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S4E8&9 - The New Kid on the Block & Mr. Plow
11 Plays1 month ago
Jon, Michael and Matt watch The Simpsons episodes 'The New Kid on the Block' & 'Mr. Plow', and discuss what they say about society.
Follow us on Twitter: @Molemanpod
Jon: @Meroka.bsky.social
Matt: @mattperspective
Michael: @BMashHorse
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Transcript
Greetings and York Adventures
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, this is Moleman in the morning. Good Moleman to you. Hello, welcome to Moleman in the morning. Good Moleman to you, Chuck. Oh, that's very northern Moleman today. It's because I have returned from my holiday in York.
00:00:19
Speaker
ah Cool and and as as I say it basically every time I go there There's a reason we call it you know God's own country because York is one of the single best places on the planet I fucking love York. It is a fantastic city. Love it I got my booze from York, but we will talk about that in the booze section. Ooh, okay. i go give I got gifted a booze that's interesting, so I will talk about that in the booze section. and And Michael, I'm guessing Brewdog again. No, no, no. week Oh my God. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm genuinely excited. it That's how old we are, but I'm genuinely excited to hear what other people are drinking.
00:00:57
Speaker
i'm just I'm just a drinks nerd, which is why I'm excited to hear what other people are drinking. and This is true. but This podcast brought to you by York and Alcohol. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah, no doubt. Brought to you by crippling depression and alcoholism.
Introduction to Hosts and Episode Themes
00:01:10
Speaker
And occasionally underwear. And, oh, immunity is sponsors. Keep trying.
00:01:16
Speaker
We are Moleman in the Morning! We're a podcast about how The Simpsons has a lot to say about society. I am your host John, and I am joined by two co-hosts, as ever, the incomparable Matt.
00:01:28
Speaker
HIDELY HO, PODCASTARINOS! And the ever cuddly Michael. My couch race has been stolen. Fuck everyone. What do I do now? Wait, did I introduce you in a different order to you? I did, didn't I? You did, yeah. No, Oh yeah, normally I just, yeah, i yeah, I think that's still the same order. I just... was a dick today. I've been watching Dragon Ball Z again, so my, uh, my villain arc is coming through.
00:01:57
Speaker
uh okay cool cool cool a this is why you're or poised to slag off one of the world's favorite simpsons episodes don't spoil it i'm just guessing just i'm i'm i'm the vegeta of the show that's all it is Cool. We are here, as ever, to talk about two Simpsons
YouTube Expansion and Tech Commentary
00:02:18
Speaker
episodes. We are winding our way through season four. We've got episodes eight and nine today, which are going to be New Kid on the Block and Mr. Plow.
00:02:28
Speaker
Both episodes that I like remember existing, hu like they stuck in my mind, but I didn't like remember much about them. So I was very surprised. I like, as soon as I saw the episodes, I was like, Oh, it's these ones. Cause I saw like a thumbnail and was like, Oh, I recognize this. And then watch them and was like, I remembered one very specific part of that episode and nothing else. So yeah, it was, it was, it was an experience. It was like watching fresh episodes of The Simpsons. That's good.
00:02:58
Speaker
Do we have any other business to attend to? I always forget our intros, how many segments we've added. Are we going straight to booze? Let's go to booze. Oh, upfront business. The podcast is now available on YouTube. Oh, damn.
00:03:14
Speaker
I put the last episode up on YouTube. I took the time to put screenshots from the relevant scenes that we're talking about into a video format. There is a video version of this podcast available. At some point, I may go back and update the, well... Update might be a strong word. I might go back and upload the old ones in some sort of very limited video format so that if there is a complete collection on YouTube, but yes, Small Man in the Morning is available on YouTube. Google, being Google, decided to kill yet another product. They took down their podcast service a little while ago and it was very, very clearly in a concerted effort to push everybody to put their podcasts on YouTube, whether or not it was in a video format because they're dickheads like that.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, they're slowly just kind of condensing all of their products and services into one thing, either YouTube or Drive, yeah and that's it. Yep. Let's not bite the hand that's now profoundly feeding. I'm wasting them to merge YouTube and Drive as well. ah So yeah, they aren't feeding us. Feeding us would imply they paid us some money for this. I don't think we're going to get a penny out of YouTube for this. and We can always believe.
