Scratchy with a grey Italian accent goes, Oh, you'll be a good pinnichio, and don't tell you a lie.
00:52:06
Speaker
Itchy promises never to hurt him, which of course makes his nose grow, which makes Scratchy's eyeball out. I did appreciate the ouch. Yeah, it was good. I liked it. This point, Lisa wonders if this kind of violence desensitises them, which causes the robot to crash through. The robot fucking comes through, and they're just like completely unfazed. It was great.
00:52:29
Speaker
Yep. ye They want to go get a snow cone. And as they leave the theatre, Bart sees another man in inchy suit and goes, Ah, so you think you're God's gift to women, do you? That was... a but weird weird thing to say.
00:52:41
Speaker
Lisa tries to talk him out of it, but Bart pulls out his little bastard travelling kit and fires a stink bomb into the Itchy's thing and Itchy just says, I wanted to entertain. Yeah, I only wanted to entertain.
00:52:52
Speaker
Bart is laughing because he can't wonder how he keeps getting away with this until the uniformed officer has finally nabbed him. Again, very on the nose. Yes, yeah. i mean i I mean, given the whole sort of Nazi allusions earlier, yes, but also this also just kind of comes clearly as a button reference. it yeah I thought it was all a Bond reference, but also either Simpsons Archive or Wikipedia reckoned it was a start ah Star Wars?
00:53:21
Speaker
No. They said the little cart that they take them through is like from Star Wars, but I thought it looked like the volcano lair from Young Left 2. I don't recall.
00:53:32
Speaker
It's been a while since I watched the original trilogy, but no. This is a Bond reference. This is a Bond reference. I thought it was. Either way. Nah, it's not Star Wars. Nah, fuck off. Fuck off with you. Either way, Bart is taken away by the guards in his electronic court.
00:53:47
Speaker
He passes the control center, which includes ah tips of, we've got another jumper on the roof of T.I. and G.I.' 's scratchies, and we have run out of board license plates. Yeah, I repeat. So good.
00:53:59
Speaker
Oh, I found, sorry, it said that the vehicle that they take Bart is the same sound that one of the ground shuttles carrying the fighter pilots in the Rebel base in Star Wars makes. Right, okay, so it's the same sound effect. Yeah, the the overall aesthetic was very Bond to me. Yes, it it is Bond villain lair shit, yeah.
00:54:18
Speaker
We then also see one of the robots being repaired as his face is pulled off. The guy goes, I really wish he wouldn't scream. scream. That is so good. Bart is further to the cell and see that Homer's already in it and...
00:54:32
Speaker
Bar asks what he's doing there and Hover says he kicked one of the stupid itchies in the butt. And Bar's response to this is, yeah, there's just no way to resist. We then see Marge in the gift shop and if she wants five t-shirts that say best vacation ever. Then the announcer comes up with a tannoy to say, Marge Simpson, your son has been arrested. This prompts all the women to go, ooh, I'd be embarrassed if I was that boy's mother. embarrassed.
00:54:51
Speaker
And then the announcer comes back on to say, Marge, we've also arrested your older, fattest and a balder fatter son. son. We don't see Marge letting to the cell and Marge says she's so embarrassed she wishes there was a hole that she could just crawl into and die at which point the officer's trying buy the hole. Marge has to put out as a figure of speech and then we see that a Professor Frank runs in and says that ah everyone's got a little bit because of elementary chaos theory says that all robots will eventually turn evil and run amok.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah i liked the the chaos theory because that's clearly again a Jurassic Park reference. Is it? Oh, okay. The pair of masks are long they have and the press fixes, they've got about 24 hours. The robots then immediately start attacking everyone and the thing goes, oh, I forgot to carry the one.
00:55:32
Speaker
Did I, have I misunderstood? So was, because I'm trying to remember the advert at the beginning. Was this the first, was this opening day? Yeah, it was the opening day or the opening weekend.
00:55:45
Speaker
Okay, right. Okay. So the 24 hours bit does make sense. Right. Okay, fine. That's fine. I but just i remember being confused at the time. Outside, Helmer's protesting that he was the political prisoner, and Paj asks how, and he goes, I keep the giant bloke mouth in the butt, though I have to throw it down.
00:56:00
Speaker
This is so strange. And yeah, then Westworld begins. Yep, but the power goes off and Marge says, what now? And then we see some of the robots coming and they start walking towards the family. Homer says, hey, that one's coming on to me and starts flirting with him. Why, Homer? Why?
00:56:16
Speaker
which point, Lisa finally points out that she thinks he's wrong about the robots sort of be his friend. And Homer says, don't contradict your elders while he has to look every single day. So good. Homer's head then gets cut off and Homer goes, ah, you chopped off my hair. Oh God, I'm I'm ugly.
00:56:33
Speaker
And then Miles laments the fact that they should have gone to the bird sanctuary. We go to the bird sanctuary, then see absolute chaos is going on because the bird somehow got out. The plot of Hitchcock's The Birds is happening at the bird sanctuary, yes. yeah it's Including the shots that we get. I need your biggest seed bell that you have.
00:56:50
Speaker
No, that's too big. Good honor Hans Mormon for trying to sort the situation. Oh yeah. Yeah, so three memes in this one episode. It is. Yeah. it's Fantastic.
00:57:01
Speaker
Family notes a chopper, but unfortunately the man in the itchy suit is in there and he goes, ah you didn't like our capering. When you get to hell, tell them that itchy sent you and kicks them out of the helicopter. That plot worked itself out.
00:57:12
Speaker
Yep. Marge declares that looks like they're doomed and Arma says, tells the robots to get back because no one ruins his family vacation except him and maybe the boy. And maybe the boy. This whole ending felt very Treehouse of Aura to me. It's like, this doesn't belong in this episode, I'm sure.
00:57:30
Speaker
Homer starts throwing everything in his pocket to the robots, which include a banana. I fucking cackled when he rips his own underwear off. It's from the front. just I'm surprised they didn't put in a little, like, scream when he did it. It's so good.
00:57:48
Speaker
Homer's meundies don't save him, unfortunately. But what does his camera. Well, if they were meundies, they wouldn't tear because they're made micro-modal fabric. You sure you're not secretly taking sponsorships behind our bags? Ha ha! I mean, I wouldn't blame you. you were but um but What does save the family is the camera. as The flash goes off and of course it's a collapse.
00:58:11
Speaker
And Lisa points this out and Homer's response is, what are you the narrator? That was good. I like that. This pops Lisa says, start taking pictures and this Homer starts taking pictures, but grabs a mallet and goes, I'll get more cameras.
00:58:23
Speaker
Breaks the window to get some cameras. Then loots the next shop, which Marge goes, well, I don't approve of that. Sure. It's fair. the the family get there Get the cameras and start taking photos and Bart does his best Schwarzenegger by going Hey Mouse, say cheers. Say cheers.
00:58:40
Speaker
Bart's response is to this is, you could try cool wit like that I could be an action hero. We then see that the robots all fall down and we then see Homer climbing onto the top of the pile of robots going, Die, bad robots, die! Homer's about to make the same line but Bart cuts him off and says, Who would have thought this would be our best vacation ever?
00:58:57
Speaker
Morrison points out that they almost got killed and all the embarrassment but Lisa then points out that she got exactly what she wanted because it brought them together as a family, lots of exercise outdoors and so many memories.
00:59:07
Speaker
March decides that Lisa is right and there's Clara at the best vacation ever. And then says, let's never speak of it again. Voucher Myers Jr. shows up and to show his gratitude, he gives them two free passes. Elmo points out there's five and Voucher Myers goes, here's two. free passes That's better.
00:59:24
Speaker
Walter Frank is standing up the robots and he wonders to himself what's going on in Euro Scratchy Land, which we then see is completely empty. Yeah, fuck all is the answer. The only thing there is a French man on the booth going, hello, you just gotcha one. Who are you, tourists? Please. Come on, my last paycheck bounced. My children need wine. My children need wine. Which is the greatest one.
00:59:47
Speaker
yeah Does he actually speak French? Does he actually speak French at this moment? Yeah, he speaks French at the end, but he's just cursing his look, I think. ah Yeah, I don't know what that is. I was hoping Frinkiac would have a transcript of that so that I could like to see what it says, but it also just says, yelling in French. Yelling in French. don't know if Simpsons Archive has the transcript better and actually like tells you what he says, but... I don't have in my throat.
01:00:12
Speaker
Oh, fine. Never mind. That is obviously a reference to Euro Disney, which was not a commercial success till they rebranded it as Disneyland Paris. Yeah. We don't go back to the Simpsons at home and Marge hopes that the kids have learned that violence on TV may be funny, but it's not so funny when it happens to you.
