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The Good, The Bart & The Loki ft. Melissa Khalil
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Special guest Melissa Khalil joins us to breakdown the MCU/Simpsons Disney Plus crossover short!
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Transcript
Special Episode Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Animation Deliberation. It's the podcast where we take action animation and cartoons seriously, but not too seriously. On this special episode, we're covering Disney Plus's The Simpsons, The Good, The Bart, and The Loki, and joining us as special guest, Melissa Khalil. We're going to get right into that right after these ads.
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00:00:20
Speaker
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Guest Introduction: Melissa Khalil
00:00:48
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. A one, two, three, it's time for animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah. Welcome back, folks. It's animation deliberation. I'm your host, Jay Scottie St. Clair, and I am joined as always by my co-host, the man you heard hopping in there at the end of the song, Mr. Zuhair Ali. Zuhair, what's up? How you doing, buddy?
00:01:17
Speaker
Doing pretty good. Good. Good. And as I stated at the top of the episode, we have a very special guest joining us today. Our resident Simpsons expert, Melissa Khalil. Melissa, good to have you. How are you? Thanks for being here. Hello. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. I've never been on animation deliberation before, so I'm very excited.
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we're still a relatively new show, but we are a part of the Stranded Panda Network and you are definitely a, what's the word I'm looking for? You are a driving force for the network in terms of the trivia, the trivia questions. I know you have a TikTok that you drive, so definitely excited to get your voice on the show and give you the opportunity to highlight some of the things that you're doing for the network.
Initial Reactions to The Good, The Bart, and The Loki
00:02:17
Speaker
to get this synergy with Disney, you know, buying up everything out there. It's nice that we can kind of celebrate the monopoly that's going on in ways like this. So what did you guys think about the short, just initial impressions?
00:02:19
Speaker
Aww, thanks.
00:02:33
Speaker
It was short. It was a lot shorter than I expected it to be. I mean, I kind of just watched Simpsons in passing, just happens to be honest, has something I've like really dwelled into. But one of the ones that I really love was a Star Wars crossover. So when I heard about it, I was expecting like, at least an hour movie. Okay. And then when somebody mentioned it was only six minutes, I was like, Oh, this will be quick. Yeah.
00:02:58
Speaker
It was entertaining enough that I wanted a little bit more, but it was it was pretty hilarious with whatever they did drop in Yeah, I had not seen the previous Disney Plus short that they did for Star Wars. I think that was called the force awakens The nap awakens it was something with Maggie. I forgot I think I've got it here. What was it?
00:03:21
Speaker
Well, it wasn't even that one. I'm talking about the crossover from, like, ten some years ago. Oh, okay. I thought you were talking about The Force Awakens from its nap. And I was gonna ask if either of you guys had seen that. Oh, wow. I'm dumb. I'm getting it mixed up with Family Guy. Never mind. Ignore me. Oh, no. You're good. I think that's an easy comparison to make.
00:03:41
Speaker
It's a good opportunity to kind of talk about our exposure to, you know, the Simpsons and whatnot. I very much am more exposed to Family Guy myself.
Personal Connections to The Simpsons
00:03:50
Speaker
And obviously I'd seen the crossover they did with Star Wars and years past and whatnot.
00:03:55
Speaker
but The Simpsons has always been around. It's like going on like it's 31st season now. And the only reason I know that is because it debuted like a month before I was born. So it's always kind of been in the ether there. But I myself have kind of an aversion to The Simpsons because I had two fictional characters that scared the crap out of me and traumatized me as a child. And one of those was Tim Curry's version of Pennywise from the TV movie from the 90s. And then the other one was Sideshow Bob.
00:04:25
Speaker
from The Simpsons, who was voiced by Kelsey Grammer. That's very fair. Now, Melissa, The Simpsons is one of your favorite animated shows, right? You might not be the biggest animated fan, is that fair to say?
00:04:44
Speaker
Um, I think so. Like The Simpsons is just one of those like comfort shows that I will always just have on in the background or if there's like, you know, a point in time where I just want to like watch something and kind of turn my brain off. The Simpsons is one of those shows. So yeah.