00:04:26
Speaker
ah But yeah, if you were like, man, I wish I knew what these guys were talking about. I wish I could see with my eyes the scene they are talking about. Boy, do we have a version of the podcast for you. Well, golly, buy about it.
York Anecdotes and Heritage Rum
00:04:41
Speaker
What a great solo. So yeah, youtube dot.com forward slash at mole man pod, I guess is probably the URL of memory serves.
00:04:50
Speaker
yeah Some people like video format podcasts as well, so it's for those people. New audiences, new places, new experiences. yeah Enjoy. Booze. Booze. Shall I go first then, since I hyped mine up a little? Oh yeah, go for it. Okay, so whenever I was a kid and I used to go to historical sites like Jorvik or um any kind of heritage site basically, I always wanted to buy things like from the gift shop.
00:05:16
Speaker
when I was little I always wanted to buy you know like the cool necklaces and rocks and that kind of thing but this time because I had plenty of money I bought things from most of them and one of the things I bought was spiced rum but it's English heritage spiced rum so buying this has helped slightly slightly ah Preserve historical artifacts and sites around England, which I thought was just really cool I was tempted to buy one of the like more like fancy brands because obviously buying it from the gift shop helps regardless But basically more of the fee of this one goes to the actual heritage site, which is just really cool So I'm not expecting the world but hold on see if we can get this on mic
00:05:59
Speaker
There we go.
Drinks Discussion and Duff Beer
00:06:00
Speaker
I have my Tumblr. I don't have a lot. steal to steal a line from one of these episodes Matt, you are the greatest hero in British history. I am. I am. I deserve the key. So, yeah. Cheers, guys. let's try um pi That's really smooth. That's really nice. I'm not a enough of a, uh, Boo snob to pick out specific flavors or anything, but I can tell you. Delish. Good, good.
00:06:32
Speaker
Michael, whatcha drinking? I too, I'm drinking rum. My rum is not English, it is ah from the Mediterranean, I believe. It was from Tenerife. I think I've drunk it before on the podcast. ah Amelia, I think it's called. Yes, yeah. It tastes the same as it does, a little bit spicy. it's oh happy Same as last time. have for but Be worried if it tasted different, really. Save the segment. I'm drinking Duff Bear.
00:07:01
Speaker
Wait, genuinely? Yeah, genuinely. Genuinely, don't fear. Yeah. I imagine it must taste like Bud Light or Bud because that is what it's cribbing on. it is just lager uh yes a colleague of mine uh shout out to jason thank you for the duff beer uh rocked up one day at work and was like i know you do a simpsons podcast here i got you a duff beer oh okay thank you ah apparently it it is available in uh either aldia or little i forget which but one of them has is is in fact selling duff beer right i will keep my eyes out for it yeah i've got a i've got a little in town i can check i mean not right now obviously that'd be weird but
00:07:40
Speaker
it Can confirm is is definitely just a lager can confirm is beer. I mean, I don't know what anybody expected no absolutely not I think if I went to there's that Simpsons land we talked about
Simpsons Episode Analysis and Humor
00:07:54
Speaker
a while ago the like Simpsons part of what is it one of those one of the theme parks in like Florida or California has like a Simpsons area. We've talked about this before those must be Disney surely I suppose yeah at this point but anyway ah yeah they have like a place where you can buy Duff beer but it's non-alcoholic we found out because obviously they want like they expect the kids to want it so I just didn imagine Duff beer being really sugary yeah oh I mean that stuff yeah yeah this is yeah I don't know I guess somebody somewhere decided to license a brewery to do youre just like stick a Duff label on some lager they made
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I can imagine, like, Duff beer tastes different every time you drink it, because it is just whatever brewery they got to put a label on, whatever they made. I mean, I also kind of would like, ah again, can't remember which supermarket it was, but for sake of argument, let's say it was little, I would like to see Aldi produce FUD beer as well. hey Yeah. Make the competition real. All right, Simpsons.