01:00:29
Speaker
Bart says it's funny. It would be funny to someone who was watching and Marge doesn't agree, but Lisa goes, no, he's right. Takes off her shoe. Hits Bart in the head of it. Marge starts laughing hysterically yeah and sort of thatar realizes what's just happening. He goes, oh, Lisa, go to your room. Lisa just awkwardly walks to her room. and That's that.
01:00:46
Speaker
yeah sir And that's it in Scratchyland. Yeah. That's it in Scratchyland. What do we think? think it's a great episode. I think it's very fun. you know It's very easy watching. it absolutely flew by despite being another long episode. We haven't had a normal length episode in a while. They've all been like long in some some shape or form.
01:01:08
Speaker
and But yeah, absolutely blasted by. Great episode. John? a I thought it was merely fine. oh was okay. One of my notes halfway through it was this chuckle worthy at best. like There were no big laughs on it. It wasn't like... Damn. Yeah, i didn't I didn't think it was an incredible episode. and I didn't think it was a bad episode at all, but like just the memes were the most noteworthy thing about it, really, for me.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think it's the strongest episode of the season so far. We're only four episodes in. It's not got a lot of competition. I'm not getting air-gating. And one of them was a clip show. It's got low competition. know.
01:01:41
Speaker
But I enjoyed the episode. i there's The moments that made me laugh did make me laugh. Yeah. and and yeah like I agree with you on the sound effects. There was some great noise there's some great noises going on in here. Mm-hmm. What we're learning is that me and Michael are just very simple creatures. Someone just has to go, near you and we're sort of... Just give me a poor Italian accent to the cat getting impaled through the eye with a nose and he goes, ouch. I will find that really funny.
01:02:10
Speaker
Yep. I mean, i like a French accent, so the guy at the end didn't taint me. My children need the wine. My children need wine. love that. I knew that line somewhere that was lodged in my brain, but I had forgotten it until he said it. I was like, oh my god, I know that line.
01:02:25
Speaker
we swear when us We swear we're not all-inclusive podcast, folks. It's the John meme. that's That's John's personal meme. Yeah, apparently so. Have we got any ratings for it?
01:02:37
Speaker
I'll give it a not quite Fantasia out of Homer. Ooh, God. That sounds quite a high rating, huh? Well, I said not quite. You rated Fantasia quite highly, so it sounds like it's up there.
01:02:50
Speaker
Eh. I'm gonna give it a bought license plate out of Homer. I want it, but I don't necessarily need it. yeah Fine. I gave it so many memories out of Homer because of how memetastic it was.
01:03:04
Speaker
Memories. What did it have to say about society? I mean, I think it definitely makes a lot of jokes about our like hyper consumerism culture, because obviously it's a theme park kind of episode. So that that's just like a natural given.
01:03:18
Speaker
ah The older generation's resistance to change with all the whole like, you know, 70s and New Year's, like parent island kind of thing. And then the jokes about technology eventually killing us used to be cute and funny. And now they're just kind of sad because, oh, fuck, it's a world we live in.
01:03:35
Speaker
I mean, I think the main theme of it was the cartoon violence, because they they talked about it on a couple occasions. I don't know if they necessarily concluded anything about it. They're like, hey, does this desensitize us?
01:03:46
Speaker
Yeah. And, oh, violence is good for kids. Wait, is it good for kids? Don't worry about it Look behind you. Yay. Yay. Yep.
01:03:57
Speaker
We've got to get that to put on a t-shirt. What, just nyany? yeah how he How do you spell that? N-G-Y-I-I-I-N. Put it on a soundboard for you if you want. Absolutely.
01:04:11
Speaker
Michael, anything to say about society? I think we've kind of covered most of it. It's just violence in the media is going to be interpreted in many different ways and it can be desensitising.
01:04:23
Speaker
Yes. and And robots will kill us. Eventually, yes. According to Elementary Chaos Theory. And if Fox says your show is too violent, tell them to fuck themselves make it violent anyway.
01:04:35
Speaker
yep Give them no choice in the matter. Tell Fox to fuck themselves regardless. look Yeah. It's a good attitude to take. Oh, if you follow the advice in the next episode, whoop loudly.
01:04:49
Speaker
but i I... What? I forget that bit, apparently. We'll get there. Okay. So, speaking of the next episode, we have a Sideshow Bob episode. We've got Sideshow Bob Roberts.
01:05:03
Speaker
Hooray! Which is itself a reference to the movie Bob Roberts. Not one I'm familiar with. No, me neither. Don't worry, I'm sure someone in the comments will be very upset that we haven't seen it. I don't know. This is Matt's next forfeit form.
01:05:17
Speaker
It made eight million at the box office. It doesn't sound like it was a smash hit. Ah. So i don't i don't I don't think we can necessarily be heavily criticised for having not seen it.
01:05:29
Speaker
Shall we? What day did that air? Oh, that's good question. That aired on October 1994.
01:05:36
Speaker
What happened on that day? The Australian parliamentary election. It's 23% for a right. I'm fascinated by this because, like, yeah, there's there's there's very little actually down for anything happening on this day. And I saw that and I tried to dig into that.
01:05:50
Speaker
I can't find any evidence of a Oh, I tell you what it is. I looked up Australia. It says Austrian. It's Austrian parliamentary. yeah that's where i looking can find Wrong country. Wrong country. Oops.
01:06:02
Speaker
Fucking oops. Yeah, no, there wasn't an an election in Australia on that day because it's that's not what this is telling me. Damn it, why are they named countries so similar? You're the smart one.
01:06:13
Speaker
I dispute that. Well, it's not fucking me, is it? If you're not the smart one, this podcast is in trouble. Oh, no. Michael's fucking savage to- today.
01:06:29
Speaker
Boys to Men are still strangling the life out of culture in and America, because they're still number one. Who's strangling life out of culture in the UK? Well, it's not Wigfield anymore. They've been deposed by Take That.
01:06:41
Speaker
Oh, for fuck's sake. The song is sure. I don't know that one off the top of my head. don't know that one. The rabid fandom of Take That scares me. All you need to know is that the rise of Robbie Williams is here.
01:06:53
Speaker
Good old Robbie. I like Robbie. Does Take That have a rabid fandom? Dude, do you, like, go outside? the the The only fandoms that scare me are BTS and Taylor Swift.
01:07:07
Speaker
Is BTS a K-pop band? They're a K-pop band, yes. K-pop fans in general scare me. Yeah. The music's fine. there just have no, like...
01:07:18
Speaker
ah They're fine. They're fine. It all sounds exactly the same. know that makes me sound bajillion years old, but it all sounds the fucking same to me. Okay, K-pop stans, go get him. Yeah, fucking come out of K-pop stans. Matt's cancelled. The opinions of Matt are not shared by the by the mo Man in the Morning podcast. I've listened to AKB 43. I'm fucking, I'm hip, I'm with it.
Political Satire in The Simpsons
01:07:41
Speaker
Before we begin, if you were an American what listening to our podcast, then you might be a conservative.
01:07:48
Speaker
Opinion or mindset? Might be an idea stop. Lick my balls.
01:07:53
Speaker
Lick our balls and then go away. yeah If you are an American conservative, please... Nah, I mean, i you know, this I will preempt this with a joke because Americans don't understand what sarcasm is.
01:08:04
Speaker
But, yeah, go die in a fire. I would hope for the most part if you have previously listened to this podcast or followed any of us on social media you've probably worked out where our political beings are going to be so just maybe don't subject yourself to this yeah this this this episode was I feel like this episode does some good digs at left wing politics as well I think they do They do throw some jabs both ways, yes. it is I think it's more jabs at conservatism, but yeah, they do they try to be balanced. Oh, no, I don't think they try to be balanced. I think they just also do jabs at left wing, but it is very clearly it is very clear it it very clearly has like a specific leaning.
01:08:50
Speaker
yeah So we got straight into this. um Yeah, there is nothing. The Simpsons, bam, we're in. That's it, you're done. Just fucking, this is Simpsons now. No chalkboard, no couch, nothing. According to this, they did do the floating eyes bit.
01:09:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I see that. Yeah, the original airing only. yeah It's never appeared any repeat. wild okay That's very odd. very odd. So we start with the outside shot of the KBBL radio station, which has its nice jingle.
01:09:19
Speaker
No spots, no rock, no information for Mindless Chatter, we're your station. I mean, that's kind of a station I'd want right now. In this modern era where everything is a 24-hour rage bait cycle, I would kind of love a 24-hour radio station where they're just like, what's your favorite type of pizza, man?
01:09:39
Speaker
And then you just talk about pizza for two hours. You're talking about podcasts. We are making that content. went No, we're not. Like, I literally just told conservatives to go die five minutes ago. mean, podcasts that podcasts are are mostly mindless chatter. Yeah, it's fair.
01:09:56
Speaker
But also, like if you want if you're genuinely dying for a radio station that does that, you've got Radio 4. You listen to the Archers. I don't think I've ever listened 4. Radio 4 is chatter. There's a lot chatter. They do chatter. I love mindless chatter.