00:04:59
Speaker
I want the audience to know that we were doing SpongeBob impressions before recording. So take her dismay for animation very loosely. That's a classic though. Just like SpongeBob. When I say dismay, it's kind of...
00:05:15
Speaker
It's tough. It's tough to get around because I don't mean to say you don't like animation But I there is a stigma when it comes to animation and not everybody seeks out You know animation first and foremost and there's nothing wrong with that but just you know on this podcast We obviously really celebrate animated stuff.
Character Analysis: Lisa as Thor
00:05:30
Speaker
So And we always celebrate Marvel stuff. Yeah, true that true that we are big Marvel people here Do you have a favorite character from the Simpsons Melissa and did they make an appearance in the short?
00:05:45
Speaker
Ooh, that's a good question. I'm always a big fan of Lisa. I feel like I just connect with Lisa the best. She's not the most fun character, but everything she says, I just relate to. So I love that she was Thor in this short. Yeah, that was great. I love that she was worthy because everything Lisa does is just like,
00:06:11
Speaker
for the good, you know, like for the good of the planet, for good of other people, you know, like Lisa's very, you know, I don't know what I'm trying to say. She's Captain Springfield. She's Captain Springfield. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but Lisa's just a good person and I really admire that about her. So I'm very glad that she was worthy enough to wield Mjolnir.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, I loved when she inherited the power of Thor and was flying off across the sky. And she was like, goodbye, self-esteem issues forever. I know. Good stuff. I have a feeling all of us appreciated that line. Right. I mean, honestly, if I, like, you know, hulked out and all of a sudden gained a ton of muscle and could fly, like, that's what I'd be thinking too.
00:07:01
Speaker
Well, you talk about hulking out, and we got that great moment with, I believe the character's name is Ralph, but they recreated that moment from 2012 Avengers, where it's always been one of my favorite moments of the MCU. It still always gets a audible laugh out of me, but when Hulk slammed Loki and said puny God,
Parody and Post-Credit Scenes Discussion
00:07:21
Speaker
So, I appreciated the fact that the short was very short, but it was a very self-contained and a very low-key story. He's the trickster god, and from what I know about the character of Bart, he is very much that trickster as well. You know, eat my Asgardian leather shorts, or what have you.
00:07:41
Speaker
So, given how short the episode was, I did appreciate that they continued to mock the MCU even with the post-credit scenes. And then we had the animated, painted backgrounds while the credits were scrolling through. Did you guys have any standout characters there? We got a lot of cameos. Not everybody even got speaking roles, but we got to see a lot of stuff going on in the background.
00:08:06
Speaker
I think the tree house being Groot was my favorite. Nice. Good call.
00:08:10
Speaker
That was a good one. I loved the WandaVision callback with the Van Houtons. Oh, okay, cool. It's like the Mr. and Mrs. Van Houton being Wanda and Vision as Maggie's just like bored watching it on the couch. Yeah, yeah. Love that. Yeah, good call. And that's actually, I'm glad you bring that up too, because that made me appreciate the fact that they had that scene with Rinslayer. When it comes to animated stuff, even when it's a little more stylized and simple, like the Simpsons or Rick and Morty or Family Guy,
00:08:39
Speaker
it still takes a lot of time to make it happen. So that really speaks to the level of collaboration that had to be going on behind the scenes in order to... They had all the backgrounds, right? They even had, like, you know, the timekeeper shifting faces set up behind Renslayer. And I just love the meta nature of that joke. Like, she basically acknowledges the fact that this very much could be the Loki that we're seeing in that series just having crossed over to this variant timeline of Disney Plus or what have you.
Production Insights and Tom Hiddleston's Role
00:09:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I noticed that too and I wanted to talk to you guys about that as well because that episode of Loki was only what like a month ago that that first episode came out and like with Ren Slayer being the you know judge where she's kind of prosecuting Loki like I'm Five weeks ago. So yeah like that's not a whole lot of time to make even a you know, 90 second cutscene like that was I
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty impressed, yeah. And then I do believe that Tom Hiddleston was the only voice actor from, you know, the MCU fourth right to reprise his role. I don't think Gugu Mbathu-Ra was doing the voice of Renslayer. Okay, it was Don Lewis. He was doing such a good job too, especially when he was like mocking Odin and Thor. So like, you see like the range of his voice acting ability as well.