00:08:58
Speaker
Okay, new kid on the block. It's aired November 12th, 1992. Anything happening on this day? well in the British television history the famous sitcom Absolutely Fabulous aired for the first time on the BBC. yeah That's a weird coincidence because there's the new absolutely fabulous like commentary series isn't there? Like i keep I kept seeing it get advertised on you and Dave in the hotel. Commentary series? Yeah so there it's the actresses from Absolutely Fabulous watching it watching it again and talking about it.
00:09:34
Speaker
oh okay so just doing we're doing basically yeah basically with their own product dave really scraping for content and was airing the the dvd commentary section now well i think it's a bit more elaborate than that but yes i mean it is dave yeah for our american viewers dave is a channel that is notorious for repeats and low effort content other than qi which is also kind of low effort still Then there's the sponsorship from Dave. Yeah, oh well. Would you like to know the number ones? Oh, tell me. Well, you'll be shocked to hear in the UK. We're still on the Boys to Men train. End of the road, but the US has been broken from its hypnotic spell. And the US number one is, how do you talk to an angel by the heights?
00:10:24
Speaker
I thought that was a dad joke then. And then I tried i stopped and tried to figure it out. How do you talk to an angel? By the heights! And I was like, wait. I don't... wait. No, I don't get it. Actually, that does kind of work, because you get high, to you know, you have to get high up to talk to an angel, because they're in heaven, I guess. But that's not... it wasn't a dad joke. Shut up, Matthew. Yeah, it didn't quite work as a punch line, though. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry, I hate myself, too.
00:10:51
Speaker
Oh, dear. You did this, Michael. Yeah, good. Well, that's what you get for stealing my catros at the start. I deserve this. I deserve this. All right. Shall we dive in? Well, let's head on in. All right. So the blackboard gag, I will not bring sheep to class. ah Did you know, I thought I blinked. but I looked away from the set the intro for a second and I saw sheep to class and I was like, I could rewind because this could be a banger.
00:11:18
Speaker
wasn't a banger. No. Why would you expect the the Blackboard gag to be a banger? I don't know. I'm just eternally hopeful that one day they'll actually genuinely make me laugh. I know they've gotten like a good chuckle from me a couple times now, but they've never like. I mean, surely so like someone must be. I goo ranty that there are people out there that are proud that they came up with the chalkboard gag.
00:11:47
Speaker
And they are eternally infuriated by the fact that no one gives a shit. I don't think that's true. I feel like the chalkboard gags are like the lowest ranking job in the writer's room. The newbie that nobody likes. like ah ah give it Give him the chalkboard gags. Look, look there's 22 episodes in the season. Just come up with 22 things for Bart to write on the Blackboard, please. There we go. That'll keep you busy. The intern job. Yeah, basically. Yeah, later that. Maybe. Yeah. I wonder if the intern came up with the couch gag, which is the couch simply falling through the floor.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yep, it happened. Fine. Eh, it's standard. The episode begins with Homer watching a television program called Hunks. This was so weird! Basically, one of the guys is asked the question who he thinks made the statement about wanting to have sex. The guy's response is basically he's up he doesn't know because he's already had sex with them all. Which the girls confirm, and he guesses anyway. That's about as much as I took away from that scene.
00:12:51
Speaker
what he guesses he guesses based on the knowledge that she likes to make bacon on the beach and um look this does prompt Homer to also like making bacon on the beach and we just get almost flashback fantasy of him making bacon on the beach Yes, I imagine that the gag is that, you know, Homer's thinking about actually making bacon on the beach. That's fine, I get the gag. It was amusing, but would it not have been funnier if they'd used an actual fucking phrase?
00:13:26
Speaker
You've never heard of the sex phrase, making bacon on the beach? right wait Right, I should have done this already, but we're all, like the again, fastest Google in the in the show, making bacon on the beach. No, it's the Simpsons phrase. Although there is a song by the myth of the turtle called making bacon on the beach on Spotify right now.