01:10:11
Speaker
They do radio radio plays. They do talk shows, I guess. Yeah, discussions. It's people talking. I love people talking. Anyway, let's talk.
01:10:22
Speaker
Well, this is not what we're getting because the they've got Spingfield's favourite conservative and author of the world's selling book, Only Turkeys Have Left Wings. Yes. What the fuck does that mean?
01:10:34
Speaker
It means you're a turkey if you vote left-wing politics. Yeah. Carl's not very happy because ah he thinks Barlow's a right-wing crackpot because apparently Ted Kennedy lacks integrity. And Lenny considers himself politically correct and his views make him uncomfortable.
01:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, see, this is what meant about like the jabs at left-wing people. is Because when when those jokes came through, I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like this episode.
01:10:59
Speaker
But no, they do have like back like there's a lot of jabs at right right wing but there are some good that is accurate that a lot of left-wing people the especially people that i know that sounds like i'm talking about people on the show i'm not but there are left-wing people that are just like no i don't like hearing right people with right-wing people talk at all and will not listen to them audience it's like all right well that doesn't sound like a great way to have a fucking discussion does it Okay, but counterpoint, like, a lot of right-wing discussion is just in bad faith and lies and slander. So, like, don't know. Do you who want to, like, inflict that psychic damage on yourself? I don't blame anybody for not wanting to do so. No, of course not. But if you if you want to discuss politics, you have to discuss both sides.
01:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. it's It's the whole, oh, you have to engage with people who aren't prepared to engage in bad faith. And it's like, do we? Can we not just, like, cut them out of the discussion entirely? But then you get like cancel culture.
01:11:58
Speaker
no it's not even that. It's just, you know, you... We don't want to... No, I'm not... if This episode is already too long. I'm not getting into this. this gonna be If this is a long one, this is a long one. We're going to be talking about American politics, which is unfortunately relevant in the year of our Lord 2026. So this is probably going to be an episode to discuss. so Fine.
01:12:17
Speaker
Either end of the spectrum, either completely left-wing or right-wing, either side, you end in fascism. So in order to ideally find... a good conversation, you have to listen to other people's views. If they are in bad faith, then they are in bad faith. That's the end of it, but, you know... I would argue one side of the political ah spectrum engages in bad faith considerably more than the other, though. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. i agree, but no matter what, if you... if if you keep going further and further left wing, you end up in fascism. If you keep going and further far right wing, end up lot of the far right strategy is the flood the zone with shit thing, which is just throw out so many lies and bad faith arguments that everybody's forced to engage with that you can't actually keep track of what's actually going on and what's actually serious and what you should be like actually tackling and dealing with and they can just get away with everything. And it's working, you know? so you don't have to engage with everything. You can just ignore them. Mm-hmm.
01:13:13
Speaker
As we are saying, that is creeping into British politics. Love that. Hey, hey, I told everybody to vote in Gorton and Denton and they did. Greens fucking won. If you put out a good policy of hope and better things are possible, people will fucking vote for it.
01:13:30
Speaker
Just saying. you To our viewers, you can vote for whoever you want. as long as it's Green Party.
01:13:39
Speaker
I mean, as long as it's just not the fucking Conservatives or Reform or whatever the new... Or all of the other splinter groups that are fracturing off. But that's the thing. Keep splintering. Keep doing it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just then you will dilute vote and you're all fucked.
01:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, split the right. I'd love to do that. Keep splitting. Keep doing that. I just find it quite fascinating how it seems to work with the right where they go really, really right wing at the start and then they realise that nobody knows how to actually run a country or have any sort of policy so they have to start going moderate which upsets all the massive races. oh yes so yeah yeah well That's that' the problem though, isn't it? is like The people, the the the actual like mouthpieces in right wing politics aren't in it for politics they're in it for power they're not in it to make a better world they're in it to fucking gain power I'm sure there's some left-wing politicians that are just in it for power but you know yeah like none of them know how run a country because none of them are interested in running a country mm-hmm
01:14:40
Speaker
Obviously, Homer is not very political, but in fact, he thinks people who vote are a bit fruity. Yeah, I thought that was... Again, that was fun. I think they did a good job of like immediately then making a joke on right-wing voters, or like Republican voters specifically, that it's not that... They don't think themselves politically-minded, they just vote Republican because they've always voted Republican.
01:15:02
Speaker
But they do have, like, pretty regressive views. But then we'll say, you know, they'll call they'll call someone the N-word in public and then say, oh, but I'm not political.
01:15:13
Speaker
It's like, nah, I don't disagree there.
01:15:18
Speaker
But Thelma thinks that Birch Barlow really speaks to him. We don't see the reason, probably reason for this is because Birch Barlow is just scoffing donuts at his end. Yep. Yeah. And Birch, Birch begins with his ah fellow freedom likers and it is as right wing conservative as you can expect. He says, we're not going to get rid of three things here in Springfield. One is the bats in the library and we cut immediately to the A man being a tapping pastor in the life.
01:15:43
Speaker
Mrs. McFeely's compost heap, which we see is ah quite large, and she's holding a shotgun just in case. ah She should. and It's a mighty fine compost heap. yeah And we see that the third thing is the sixth term, illiterate, tax-cheating, wife-swapping, pot-smoking, spendocrat, Diamond Joe Quimby.
01:16:00
Speaker
So is this implying that that Quimby is a Democrat? Yes, very much so, yes. Quimby takes a friend's distance by going, I am not illiterate. Hey, no longer illiterate. It should be noted up top here that Birch Barlow is a parody of specifically Rush Limbaugh, but you could be forgiven for thinking it's any far-right pundit that's popped up because they just keep appearing like fucking Hydra heads these days.
01:16:24
Speaker
We basically see that he's continuing his rant and we see that Lisa's listening to this in the Simpsons kitchen and... the Lisa says she's doing a report on local politics for the school project.
01:16:35
Speaker
Bart gets upset by this and says you you're so big because your class is always doing projects and Bart says he's doing a school project on fireworks. This upsets Marge and says I wish he wouldn't lie like that and destroys his fireworks. We then go to the next scene and Bart actually was doing a school project for fireworks for the ah Chinese principals.
01:16:52
Speaker
who were about to leave so Bob was going to do fireworks display. Inside! Yep. So Bob gets his F and the Chinese principals upset going, oh, bad student. no bad principal. Which, he's very pissed about. i'll Keep in mind that I think it's funny that they do, they you know, they're taking the mickey out of right-wing republican voters and stuff like that and then they do a pretty stereotypical accent for the chinese people which i thought was interesting yeah i mean talked about cultural sensitivities i mean yeah i i could because again i think we when we talked about as well it was very clear that we have differing opinions on it because don't think it is inherently racist to do those kind of accents i think there is a time and a place and i think it can be done
01:17:39
Speaker
in in a way that is still humorous without clearly being like, lol, that's what they're like, kind of thing. But yeah it is still funny that, yeah, they chose to do that during this episode.
01:17:52
Speaker
We then cut to Bart and Lisa in the car, and Lisa's sick of listening to Birch Barlow, but Homer points out that he's driving the car, so he gets to choose the radio station, and Lisa can trick the radio station when she's driving the car. We then cut to the next scene. We then cut to the next scene, and Lisa's now driving the car while St. Elmo's fire is on, because I've had enough of this. Let's switch back. So strange.
01:18:18
Speaker
So we see that Birch Barlow's back on his home, is now driving the car, and Birch has his first caller, which is Bob from South Springfield, and we see that this is obviously Sideshow Bob on the phone. It's kind of interesting that they had Kelsey Grammer do this, because kel yeah because obviously they did it because it's Sideshow Bob, but Kelsey Grammer is also a Republican.
01:18:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that did that did surprise me as well. as like he's like He was quite open about his politics and he was frequently like held up as one of the few like openly Republican actors in Hollywood. And for him to be like doing an episode that like is most prominently punching in the direction of the Republicans seems surprising a little. Because keep in mind that most, again, most, when say most, a lot of Republicans...
01:19:04
Speaker
don't like care more about personal gain than they do their own politics. This is true. So he true he did this episode because he was getting paid, not because... That is true. You know, he didn't yeah you he didn't fucking care that they're making fun of Republicans. He didn't give a shit.
01:19:18
Speaker
Because, you know, he's also a wife-beater, so fuck that guy. I used to respect you. So didn't fucking lick my balls. Yeah. Sajabob starts talking about, ah it's time people realise that because of it is, we're not Johnny Hatemongers, Charlie Bible Thumps or George Bushes.
01:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, but they just end it with George Bushes. Lisa finally works out that side your Bob and Homer kind of plays it off like, oh yes, side your Bob yakking upon the old jackbox.