00:10:04
Speaker
Oh yeah, so she's an American actress best known for her role as Jaleesa Vincent Taylor on A Different World. But not super familiar with her work outside of that. Or are you talking about Loki? I was talking about Tom Hiddleston mocking Odin and Thor at the beginning of the episode. Gotcha, gotcha.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, and that was just a great trope there too.
00:10:37
Speaker
But yeah, I had to write down all the things that he was on trial for because it just made me laugh so hard the first
Loki's Meta Humor
00:10:43
Speaker
time. It was so meta. Philosophically opposing pre-determinism. Crossing over into forbidden areas of Disney+, lost it on that one. Taking two spots in the goofy parking lot. Being more popular than all the other heroes. A lot of people have said that. Having a British accident when you're supposed to be from Norway.
00:11:07
Speaker
Promising to be good and breaking your promise a zillion times, making us sit through numerous end credit scenes hoping they advance the story, which we had two end credit scenes in this one. And would you please wash your nasty hair? I love the making us sit through post credit scenes hoping they advance the story because I was thinking the same thing because like the main part of the episode was really only like two minutes. Yeah. And like that got done where Lisa flung
00:11:37
Speaker
Bart Loki into the sky. And I was like, oh, is this it? Was this the short? And then watching the credits, there was like three credit scenes. I was like, this is an odd format. So I'm really happy that they just acknowledged it, as The Simpsons usually does in that sort of meta way. Yeah.
00:11:57
Speaker
And it's something that MCU has done as well, like at the end of Iron Man 3 when it was just that silly therapy session, uh, at the end of Spider-Man Homecoming where Cap gives like the whole thing about patients. So it's something that like is kind of common between both these areas of like, we know you're going to wait and we're going to have fun with this now.
00:12:18
Speaker
Now, obviously, the short, its nature was very tongue-in-cheek, and that speaks to the humorous nature of The Simpsons. And Melissa, you talked about The Simpsons kind of being like a comfort show for you, but I have to ask, I really haven't paid as much attention to it in recent years. Does it have, like, a strong... I'm trying to think of the right way of putting this, but does it often have, like, you know,
00:12:43
Speaker
I don't want to say a political message, but, you know, a larger message at play because I couldn't help but notice one of the post-credits scenes that we didn't really highlight on is when Loki's being the bartender when he's imitating Moe and then basically has his speech about how, you know, the glass bottles are ruining the planet. And then earlier on when he duplicated the pork chop for Homer,
00:13:05
Speaker
they kind of made allusions to how terrible this is for the environment.
The Simpsons and Real-World Connections
00:13:08
Speaker
So it just kind of made me wonder as much as we're getting laughs and stuff like that, there is that little bit of through line that makes you think a little bit. Is that something that Simpson's often does?
00:13:17
Speaker
Oh, a thousand percent. Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons I love it because it's, you know, got that real world connection, but it does it in, you know, a humorous way, but it also still makes you think about the real world. And again, that's one of the reasons I love Lisa. Like I'll be honest, we share, you know, a very similar political view. Sure.
00:13:39
Speaker
And like that scene with Loki being Moe talking about your planet dying, I was like, I've never related to Loki more than this moment right now. And being like, this beer sucks and your planet is dying. That's the glorious purpose we can get behind. Works for me.
00:14:00
Speaker
Alright, well, as far as the short goes, I think I've covered everything that I wanted to highlight on unless you guys had any other standout moments, any standout jokes, any of the characters in the background that you wanted to make mention of. Now's your time.
00:14:14
Speaker
Oh, I had a background one. What on earth was Flanders doing in his Ant-Man suit? His butt was really defined in that, in the way that he was posing. He's wearing nothing at all. Nothing at all. Have you seen that episode? It's like a really...