00:13:48
Speaker
uh it apparently first recorded in 1973 it was used to refer to sexual intercourse according to the dictionary of slang is that just just making bacon not the beach i think when he said maybe making bacon was the slang phrase he used he literally was talking about making bacon on the beach okay and then home was like oh i love making bacon on the beach It is an actual phrase, so I'm just an asshole. It's not one I'd come across before to be fair. No, I've never heard of it. It's not my go-to euphemism for sex, no. No, no. No, mine is fucking... It's not really euphemism as much, though.
00:14:26
Speaker
Speaking of fucking... Mrs. Winfield... Mrs. Winfield knocks on the door and it reveals that... Oh yeah, Mrs. Winfield. murder She and her husband are moving and Homer's response to this is just saying, moving to Florida to see out the golden years.
00:14:41
Speaker
yeah count uh wait count down the clock run out the clock run out the clock in florida homer has zero attack that was excellent miss winfield asks homer to help her do a couple of tiny things to help sell the house which include putting on pants while he's at the window which he refuses to do no no this is fair no you shouldn't have to wear pants in your own home She also asks him to take in the Jacqueline... Jacqueline Antons? Is that the Sorry, I've combined the words. Honestly, Jacqueline Anton sounds like an actress from the 80s. Probably was. I'd watch a film with Jacqueline Anton in it. I imagine he gets a tits out. He gets starred in an episode of Shelley's Angels, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:32
Speaker
but Anyway, Mama's asked to bring the pumpkins in, he refuses to do it, and she finally ends with the request to cover up his garbage because it's attracting wildlife and we cut to the moose that's eating the trash. Why is this music? I asked the same question, that was my note, I was like what is the moose music? ah Mercifully Wikipedia does have all the answer to that. It is the theme tune to a a show set in Canada called Northern Exposure.
00:15:57
Speaker
which is fitting that the moose that takes no heed of Homer's attempts to shoot away and instead charges to attacking. Yeah, what a weird... They really just didn't know how to end this seed. Or they were stoned or something. They were just like, what if a moosh comes in? It hits in exactly the same way as the the goats in the kitchen last time. It was just like, what the fuck are you doing? What is this? Why are there goats? Maybe they just had like an animal thing. They were just like, let's just put on let's just do animals this season. Why not?
00:16:31
Speaker
Maybe. We then cut to the next scene and we see that ah the Homer is now mowing the lawn, but that's quite the time jump, and he notices that the Winfield are throwing some stuff away, which include coat hangers and expired medications and old newspapers. Homer is delighted by this and immediately tries to stealthily steal it, but he's dropping it all over the place and he has to have a stern word with himself.
00:16:54
Speaker
I like it's like you must now quietly and stealthily bring this into your house and he drops it and he's like, oh man, you're not listening to me. I love when Homer has a conversation with himself. Those are the best. Have we got onto the peanut thing yet? The peanut under the couch? I don't think we have yet. I wanted a peanut. Five dollars is better than peanuts. Explain. I think we stayed for goods and services. I think that was a whale. That's a belter.
00:17:22
Speaker
I forget which episode that's from. I remember the bit, but I do not know which episode it's in. I'm not eating peanuts, but he is eating expired medications. Thank you. As much as Colton was saying that's not for him, I'm as responsive to this as he might need some more estrogen. before I mean, same Homer, honestly. According to some people, we're all getting too much estrogen. Thanks, Trump.
00:17:44
Speaker
Fucking idiots. Fighter estrogen is not the same as estrogen, you fucking morons! Do you know what I'll take your mind off it? A good old-fashioned TV commercial and... Hey, do you vomit at the sight of a burger and can you not stand the fall of another taco? Yes. Well, come have some seafood at the all-you-can-eat frying Dutchman. ah You'll get served some iced tea in a really awkward exchange.
00:18:09
Speaker
You can love to go to the Frying Dutchman. I would love there to be a low tier seafood restaurant near me. I would love that. That'd be great. The newest one for me is like Marley. This is the introduction of the old sea captain, Captain McAllister, we do get his name as later. Yeah, this is the first time we see him. He's obviously an incredible character. Of course, I love him so much. And yeah, I love the concept of the Frying Dutchman as well. It's just good name, good branding, love it.