01:19:47
Speaker
Lisa then says she's sparing the embarrassment of not having me and side your Bob is and Homer's relieved by this. But then get a bit of a flashback over which is the basic cliff notes of who side your Bob is. For viewers who haven't seen previous episodes as well. Which includes the exact year they framed Christy. Yeah, I like that they point out that it happened in 1990 but then don't acknowledge the fact that no one has aged.
01:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, I know. It does imply the passage of time, but yeah, then Lisa would be 12. twelve Acknowledge this, please. sideshow, Bob. Bob.
01:20:25
Speaker
This leads Lisa going into Bart's room and telling Bart that his mortal enemy is on the radio. and then we see thing dot I don't know why i fucking cackled at this bit. It's so fucking stupid. It's it's it's a don it' time for some dementia with Dr. Demento. Which point Bart versus radio out of the window. It's so He's credited as himself. Dr. Dementor is credited on this episode, but also, like, I assume this is just, like, they sampled his radio show for it. Surely they didn't get him in the studio to say that.
01:21:03
Speaker
Lisa points out she meant his other mortal enemy, Sajal Bob. I'm 10-0 to have two more enemies. Do any of you feel like you have a mortal enemy or a nemesis?
01:21:14
Speaker
I've people not liking me, but I don't think they sit awake at night thinking they're going to kill me. So, no, and I haven't sat there thinking, oh, I hope that person dies. Jon, how many people have you pissed off?
01:21:26
Speaker
Personally? Yes. Um... I don't think I've got a mortal enemy. don't think so. Sorry, I just gotta write a quick note.
01:21:36
Speaker
Be meaner to Jon. Right, cool sorry, what were we doing? Making mortal enemies? We're griping at the mayor. Okay, continue, continue.
01:21:47
Speaker
So we see that Mayor Quimby is with a several elderly people at the Old Folk's home, and he's saying that the expressway will bring commerce to the local merchants, and Abe goes, what's in it for us?
01:21:58
Speaker
And Jasper threatens to ride him out of town on a rail. I appreciated this bit because, yeah, it is like that a lot of people a lot of politicians um cater to the old, but then the old only give a shit about what benefits them, which blows my fucking mind.
01:22:15
Speaker
We love our grandkids. We love our grandkids. It's like, well why don't you want them to be able to afford a fucking house, granddad? Because that's not what old people like. They like sleep and sexy names and mad luck. Mad luck.
01:22:31
Speaker
I mean, admittedly, i like two of those things. Matlock. Matlock and more Matlock. Well, you would have voted for Quimby because Quimby decides to name the new expressway the Matlock Express.
01:22:44
Speaker
Could he legally do that? I think so. not? Well, would I'm saying, would he actually have to get confirmation with the company that owns the network that owns Matlock in order to name it the Matlock Expressway?
01:22:58
Speaker
ah I don't know. I mean, like, presumably they would be happy at free advertising, but also like streets are named after things all the time. And I don't know that you need necessarily need to get people's permission. like I don't know.
01:23:10
Speaker
I think it depends what it is, I think. that There's literally a street in York that's like Dame Judi Dench Street or something. I don't think they asked her permission before they did it. I don't know. That's the thing i' um um' I'm interested in. I'm usually more interested in stuff like that than I am politics.
01:23:27
Speaker
Because, oh, that's interesting. I think if it's not slanderous or you're not making money off it, then you're probably going be all right, I would have thought. Maybe. I don't know. It's interesting. we don't see that Bart is now listening to Birch Barlow on his headphones in glass and how no one has noticed Bart is wearing headphones. Yeah, they really had to stretch the bit of them all listening to this radio show all day.
Conservative Media Influence
01:23:52
Speaker
see that Bob is complaining about the fact he's incarcerated, particularly for attempted murder, which is like, do they give Nobel Prizes for being hurt? What even is that? Do they give Nobel Prizes for attempted chemistry?
01:24:04
Speaker
We don't see there's a riot going on behind him. There's a riot going on behind him. Oh, that is very much the right-wing thing of being like... There's a post, I'll try and dig up the damn post. but The obsession with Nobel Peace Prices. Not even the... No, no it's the it's the, like, describing crimes in the most, like, broad terms possible so in order to, like, pretend nothing's happening. It's like, oh, so is it a conspiracy to make plans with your friends, is it now? Oh yeah, I get that. I did love as well the throwing of the toilet. He's like, oh come now, this is a personal call.
01:24:37
Speaker
I like, again, and say what say what you want about him, and I have already in this episode, but Kelsey Grammer is a fantastic voice actor for Sideshow Bob. Brilliant. He is, yes. yeah I mean, you mentioned, like, they're dragging out the bit of him, but also, like, theoretically, Bart was listening to a phone-in call to a radio show when he was at home, and he's gone to school and he's still listening to the same phone call from the same radio show. Bob is making this last. Well, yeah, because- got some airtime. Well, if you think about it, most conservative radio or, like, news outlets don't have any actual news to report because it's all fucking lies anyway. So they get one witness and just have them on all fucking day.
01:25:17
Speaker
Hmm. That's Bala was outraged, he says he's going to do everything in his power to get Bob free. This is Bob Sparta, shout, No! Which gets the entire class to look at him, and Mrs. Krabappo points out that, by his objection, the people of South Africa can now vote in three democratic elections.
01:25:33
Speaker
ah Bob mentions Oliver North, who was embroiled in ah the Iran-Contra affair, Stacey Coon, who was involved was responsible for the beating of Rodney King, and Joe Camel, who... Was, the oh yeah, the mascot for Camel Cigarettes. Cigarettes, yeah. Yeah, apparently, like, he, I guess the mascot, was found responsible for, like, quite significantly increasing the amount of kids that smoked. Like, they genuinely, like, did, like, campaign to see... cartoon
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, they did they did a survey of children to see which cartoon characters were most recognizable, and, like, an absurdly high number of kids recognized Joe Camel as a character. they're like, oh, yeah, that's Joe Camel. We like know Joe Camel.
01:26:17
Speaker
Yeah, well, it was the same when Super Size Me where people knew who Von McDonald was, but not Jesus. Over 90% of six-year-olds recognised both Joe Camel and the Disney Channel logo. Wow. Important.
01:26:31
Speaker
So we go to Moe's and everyone's listening and Birch Barlow calls on people to do whatever they can to get him out jail and Moe's response, this is the part a box of hand grenades and start handing them out. The meme. but Bonnie then points out that he probably meant non-violent grassroots political action. mo upset by this, but starts taking the grenades back. Do you think so?
01:26:49
Speaker
Then Mo realizes one of the pins is missing. I liked as well, i my my glum toothpaste for this episode is, if you guys didn't notice, in the background there's a sign that is supposed to say Ladies Night 2, as in Tuesday.
01:27:04
Speaker
It does not say that. It says Ladies-ite 2, because the line between the two lines of the N are not there. So it just says... I-I-I-T-E. Ladies' I-T-E. I don't know why I noticed that, but I did notice that, and I fucking latched onto that bitch.
01:27:24
Speaker
Fair enough. In consequential detail, but sure. Ladies' I-T. Anyway, who pulled the pill and the grenade? We never know. Well, the it was the last one he took, so surely it was the ah the dude with the the cap, the green cap.
01:27:38
Speaker
I guess so. We then see that the Springfield Chopper as it's the says that Bob's pardon is another local issue. It edges out no fat chicks. No fat chicks. And Quimby finally decides that if this is the way the wind is blowing, let no one say that I don't also blow.
01:27:54
Speaker
And we get Quimby's voice over as Bob walks the prison saying that he's been given a complete pardon. This was a good bit. Bob then plummets as he's...
01:28:04
Speaker
vote that way alcot yes thank you see hath that he shakes of fishho there there really isn't anyone like from what i recall that the only person i feel like brought the same energy that kelsey grammar did to sideshow bob was um willem defoe with his uh cameo character that where he plays the teacher if you guys remember that's it's like later on right Don't know if I... There's a one on top of my head. Yeah, like shaves Bart's head or something. Oh. Willem Dafoe also brought that same energy. I genuinely... I feel they probably were trying to recreate Sideshow Bob, but no other actor has quite brought that same vibe that Kelsey Grammer did with Sideshow Bob. And I do think that's kind of a shame.
01:28:53
Speaker
this wasn't good this bit This thought wasn't going anywhere, I just thought it's just something I think about sometimes. They never really brought anyone quite as Shakespearean into Simpsons, really. mean, they get David Hyde Pierce to do Cecil at some point, which obviously works because it's just Frasier and Niles, but yeah.
01:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's just an interesting thing. yeah I think when it's similar to a lot of sitcoms, a lot of sitcoms have had this over the years where you can tell when one of the guest characters is a real actor.