00:14:33
Speaker
I think that's got to be like season 10 of The Simpsons, where Landers is skiing in a really tight ski suit. And his butt is just bulging out of the back. So was it a callback to that? I hadn't seen that one. I think so, because I noticed it. I noticed it and was like, is that a callback? And now that you mention it with his butt bulging out the back, I was like, I think that's what they were going for. That scene from 20 years ago where
00:15:01
Speaker
Homer is just like stupid sexy Flanders because he can't get the image of Flanders in his skin-tight snowsuit out of his head. That's awesome. All right, so we've got America's ass and Flanders' ass are canon in the MCU now. I like it. I like it. As it should be. I love that it's Ant-Man, too, like the person who said the line about America's ass. Look at that connection. Good stuff. Good stuff.
00:15:29
Speaker
And then the only one that looked like he was, like, serious in that montage, what's, um... I'm forgetting what Bart's friend's name is with the glasses. Millhouse. Millhouse? Millhouse. I like how he's the nerd, and they put him as Hawkeye, who's, like, stereotypically the useless character. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But he was the only one that had, like, this face of determination on there. I was like, that's appropriate, I guess.
00:15:57
Speaker
There were a few characters I noticed in that like whole assemble kind of moment where I was like, I've not seen a connection between some of these like Simpsons characters and the heroes. They, they put for them like, um, like Agnes Skinner was black widow. Um, Mo was vision. That was an odd one to me. Yeah. Um, Barney as iron man.
00:16:22
Speaker
Well for that one I think it's the alcoholism because in the comics Tony Stark has a whole demon in the bottle storyline so I think they're kind of giving a little bit of a nod there. Fair. Plus his armor popping off of his gut was wonderful. Oh it was. Then him hanging it up on the clothesline and the credits.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, I've got the still of the comic book guy as Thanos, and I'm looking at some of the characters in the background. Who's Doctor Strange? Is that the dentist character? Oh, Dr. Nick. Oh, is that Dr. Nick? OK. Yeah. OK. That makes sense. I'm Dr. Doctor. I don't know about that scene in the credits.
00:17:12
Speaker
Assemble kind of moment that was dr. Nick. Okay. It doesn't
Classic Simpsons Callbacks
00:17:17
Speaker
look like it's dr. Nick now that I'm looking at it I didn't realize now that I'm looking at they're all actually being dusted away Yeah, no one's being saved. So no one comic book guy. He probably just dusted everybody. Yeah I'm trying to think what's his best wish ever
00:17:37
Speaker
or whatever, or worst power glove ever. I don't know this instance well enough. I know that was kind of his little thing, right? It is, yeah. Okay, cool. Okay. I wreck my pants in a whole new way. Oh, Ralph. Him throwing Loki around and just being like a squeak toy the whole time was hilarious. Just, heh heh, pah, pah, wah, heh.
00:18:03
Speaker
After hearing the Hulk's aggression and then just going to the squeaked earth, what is going on right now? And I love Ralph's line, just being like, you're not nice. It's such a Ralph line, and then he just Hulk's out.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. It's like the Simpsons version of the Hulk, and I love it. Yeah. Very good. I hope they do more. Like you said, it definitely left me wanting to see more. So the synergy works. I'm already completely bought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This makes me kind of want to go back and revisit the Simpsons, despite any childhood trauma. I think I can overcome it. You're a big boy now.
00:18:49
Speaker
Okay. Well, with that conversation out of the way, I did want to, you know, use this opportunity. We've got Melissa on here and I kind of highlighted some of the things she's working on at the top of the episode. But Melissa, I open the floor up to you to let us know what you have going on in the network, you know, as far as trivia goes, or can we expect to see any the good, the Bart and the Loki bonus questions?