00:18:39
Speaker
it's han kaze here i'm guessing i have not checked basically most guess so i'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say it's hanker's area but them see the toma tells marha they are going to the restaurant ah power of effective advertising and but mar is allergic to sea food unfortunately but she describes the last time he at her for closed up and she went into convulsions I don't think that's just an allergy, that's something really fucking serious. like that's That's beyond anaphylactic shock, isn't it? You don't have convulsions during anaphylactic shock, do you? I think you can do depending on how bad it is. I think there's like different levels of severity.
00:19:17
Speaker
Right, fair enough. Because I'm allergic to cat hair, and that's a but that's the only allergy I have to deal with. And luckily, they don't usually have them in restaurants, but as ah someone who was born at the ripe old age of 55, every time I go to a restaurant and they say, any allergies? I go, cats!
00:19:35
Speaker
And then they all look awkward. Some people go, oh, don't worry, we don't serve those here. And then others just kind of walk away. And I'm like, wait, you may be insulting the cuisine. Yeah, a little bit. Like a thre Chinese place. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't do it there mostly because if it's like an authentic one and I don't want to be misunderstood.
00:19:58
Speaker
also like Marge's allergy like is it seafood is that another like one of the allergies one of the major allergies that generally you have to like control for and note on stuff is generally like shellfish out seafood generally so because she later on yeah in the episode is like nothing on the menu has fish doesn't doesn't have fish yeah i don't think you could just be allergic to like seafood in general because i think that would mean you're allergic to like everything billions of different species yeah i mean i would i would understand someone with a shellfish allergy being reticent to go to a seafood place but also yeah i feel like she would probably be fine with the fish
00:20:41
Speaker
also i'm fairly certain she's had lobster in the show <unk>s entirely possible in like in season one they go a like like one of their they mention of the rational significance for mc law place margin of we never see mar eat them lobster ah this is true this is true you've got me there she could just have the bread speaking of bread there you go we go to the next scene and the Winfield's agent is showing a man wearing Homer Simpson's clothes and his wife through the entirety of the house and oh damn he is and but we want the the the guy in the scene is wearing Homer's clothes it's literally the same outfit yeah
00:21:17
Speaker
they're about to pay whatever the wind fields want because they don't know how haggling works but a burp distracts them and we see that homo is in his kiddie paddling pool fishing a hot dog out from between his legs and this is enough to uh pretty effectively cancel the sale while the estate agent looks very annoyed yeah this is that's fucking vibe just just wet bread like let's not even get into the rest of that whole situation wet bread like have you ever like when you were a kid you got like a bit of your sandwich wet and you were just like well I'm hungry so you just ate the sandwich anyway and then you get to the bit where it's wet and you're just like wo
00:21:57
Speaker
I've used water eating bread in the past just to get it down quicker. but Last time we were in an eating contest. Did you do eating contests? No, I did not do eating contests. I had to eat really quickly one day. like I can't remember what the circumstances of it were but to facilitate the eating. I just drank liquid with it so it was eating a lot of soggy bread because it goes down your gullet quicker.
00:22:19
Speaker
I'd just be late. I just would. I'd just be late. I'd just be like, well, I'm eating. Well, I'm really late. I was eating a sandwich. Well, I'm more considerate than people, OK? You are more considerate. I'm not saying like I'm right. I'm saying I'm a dickhead. I would just be like, well, I'll just be late. I'm eating.
00:22:35
Speaker
Speaking of being a dickhead, Bart guides Lisa into the old Winfield house now that it's been sold, and the down in the basement Bart begins to tell a horror story of the Winfield's abandoned son and how he lost his eyes and he has a sock for a friend. This essentially leads to Bart turning up his eyebrows and is the eyelids and turning around to scare Lisa into thinking he is the son.
00:22:57
Speaker
Okay, so two things. Don't put that sock on your hand. Probably not a good idea. ah Yeah, second, did anyone else know... Well, I say anyone else. Did anyone know someone that could do that? Oh, no. They'll obviously turn your eyelids inside out. I've only ever seen it in cartoons. I've never seen it in a... This is the only time I've ever seen it. Yeah, I've seen it. No one at my... I think one person at my primary school might have been able to do it. I was obsessed with the idea of being able to do it. I wish I could.