01:29:28
Speaker
And, you know, they're like acting next to, you know, all the fucking like Friends characters. And you're just like, oh, damn, you're like actually. It's like when they had Brad Pitt on Friends and you're just like, oh, wow, he's like an actual, he's like an actor.
01:29:43
Speaker
And y'all suck dick. I feel like most of the Friends actors would probably characterize themselves as also as actors, but hey. I mean, what do you know whaty though oh would you Would you really do that? said they would. They might, yeah. But again, like... Are you implying that Matt LeBlanc is not in the same? Oh, how dare I say such a... How dare I insult the star of Joey.
01:30:08
Speaker
um They had a similar thing with, like, to Timothy Olyphant in ah The Office. Timothy Olyphant is, like, an incredibly talented actor and just, like, him next to fucking oh the last that acts Pam. you're just like, Jesus Christ.
01:30:23
Speaker
We go to the Republican Party headquarters, which is in a very sinister-looking castle. Dracula's castle, yeah. So on the nose. Speaking of which, Dracula is there himself. He doesn't get a martini, he gets some blood, and you see Radio Wolf castles there, Birch, Barlow, Doctor... Another Republican actor, yeah. Yeah, it's Arnie, and Arnie is actually a Republican.
01:30:44
Speaker
yeah yeah Mr Burns walks in and goes Hey all brothers, come on Shilara And everyone goes mo Please someone explain this Uh, fuck this God, this is a reference heavy though It is Inspired by Enochian A language associated with occult and satanic Ceremonies, according to Wikipedia Man, that's so dumb That's not even That's not even a reference, that's just Ah, let me show you my niche knowledge pushes up glasses.
01:31:16
Speaker
We don't see that they're looking to actively remove Joe Quimby from the mayor or position and Ben says we need a candidate with name recognition and media savvy. A true leader who will do whatever he's told.
01:31:28
Speaker
yeah And Barlow says, if you open that door, you'll see the next pair of Springfield. So Spoons opens the door and we see it's a water cooler, which everyone applauded. Isn't this actually a bit that someone made a joke at some point that I think it was it was someone insulting another presidential candidate saying that a water cooler would beat them in an election or something? like I vaguely remember that being the case. okay I could be wrong, but i I feel like I've heard something to that effect at some point.
01:31:53
Speaker
the worldle Cool makes some bubbles and the rich Texan asks, what did it say? Yeah, what did it say? Then Barlow brings Bob in and Bob walks in, covering the US s flag, and there he says, find my book. He's literally wrapped in the flag well. loved ah Rainier Wolf Castle. like the personal touch. The human touch. The human touch. Sorry, yeah, that was good.
01:32:14
Speaker
i mean I mean, I know he's literally wrapped in the flag because like politicians always love to say, oh I'm going to wrap myself in the flag when they're been like appealing to patriotism. But also like that he that that him posed wrapped in the flag is literally just like the cover art, movie poster, whatever, for Bob Roberts.
01:32:29
Speaker
Or they get very, very creepy and look like they're molesting the flag on stage when they hug it and kiss it. Yeah, that happens too. yeah yeah What politician would do something so fucking weird and creepy?
01:32:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. They go to Springfield Elementary where the candidates for the mayor are speaking on education and ah Skinner tells the students to be on the best behaviour which includes no whisting off, no face making and no grass eating.
01:32:54
Speaker
Why are they campaigning to children? Why are they campaigning to children? Just in case. For the bit. No, this is stupid. Like, I also, oh this this does happen, I know, because there a really weird niche candidate in my parents' hometown some years back that I looked up and he was a real wingnut.
01:33:12
Speaker
But also, like, I found out, I looked up his, like, campaign that he'd done, and it was a local high school. That was it. That's the only people he bothered to talk to about getting votes he went to local high school. maybe Well, maybe the logic of it is if you go to kids and you do what Sajir Bob does and they feed back to the parents, oh, he was a very funny man. I like him. Yes. And it just looks good in the newspaper.
01:33:38
Speaker
It looks good in the newspaper, though, as well, to say that, you know... Kiss babies without having to take campaigning time to go to a school. So Bob introduces he himself to the kids and then turns and gives Bart the Hello Bart Bart Hello children Hello Bart So bob Bob starts doing his thing which includes a saying couldn't be flip flops and he demonstrates this by doing flip flops Yeah I love it was It late took me a second to realise what he was doing but then it's actually like kind of genius He also says he doesn't know where he's coming or going, and does the back-to-front walk, and says he's selling us suit your future short by ah drinking himself into the suit, and Lisa says we're going to have to stoop to the lowest common denominator, and they jump on Mayor Quimby, and Quimby's like, oh, I'm being attacked by things. By things.
01:34:22
Speaker
And Lisa goes, Uncle Mayor was telling us that the kids are the most important resource for them. Ken Brockman goes, more important than Cole, and Quimby goes, yeah. Bart is then dragged away by Bob's security team, and Bob tells Bart that was a big mistake, that no child has ever meddled with a Republican Bart and Barty had lived to tell tale. goes nowhere.
01:34:42
Speaker
It does. It's also extremely sinister in the light of the Epstein files. Oh, boy. I didn't think of that. Now I'm sad. ah i was But like they put the stickers on him, they kick him out, then this never goes anywhere. And I think it's because they realized, probably too late, why didn't Saito Bob just kill Bart then and there?
01:35:03
Speaker
They realized that, and then they thought, we need an escape from this bit, and they couldn't think of one. So they just threw him at the car. He needs an elaborate plot. Bart's thrown the car, then Homer is thrown out of... ah Fucking Archie. It's so random.
01:35:20
Speaker
He still has to stay out of Riverdale. Stay out of Riverdale. Do you know there is... For one, Archie Comics is still coming out. Did you know there is genuinely an Archie versus Predator comic?
01:35:34
Speaker
No, I did not. That's stupid. Why would that exist? Apparently it's great. Apparently it's hilarious. Does Archie win? ah Well, yeah, i'd um I'd imagine so, but a lot of the cast die.
01:35:47
Speaker
Oh, no, not Moose. No, not Moose! We then see Mayor Quimby's TV commercial, and he's got a very jaunty jingle, while it takes credit for the tie yard and the roller rink.
01:35:58
Speaker
And it's explained that the the stadium's collapse was not his fault. I loved this bit. The jingle was brilliant. I remember this from the Simpsons album, yes.
01:36:10
Speaker
So Bart and Lisa are doing some campaigning, which includes Bart yelling, Yo, four eyes, vote Quimby. Yo, Beardo, vote Quimby. He's the lesser of two evils. This time, he's the lesser of two evils.
01:36:21
Speaker
So Jimbo comes over and says he loves Quimby, and can he have some more bumper stickers? We then learn he's just playing them on Millhouse, and the mummy is now ready for his mystical journey. He's then pushed down the hill, and we just hear Bart in the house going, Ah, what's happening? i As he crashes. This keeps happening to Millhouse a lot lately.
01:36:36
Speaker
i mean, he deserves it. so We then see Sajjard Bob's turn to talk the Springfield Retirement spokes and Grandpa says, you promised to build us the expressway, what are you going to do to top that?
01:36:47
Speaker
Bob's way of topping that is, you'll build the expressway and spend the rest of the afternoon patiently listening to the anecdotes. And I'm immediately hyped because I know we're getting an Abe anecdote. yeah We do get our Abe anecdote about owning the first radio in Springfield where Thomas Edison was reciting the alphabet.
01:37:04
Speaker
yeah My favourite part of it though was like A then comes B and C would usually follow. Not that it would follow. It would usually follow. yeah Which is fucking hilarious. And I love that. I love that. That's the point Bob just like oh for fuck's sake.
01:37:23
Speaker
So we don't get a Sigeon Bob commercial in which ah it's talked about his revolving prison policy and we just see prisoners walking in and out and going down escalators and the advert points out that A lot of them looking like beatniks as well. I thought that was funny.
01:37:37
Speaker
This was a parody of an actual attack ad that George Bush ran. Alright. Yeah. They had points out that Mary Quimby even released Sigeo Bob, who's twice convicted of attempted murder, then tells us to vote for Sigeo Bob. Yeah.
01:37:53
Speaker
We then have the communal centre holding the mayoral debate and we see that Larry King is there. I don't think this was actually Larry King. No, Larry King is himself. Who was it? don't know him. Go Larry.
01:38:04
Speaker
Go Larry. So, Larry asks the crowd, even though the broadcast is on Fox, he asks them they're no obnoxious hooting and hollering and everyone hoots and hollers and Larry King's just like, for fuck's sake.
01:38:15
Speaker
So Bob looks all glamorous and he's ah he's made up professionally. We don't see that Quimby unfortunately has a cold and he laments the fact that he shook hands with old people. So Bob gives him some some more pills and this is worries about his performance. but bar says he's Bob spends an entire afternoon with the old people. Surely he should have the old people diseases as well. He's got a stronger constitution.