00:19:13
Speaker
Oh, probably not. Considering any time we ever put any non-MCU questions in trivia, it becomes a big old gate, as I'm sure anyone who's attended trivia has noticed. OK. Well, there's that one loser that always gets double overtime, so you could probably mess with him by throwing those questions in there. Just a suggestion. Yeah, that zoo guy. I don't know who he is, but I mean, it's a little embarrassing. He's a real piece of work.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, so that's on twitch.tv slash stranded panda TV. We do that Wednesday nights at 7 central usually some music starts and then Trivial will start around 7 30 normally and Melissa appears with the guys from the MCU cast Or the host from the MCU cast I should say Ash is there as well and then you also recently were working on the tick-tock
Melissa's MCU TikTok and Trivia Involvement
00:20:07
Speaker
to do the one hundred days of thirst for chris evans aka captain america uh... you wanna talk a little bit about that the success there and and maybe any future campaigns you have coming up sure so like scott he said we just finished up the one hundred days of thirsting over chris evans and those videos are all still up so
00:20:28
Speaker
prep yourself for a marathon of videos if you haven't seen any of those. It's a ton of fun. Nothing specifically planned for TikTok right now. I mean, just posting more MCU related videos as a kind of
00:20:44
Speaker
come to my brain. I know I posted a Black Widow one the night before that came out a couple days ago. So check out the TikTok. There's always some fun stuff going on there. I know Matt does a lot of theory videos too, which are super awesome. So at Stranded Panda on TikTok. Follow some likes. It's a ton of fun. Very cool.
00:21:09
Speaker
Hey, can I ask a question while I have both of you on
Anticipation for Marvel's What If? Series
00:21:12
Speaker
here? Of course Would you all think of the what if trailer real quick? Oh, yeah, I'm glad you you asked that if I was already Incredibly excited for what if but now that we have a release date a concrete date and they dropped the trailer, you know, like They gave us a month's notice and I couldn't be more more excited. It looks absolutely incredible. Mm-hmm
00:21:38
Speaker
I mean, I agree. Like obviously you guys are the animation experts, but watching it, I was like the animation just in the trailer was incredible. Yeah. It looks so good. Like it looks so good in the way that like they made the characters look like the characters from the movies was outstanding. Like.
00:21:57
Speaker
how Tony Stark looked in the animation. Right. Exactly like he looks in the movies. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah, it's a really interesting technique. It really kind of reminds me of that classic Disney style meets the live action, especially when they had that close-up of Thor. Kind of, I can't remember exactly what his line was, but it's, you kind of, he gives that oafish, kind of lovable, dumb guy line about, oh, explain it for everyone else. I've co-assigned it.
00:22:25
Speaker
Just really good detail on the face there. I sound like a broken record here, but I'm so excited for it. It's going to be a bittersweet feeling of hearing Chadwick Boseman's lost performance as well.
Chadwick Boseman's Legacy in What If?
00:22:39
Speaker
Oh, correct. Yeah. I know. He had the one line in the trailer. I think it was the last line of the trailer too, wasn't it? I think so. I was just like, oh, that's a heartbreaker.
00:22:52
Speaker
Doesn't seem like that long ago, but I think we're coming up on almost a year of his passing. I believe so. It's not over a year. Is it?
00:23:03
Speaker
I think it was August if I'm not mistaken, but don't. It's just like, ugh, it still hurts. It still hurts. I'm not prepared for whatever episode season. Yeah, August 2020. You said it perfectly. It is bittersweet. As sad as his passing is, I do kind of cherish and relish the fact that we do get this final performance from him. And he obviously has a huge body of work that everyone should go out and seek all the things he did.
00:23:32
Speaker
Obviously here, T'Challa was one of the ones that spoke to so many people, myself included, so glad to see that performance once more. And in an entirely new context, that's what's great about What If. MCU fantasy is going to be rough during this show.
00:23:51
Speaker
Oh, good luck to the sucker who's running that. I'm going to get so many hate messages. Congrats to the competitor that's completely crushing everyone else on my particular team.
Trivia League Standings Banter
00:24:07
Speaker
Or league, I should say. Are we in the same league, Scotty? I forget. We are. No one's in my same league. That's very true. You're completely right about that. You're in a league of your own. You may be in my league, but you're not in my league.
00:24:22
Speaker
It's a good time. Yeah. Good time. This was fun. Thanks guys for being here. I'll go ahead and wrap it up. Thanks for tuning in. That's T-O-O-N-I-N. Stay well. Thanks. Bye.
00:24:40
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Animation Deliberation Podcast, a proud member of the Strandepanda Network. If you would like to contact us, you can email animationdeliberationpodcast at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at animationdelib1. For this and other great shows, you can visit Strandepanda.com or join the great community that is the Strandepanda Chat Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash spchat. Tune in next time and remember, stay well.
00:25:09
Speaker
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