00:23:24
Speaker
I think my pathological fear would be if I did it, if I couldn't undo it. You couldn't undo it? Oh no, he just gets stuck. Oh no. Bought some use for himself but then we hear a figure behind him calling out for a friend and this terrifies both into fainting.
00:23:42
Speaker
He wakes up and we see that a teenage girl is now hanging over him and introduces herself as Laura, but has a moment where he thinks to himself that she's very beautiful and he shouldn't embarrass himself. So the first thing is the phrase that comes out as he says doe to himself. yeah We then cut back to Marge introducing herself to Laura who reveals that she's very polite because she's had an incredibly strict upbringing.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, there was such a weird thing to write. I get what they mean, but it's almost too self-aware. Do you know what I mean? Even in cartoon land, that's a weird thing to say. We then meet Laura's mother, Ruth, as Marge is giving her the Simpsons Volcom and Beel basket, which includes a free coupon to go to Moe's, better than mine later, because it's a hell of a plot point.
00:24:34
Speaker
yeah And Woofa mentioned that she was thinking about not moving to Springfield because she'd seen a newspaper article which said it was the America's worst town. It was Time Magazine, a time cover story, America's worst city. Yeah, so we learned that, once again, America likes naming their states and cities the same thing. Yep. Might just respond to this is that the house was on the cover.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, you were so proud of it as well. I thought that was really huge. He was just so excited about it. He's just like, you can see our house from there. And Laura's face immediately is like, it's so good. Marge then pours out a porno, which is designated for the man of the house, which turns out to be Ruth. What a wig. Imagine turning up to your new home and you get a welcome back and you're like, oh, wow, that's so sweet and generous. Oh, and porn, porn.
00:25:26
Speaker
um that's butts that's butts yes that's what wolf explains that uh they are divorced because uh mr powers was more obsessed with his career and ah march as he marches he simplifies we don't see oma is having an odd argument with the dog which is sat in his hammock my hand oh man honestly like for one i get that home is a big guy but hammocks are huge i have napped in my hammock because i have a hammock of course i do I have napped in my hammock with my dog after like reading a book and just, nah, best shit. Nice warm sunny day and you're just cosy. Aw man, napping in hammock, we should all own hammocks. Hammocks should be mandatory. I feel like if we all owned hammocks, if there was government regimented hammock ownership, like we all got a free hammock, there would be no wars. Well i'll get down to the hammock district.
00:26:21
Speaker
and That was so long away. Nailed it. Nailed it. Do you want cream? I tell you what, you might want is a third stonet. A third stonet. Hey, Bart and Laura on the front curb exchanging several school guard bully classics, which include The Wet Willy. And this brings the Kearney and I forget what the other one is called.
00:26:44
Speaker
do to go and, uh, Kearney invites Laura to stick her finger in his ear. But, uh, Laura makes a gay joke back, which completely immobilises the bullies and they flee in terror. LAUGHTER They're just playing mind games! That was so good. I know again, like, you know, classic, you know, 90s gay joke humour is a bit, um, uncouth these days, but... The actual like the reaction to it was was was great, the whole playing mind games thing. i I feel like it was it was a more self-aware, lol gay joke than most at the time. Yeah, don't think it definitely the only thing that was intended as a, like ah and in any way, homophobic kind of thing. It's kind of more flipping things around on the bullies yeah and yeah.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah because I mean like another example of like bad lol gay jokes is any episode of Friends, where Ross, like the character Ross is just so, like becomes so obsessed with appearing straight and gets so upset at the notion of it and those kind of things, or any of the character male characters really, you know, they get it becomes the central part of the episode that someone called possibly insinuated they might be gay.