01:38:35
Speaker
I guess so. So we then see that Barthas accidentally given Quimby the extra Dourousy formula for his cold. Oh, dude, like I had to genuinely, like, because my partner has cats, so when I was in America, I was on Benadryl every day until I started to acclimatize.
01:38:54
Speaker
Holy fuck. fuck was it hard to function sometimes that stuff destroys you so i could not imagine taking i i took one of those a day and some days i would have to just like nap on the couch for like four hours taking a handful of them fuck me standing that would be rough Well, it is rough for Quimby because Barlow gives Sidel Bob a set up for a wise crack of less whining, saying he's not experienced. And we see Bob's response is, less whining should do more thinking and less whining.
01:39:28
Speaker
Lisa then points out that there is no such councilman, but butler that's a good line. It's true. He then asks Mayor Quimby his question that he's lenient on crime and starts giving an example of ah his house being ransacked by thugs and can't open the door because there's too much blood. Quimby then asks what is the question. question's about the budget.
01:39:46
Speaker
Then Quimby has to wipe his hair back and it goes into devil horns. And Channel 6 edits flames around his face. just I never even noticed the devil horns. Fuck me. I'm stupid.
01:39:57
Speaker
So we then see the people voting, which includes, if I'm not saying he doesn't agree with the Bart killing policy, but he agrees with the Selma killing policy. I would as well. That'd get my vote. And Chrissy points out that he was famed for armed robbery, but he wants that upper class tax cut.
01:40:10
Speaker
Also, yeah, that is... That is yeah so depressingly true. yeahp man stream Yeah, it is. So we get the results at headquarters and Sidel Popper's 100% of the vote with Mayor Quinby having 1% and there is 1% margin of error.
01:40:24
Speaker
We don't see that everybody clears out, including the cleanup man who takes the champagne on his way out. As you should. And cut to Bob's victory speech, which is just him laughing maniacally while Ken Bob goes, oh, just look how happy he is. mayor who laughs so heartedly has to be trustworthy.
01:40:37
Speaker
Well, we'll get to that. So, we then see Homer and Marjorie sleep in bed, but they're woken up by loud banging. By the rapture. Homer fixes the rapture and says, get by out of the house before God comes. I like Homer's logic, though. God, the omnipotent, omniscient deity, ah will be fooled by just removing Bart from the house. We then learn that it's not the rapture, but it's Sigil Bob building the Matlock Expressway, which he's conveniently decided needs to go for the Simpsons house.
01:41:06
Speaker
Very hitchhikers. So he informs them that they have 72 hours to vacate, at which time he will blow up the house and any remaining symptoms inside. Yep. So, Elmer says he knows what Bob's up to, and no one in the family will stand for it.
01:41:18
Speaker
We then hear a car honk and Abe and Jasper in an old... Move your damn house, son. Go down house, son. We then go to the school and Barth is approached by Skinner that then points out by the special request of the mayor. He's going to be like that. just realised as well, fucking... What's-his-face is in the car with Abe as well for no reason.
01:41:35
Speaker
Jasper. Jasper. Yeah, he's just in the car. He's just there. yeah They both want to try the Matlock Expressway because they're both old. Why wouldn't they? Oh, my apologies. Bart asks if he's got to repeat the fourth grade, but Skinner says, nope, well, not for four or five years. You're going to kindergarten. So Bart's shocked and Ender's cracking you up in some champagne.
01:41:54
Speaker
And we then see that Bart doesn't know what a triangle is, and he gets first choice of the toys, and Bart gets the Flintstone phone. Yabba-dabba-doo, I love talking to you. This doesn doesn't seem much of like a punishment for Bart, Bart seems like he's living his best life. Yeah, Bart's doing great.
01:42:08
Speaker
I'm going to lament the fact that ah they're going to lose the house. and they do honest sorry like i get Just to completely derail it. Have you ever like had to watch kids? And so that means you're watching like kids cartoons. And you watch stuff like Dora the Explorer or whatever. And they ask a question. And you answer it And you're like, this is easy. Kids are stupid. You're just like, man, I'm so much smarter than kids. I'm so fucking great. ah yeah Yeah, I can see the snake, Dora. Fuck you.
01:42:39
Speaker
I mean I've answered it but I've never felt like a moral superiority about it Well maybe you should try it, it's great Just get up on the table Yeah yeah just like insult the kids it's like Fuck you I saw it before you did What do you mean I've got to leave the restaurant
01:42:56
Speaker
Almost upset that they're going to be living under bridge like common trolls Lisa can't believe that Bob won the election because she can't believe a convicted felon would get so many votes and another convicted felon would get so few Yeah, 100% is a little implausible. It's very much the, like, why would you change your F to an A when it turns into a B so easily? It's like, yeah pick a plausible fake, you know? ye So Lisa goes to the Hall of Records and the man just hands over the all the voting records. Yeah, I thought this it was a private election. Eh.
01:43:24
Speaker
a it but Lisa starts going for the list, which is, of course, starts at the A's of Aaron A. Aronson, and Lisa quickly loses motivation and falls asleep.
01:43:36
Speaker
A mysterious figure then hands of an envelope, and... Also, this is a fucking public library, Lisa. Shut the fuck up. People are trying to read. We then see Bart and Lisa go to a car park to meet this guy and Lisa says, well, like Woodwalk and Bernstein. But Bart says no because they're dabbling it in the car. We then see that Homer is reading an Archie comic and he's focusing their own tale books. Which I just thought was a very great program. I like the that canonically in The Simpsons, Archie comics is non-fiction.
01:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. We then see a mysterious man putting on a voice saying they're on the right track and you can't tell them who they are, but... Oh, my dad drives up, puts his headlines on, and we see that... Hey, Mr. Smithers!
01:44:17
Speaker
I mean, was yeah, you can kind of tell already, but sure. So Smithers gets a ride home and... It's upset that he's going behind Burns' back, but Sige of Bob's ultra-conversed conservative views conflicted with his choice of lifestyle.
01:44:29
Speaker
Which was an interesting line, because that is basically the first time we were outright said is gay. We get any kind of confirmation, yeah. Yeah. Or at the very least that he is in love with another man.
01:44:40
Speaker
he might Again, he's not gay, he's Burns sexual. But that would still be- i don't I don't know where they're at with it in season six. Like, that that reads to me as gay, though. I know he's still attracted to Burns specifically, but, like, that does read to me as gay.
01:44:55
Speaker
No, yeah, i' that makes sense. he Eventually, gives the kids the name Edgar Neubauer and says, if you find him, he'll get your answer. We then see Bart and Lisa going for the phone books and Lisa can't find him. Bart finds gorilla and he's quite new guy. I see. I found that too funny. I'm a fucking child, guys.
01:45:15
Speaker
so The kids go to the library, but so they're attacked by bats when they try to find some information. Oh yeah, the bats. The bats are back. Lisa is upset that they're going to have to live in a Motel 6, but Bart points out that Dad can't afford the $6 a week.
01:45:28
Speaker
A night, sorry. And then, at the next moment, Bart finally does find Edgar Newbar, and we see that there is a grave of the beloved husband and old Grouch. Bart is horrified by this because the dead have risen and now voting Republic.
01:45:40
Speaker
But Lisa points out that nope, the dead can't vote and the mysteries were solved by pointing out that Prudus Goodwife, who died in 1641, also voted for Bob, as did Buddy Holly, Richie Valens at the Big Bopper, who has a hell of a gravestone, by the way. Yeah, well um what a gravestone.
01:45:56
Speaker
And it's since voted that even the pets voted, which included Mrs. Bananas, Humphrey Beauregardt. Beauregardt. That's so good. That's very good. That's so good, man. And then we see that Snowball won Lisa's dead cat, also voted for Bob. Lisa declares that now it's personal and Bob points out, you know, he did try to kill me. Also on the list there is Stampy. Stampy's two lines down from Snowball.
01:46:19
Speaker
Stampy, so that means Stampy's dead. No, it means Stampy voted for Bob. Doesn't mean he's dead. bing vote The Springfield Chopper headline goes, there's a probe into the Bob flap. It also includes an editorial, why not let dead pets vote?
01:46:33
Speaker
didn't notice that. That's gross. I didn't say that. You then see that the house demolition is going on and Marge is threatening the crew of a bowling pin, which... I like how they're legit scared of.
01:46:45
Speaker
Homer goes all Miley Cyrus and he's holding onto the wrecking ball, which just spashes him into the wall, but it seems alright. Yeah, it looked like it did wonders for his back. Like that face he gave, so he's like, he looks relieved.
01:46:56
Speaker
We don't see the courtroom and Bob comes in and everyone everyone looks a bit sinister. And Lionel Hutz opens says, did you rig the election? And Bob goes, no I didn't. This Bob's Lionel Hutz to look at the kids and help. Kids help. For God's sake. So silly. And the judge in the room's like, what do you want me to do?
01:47:14
Speaker
And Bob says, he wants the kids to feel like justice has been served, that they can sleep well on their hotel pillows. Their hard feculent motel pillows, which I'm frantically googling what the fuck feculent means.
01:47:24
Speaker
don't know what fecund means. Feculent means ah related to shit, I think. Of containing dirt, sediment, or waste matter. iss Fecal, I guess, is sort of... Feculent. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, fecal.
01:47:38
Speaker
So Lisa says she's got a plan that they can trap him, and Lisa goes up, drinks his water, and she thinks he's innocent, because Bob is obviously just the pawn of... Birch Barlow who was like, whoo, ha, whoo, what? It's just the noises. Did they run out of voice actor or something?
01:47:54
Speaker
So eventually they start going through the fact that Bob is just this guy's born, which include he's Ronnie to his Nancy, Sonny to his share, and particularly harsh Ringo to the rest of the Beatles.
01:48:05
Speaker
Ringo was great. Undone by his ego once again. yeah So Bob finally snaps and says he actually came up with the whole plan. And then Bob goes, did you want the truth? And he goes, you can't handle the truth.
01:48:17
Speaker
Just a few good men reference. But he does add some added lines, which include his, I deride your truth handling abilities. yeah that was a bit kind of belaboured the point there. The judge wants him to get to the point and Bob starts putting out his evidence which he calls floppy disks, binders and his own set of journals which calls Bob's Fraud Logs. Bob's Fraud Volumes 1 to like 6.
01:48:39
Speaker
The judge asks him why did it the Bob says that Springfield needed him because their guilty conscience forced him to vote Democrat. that they secretly wanted a republican to lower taxes, brutalise criminals and rule you like a king.
01:48:50
Speaker
Bob's about to go walk off to go run the city and the bailiffs place him under arrest and Bob's a bit shocked at first that he realises it's for ah all the stuff I did. Yes, all the all the things I did.
01:49:01
Speaker
Lisa says that so they get to keep the house and go back to the fourth grade. Bart's kind of depressed about this because ah you won't find out who the dish ran away with. Lisa points out it's the spoon and... Of Love that that ended on a cliffhanger.
01:49:13
Speaker
We don't get the headline again, which is Todd has toppled mayor. There's a picture of Abe looking very disgruntled as the expressway is announced as halted. Bob is upset in the prison, saying that he'll have his vengeance once gets out this savage roach-impressed cesspool.
01:49:27
Speaker
We then see that ah Bob is literally in a medium security prison with an open door and he can leave if he really wanted. At that point, ah the rowing team comes past and Bob's pointed out that a yearly and he says, we need an ape to row against Princeton. And Bob eagerly gets into it because he hates Princeton.
01:49:46
Speaker
Don't we all? That's your rather bizarre ending. That is Sideshow Bob Roberts. I also just want to point out that neither Lisa nor Bart is a toddler. And yet on the newspaper it said toddlers reveal fraud or whatever.
01:50:00
Speaker
Did it? Yeah, it said toddlers. Toddlers to the male, I think it was. neither Neither of them is a toddler. Well, they want want some alliteration. Alliteration sells newspapers, right? Ah, true.
01:50:13
Speaker
What did we think of that episode? It's fun. You know, it definitely gets you in the 2026s, but it's ah who yeah boy doest that so funny. yeah know I still fun it found it funny. There's some good gags in it.
01:50:24
Speaker
Yeah, I can't complain. It was a fun episode. ah yeah it's normal and it's It's hard for a Sideshow Bob episode not to be, you know, like at least, you know, high, high, high mid.
01:50:35
Speaker
Yeah, the the floor is already quite high as far as Bob episodes go, yeah. But like it's not ah it is not top-tier Bob material. No, absolutely not. There's better there's better Bobs, but it's say ah it's a decent Bob.
01:50:50
Speaker
It's fine. It it is is a solid Bob episode. it's It's a fascinating episode in the way that the world has changed in ages. But the episode itself, if you're viewing it as a standalone event, it's perfectly fine. There's a few moments that make you laugh, so...
01:51:06
Speaker
yeah I think i'm i think i'm higher I'm more positive on it than you guys seem to be. I i did enjoy the episode, it's a fun episode. I think I just took too much psychic damage from watching it. At least three of my notes are just, this is too real.
01:51:23
Speaker
Because it really is. I'm like, oh no, you can't be doing this. Yeah, I didn't bother writing because i didn't bother writing a paragraph on what it says about society. I just didn't bother.
01:51:34
Speaker
i assume I assumed you'd written enough for both of us. ha I got a couple things. We got some out of homers.
01:51:45
Speaker
Psychic damage out of homer. I'll give it an honest political candidate out of homer. That's pretty funny. I'm giving it a mad look out of Mad look! Because old people like it? Because that's what old people want. Oh, yeah.
01:52:00
Speaker
Yeah, i'm an sure is. Alright, John, go on. Okay, it is obviously pretty pretty on the nose, right out the gate, with the influence of right-wing pundits, which has only become more prevalent as time has gone on. I like genuinely like a little surprised how much of this apparently translates to 1994.
01:52:20
Speaker
This is an era that we as millennials have been told was the end of history when nothing was happening. Like nobody was nobody was doing anything in the 90s. Like nothing was political in the 90s. And yet, like we've got all this shit that's like so relevant today, including like people just like making up shit on the radio to influence people. It's like, oh, OK, it's been going on a while. OK, I see this.
01:52:44
Speaker
Yeah, the dirty political campaigning, and appeals to populism and things like, oh yeah, that's that's that's also still going on today. And as you say, appealing to the old because they're very easy to appeal to and tend to vote a lot.
01:53:02
Speaker
Sadly, go and vote. If you have a chance to vote, use that right, people. Good God. Do not let the old people determine what happens in your countries. ah Bob's speech at the end is very much like illustrative of how the elite ruling class feel they're entitled to power which again continues to be something we see today i think i think weirdly actually like the thing that struck me most was like the Smithers bit Yeah, that was surprising. For quite a small moment in this, like, to bring out Smithers as homosexual and also to be simultaneously making the point and the statement that homosexual or just queer existence generally is inherently political. And under threat. is
01:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, i well quite a thing to be saying in, you know, yeah family friendly cartoon in the mid 90s. Yeah. Like, because it is like people. It's one of those things that you see in debates on social media all the time. It's like, oh, can't you just exist? Why you have to make everything political? and it's You made it political, dude.
01:54:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, big because to exist as a marginalised identity is inherently intrinsically political. Everything you do is shaped by the politics of the world around you. Like, you can't not be. Your your existence just is political, and it it has been made... I'm sure people would love to not be. Many people would love if they could just exist without having to, like, deal with the politics of the world. But sadly, this this continues to be the way things are. Just just so lower your um just to slow your ah deployment of the depression fuel for a moment, I think what sure one of one of the cool things about the Smithers bit as well is the is the and is the reminder that quiet rebellion is possible. Because I remember, yeah not to make it too directly political, one of the cool things I saw online
01:54:59
Speaker
during Trump's campaign that unfortunately didn't work in the end, I suppose, but was the fact that women of Republican husbands the ah that want to vote for a man that would happily rape you, would take away your reproductive rights, all of these things, you can just not vote for him.
01:55:20
Speaker
if you are ah if if they are If your husband allows you to go vote, you could just vote for someone else. And I thought that would... I hate that your sentence includes if your husband allows you to vote, which is just just just just horrifying. that's not yeah Yeah, I will point out, I don't agree with that notion. of Everyone should be allowed to vote.
01:55:42
Speaker
But yeah, I thought it was cool that that Smithers was an example of that, that quiet rebellion is possible, that you can... As much as it is scary to speak out, you don't necessarily have to speak out.
01:55:55
Speaker
You can just vote for who you actually believe in, even if you are in an environment that is pressuring you to vote differently. So I think there was a positive there that I quite liked. So sorry, John, to interrupt your um ah bringing of the down. Please continue.
01:56:14
Speaker
um i think my my last big point was just like Bob bringing out all the files of all the things that he did. Yeah. Which again, in light of recent events of 2026 is the whole elites commit crimes and just do it openly and document it and talk about it amongst themselves and don't really expect to face consequences for it. And and frankly, they're right because they very rarely do. Yeah.
01:56:44
Speaker
So, yeah, that was probably more prescient and knowing than they realized when they wrote that. But yeah, holy shit, for whatever conspiracy theories people cook up about, oh, the elites are like, you know, draining the blood of infants to create adrenochrome in the basement of a pizza parlor. Why do you have to make up conspiracy theories about what ah what the government is doing when the government is just actively doing heinous shit?
01:57:10
Speaker
Yeah, when you've got emails that are like, hey, did you like the child I gave you for torture? LOL, signed Jeff, sent from my iPhone. Jesus Christ. Which is not, I'm not exaggerating all that much about what that email was. Like, the debt that there's ones like that in there. Yeah.
01:57:28
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Anyway, I brought us down. Michael, have you got anything more positive to add? Oh, really? Okay, cool. there's There's no coming back from from that. That was that was a downer.
01:57:43
Speaker
we should have We should have talked about these episodes in a different order. I don't think we could call it a downer. I think it's just it's an acknowledgement of where we are
Political Engagement and Conclusion
01:57:52
Speaker
in the world. And yeah, I think it's and it's important to have these conversations and discussions.
01:57:58
Speaker
I know, as Lenny said earlier, there is a degree of it can make us uncomfortable, but we we do need to push back on stuff that is not true or false narratives. And as as you say, it's it's it's got to be done.
01:58:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess part of the problem here is they're trying to do the lol funnies because it's a lighthearted comedy TV show for families. But also, the subject matter is, as has been observed approximately since, ah ah but I would say, about 2016, everything's beyond parody these days. Parody writers like The Onion, I have an unenviable task because...
01:58:41
Speaker
Everything is just just the world and everything that's going around is so outlandish and insane that like it's very hard to mock it because whatever you can write is either just shit that's just going on or just not even as ridiculous as shit that's going on anyway. Yeah. So for them to write this in 1994, like, yeah, I don't think they were like writing it in the context of 2026. So at this point, its it it is, as I say, it's just too real.
01:59:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's very, very on the nose, very real. World is hellscape. Sure is. I found a cool new video game to play though, so I'm good.
01:59:25
Speaker
Okay. I found a new video game, I'm happy, I've got donuts. We all take our joy where we can and it's important to do so. Don't give in to Doomerism. Find your joy where you can and take it.
01:59:38
Speaker
I think that's the thing, yeah, is is that I've been seeing a lot is I understand that we all feel like we need to be in the know about everything that's happening, but there is a point of pick your battles. And if yeah if at the end of the day, all you can do is occasionally...
02:00:00
Speaker
If all of your followers on Twitter, if anyone that's going to read your stuff on Twitter is just going to be your friends that already agree with you, all of this stuff, then maybe stop caring so much about reposting everything and and reading every article so that you can talk about it with your friends. I'm not saying don't talk about those things.
02:00:17
Speaker
Oh, this is targeted at me, isn't it? No, it absolutely isn't. No, this is something that I've i've seen a a couple of people talk about. just that i have if I have this friend. his goal No, it absolutely it absolutely isn't. It's just if your if your life is an echo chamber, which a lot of us are, we all have like... like I don't have a lot of right-leaning friends, so I don't have these conversations with opera opposing views very often. I know I'm probably the most like closer to centrist person on this podcast, but anyway...
02:00:46
Speaker
You don't have to be tuned in to all of the all of the news, every horrible thing that's going on. You are allowed to take a break. If ultimately the only thing you're going to be able to do is vote, then maybe wait till closer to voting season to start getting vitriolic and everything. Because that's what they want is for you to be just depressed and miserable and to give up.
02:01:08
Speaker
And the best way to do that is to constantly read the news, to constantly really read every little thing that's happening about the Epstein files to do. Unless you are out there protesting, take a day off.
02:01:21
Speaker
And that's not me being like defeatist. It's that you will go insane and fucking die if all you do is is consume the news of the horrible reality we live in.
02:01:35
Speaker
You are allowed to find a cute little farming game and play it for a day and not think about what's going on outside the four walls you surround yourself with. I know we'll pass the two hour mark. Can I share with you a small anecdote from the campaigning I've done with the Green Party in recent months? Go on then.
02:01:52
Speaker
chatting to folks on the doorstep, I spoke to one person who told me they had not read the news in four four years. And one of the questions I'd been, you know, scripted to ask was, how do you feel about reform?
02:02:08
Speaker
And they're like but I don't understand the question. It was like, the political party reform. Like, no, you need to phrase that question better. That question doesn't mean anything. It's like, there is a political party called reform. Are you aware of them?
02:02:22
Speaker
No, I don't know. I don't know about that one. was like, you seem real happy. Yeah. Yeah. That was the happiest person I've ever spoken to while campaigning. um Yeah, I'm not saying bury your head in the sand or anything like that. I'm just saying that you are allowed to not know everything, you know?
02:02:42
Speaker
there there There is a world outside of the political landscape. If you know going to vote for, if you know who your friends going vote for, and if everyone you interact with you knows who they're going vote for,
02:02:54
Speaker
It's alright to take a couple days off a week and focus on your own mental health. I truly believe that. Because you will go insane. You will fucking die. Oh yeah, absolutely. Do not.
02:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, if you if you wish to like make a difference in this world, it is important not to burn yourself out and break yourself. So, like, yeah. yeah you know make Make sure you're capable of, like, existing.
02:03:18
Speaker
That is there's the top priority for everyone. Mm-hmm. Alright. Anyway. we done We should probably wrap things up. Yeah, I think we're there. Let's promote whatever the heck we've got to promote. Matt, what you got?
02:03:30
Speaker
Upcoming, a hopefully before the next episode of The Simpsons, so I don't have to do a afford ah a forfeit, is the next episode of All 4 Arnold. We talked about The Running Man. We also talked about the 2025 remake of The Running Man. Not in any great detail. We just, you know, we watched it because we wanted the context.
02:03:46
Speaker
While I won't spoil our feelings on the original Running Man film, I will say the 2025 Running Man? great good Great film. Go watch it. Genuinely good. Brilliant film. Really liked it. And I'm not a big Edgar Wright fan.
02:04:02
Speaker
So, you know, take that for what it is. Yeah. Brilliant film. Really, really enjoyed it. Yeah. for it was You know, we talked about that next up. We've got one. I don't think either of us have ever even really heard of. That's like a buddy cop film. Looking forward to talking about that next. Yeah.
02:04:16
Speaker
As much as, yeah, Arnie is a Republican. I thoroughly enjoy watching and talking about his films, even if sometimes they're poopy, like ah Red Sonja. Other than that, please go to Steam right now. Now? Yes, now. And wishlist, or at least look at the Steam page for Spooky Tales...
02:04:35
Speaker
volume one i am voicing the narrator in that game i am so incredibly excited i am so incredibly proud of myself it is incredibly fun it's so exciting if you need a selling point it is a psx style horror anthology game so it's lots of little stories like goosebumps but obviously with actual violence you It's going be great. I'm really, really excited about that. I'm also in a couple other projects that I can't really talk about yet.
02:05:06
Speaker
I'll talk about them more when they're like closer. But yeah, please go do that. i you know I genuinely do want to make this my career. It's something I think I'm good at. So please go look at that game. It should be out on Halloween. And there is a trailer dropping soon that, in my opinion, is hilarious. so Yeah. Cool. And I'm also on Blue Sky Matt Perspective.
02:05:28
Speaker
you can get updates on my like voice acting stuff on there and also all for Arnold and occasionally my thoughts on just whatever bullshit passes my mind uh I'm trying to think of what the last thing I thought was funny was yeah I randomly shared thoughts about why most people consider Bloodborne their favorite FromSoft game even if it isn't the best that's the kind of stuff you'll get on my blue sky I'm done Michael, anything?
02:05:56
Speaker
no You can follow me on Blue Sky at Burramash Horse. And as I have always say on these things, if you would like to visit our back catalogue, we have the profiles on the Spotify and Apple Music if you would like to check out previous versions of the podcast.
02:06:13
Speaker
And of course, you could go view what we've previously done on YouTube, including the clip show. be nice to get the views up. Trust me, there is some funny stuff on there.
02:06:24
Speaker
Cool. And you can follow me on bluesky at maroka.bsky.social. Go check out my old YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash button mash, where you can expect updates less frequently than HBOMBER guys.
02:06:38
Speaker
And yeah, I do this other podcast you may or may not have heard of called All for Arnold. Go listen to that. It's hilarious. We're hilarious. Who the fuck would a podcast about Arnold shows?
02:06:49
Speaker
Arnold films. Yeah, he's a fucking terrible Republican actor. Why would anyone bother? He's cancelled, frankly, as far as I'm concerned. Cool, that'll do this for today. We'll see you next time with some episodes that I haven't even checked out. What the hell's next? What the hell's next?
02:07:07
Speaker
Treehouse of fucking horror I hate these things Hell yeah! it's Treehouse of hell! you want to wait till October? Next episode in October, no. Hell yeah. Halloween in April, it's coming, folks.
02:07:20
Speaker
Should we do something for it? Should we do something special, or should we just be happy? We should wear sheets over our heads, because it's spoopy. I mean, my audio booth kind of looks like that's what I'm doing. So... There you go. Done.
02:07:35
Speaker
Okay. Bye, everyone. Bye, everybody.