00:27:56
Speaker
Whereas this, it yeah, again, it flips it on the head of like, oh, mind games. It's just, you know, simple and clever. You can't. It's the it's the example of the fact that you can tell those kind of jokes as long as you tell them well. But if the but if the purpose is to just say lol gay, that's not a joke. That's just homophobia. yeah Yeah. Speaking of telling, Laura can tell the future through Bart's palm, and she reveals he's going to be rich, which she can see his mansion, his tennis court, and his swimming pool, at which point she just spits in his hand. I did this to someone and got detention. Rightfully so. Yeah. Bart declares that he's never going to wash his hand again, and we cut to the next scene, and Bart's palm is really shocked by this topic. Why is the spit solidified, man? Because he hasn't washed his hand in one.
00:28:44
Speaker
yeah i know but it was still like liquid it would just fall off man it would evaporate it wouldn't it wouldn't become this like it looked like a piece of blue tack yeah well the place that the hand is now um got a mind of its own and uh he starts to trying to torment Lisa with it and uh homie yells at little monsters to shut up at the same time he's trying to book a uh babysitter and uh describing the kids as angels I like how such a large portion of the B-plot is just Homer trying to get to the restaurant. It's like a solid 10 minutes in before he actually gets there. And you've got to admire Homer's tenacity for food. We don't see that a the woman is not the actual babysitter, but the sister of the babysitter who has suffered some form of nervous breakdown. hes No, this was the darkest part. As he's asking Bart to put it down.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, this was intense. Omar's very upset about this because he wore his extra loose pants for nothing and... Nothing! They despair his pants full now. Well, it suggests the idea that the Laura could babysit them and Lisa makes the classic sibling-kissy-kissy face. Bart tries to attack it with his demented hand, but he unfortunately gets stuck to the dog. This this was probably the biggest laugh of the the episode for me, was Bart getting dragged off by the dog.
00:30:05
Speaker
In a similar way to the Maggie driving the car thing, so like you pointed out, oh, there was some animation background stuff there. are Like I noticed the dog get up on the sofa and I'm like, oh, that's an animation detail layout. The dog was just like moving around in the background. Like, they just really get good attention to detail. I was like, nope, nope, setting up for the dog gag. Yeah. The dog basically a one was around with Bart stuck to it as Bart finally declared that maybe he should wash his hand. Next scene, we see that Bart is indeed washing his hand because he's in the bath.
00:30:34
Speaker
My brother shaved our German Shepherd once when when me, my mum, and my dad were on holiday when I was a kid. My brother was a teenager, so he was like, I'm not going on a holiday with my parents anymore. That's stupid. And I was thinking, free holiday. And I was 10. So there was that.
00:30:49
Speaker
ah Before Bart takes a bath by the way, Homer has to talk to Ruth about This was, by far, one of the most awkward exchanges in Simpsons ever.
00:31:19
Speaker
this was I don't get what the joke was. I don't get what the vibe they were going for was. i It was so weird. Almost as he does understand in Ethan, but then he has to clarify that they're talking about sex and... Well at first he's like, we're not talking about food. She says correct. And then he's like, I get what you're saying. We're talking about sex, right? He's like, yes.
00:31:40
Speaker
As Ruth sounds more and more annoyed as we're going home. Yeah. And don't play that until we're going in brow. I hair ah can't do that noise. My dad can do it so fucking well but I can't. hey There you go, that's the best I got.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think we've covered the bottom of anywhere, though. It would be interesting as a storyline at some point to explore Homer setting up somebody, I don't know, Lenny. with To be fair, he already did that in season two of Batty and Selma. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough, yeah. We'll never know the result of that. Well, that has his bath and his skin is now his yellowest. Oh, God, that's such a w...
00:32:19
Speaker
And we are see Bart come down and he's now dressed as Hugh Hefner, smoking from his imaginary ah pipe with a bubble bath. You've got a bubble pipe, yeah. Oh Laura, what a pleasant surprise.
00:32:30
Speaker
Sorry, okay, so I don't have any specific examples, but as we're as werere all as we're all blocky blocks, we're all proper lads lads, clearly. you know the laest of the halfway maybe yeah We're all the laddest of the lads. We all work in construction sites and whistle at women. let let's let's since Since we are rocketing through this episode,
00:32:52
Speaker
let's dive back to our past a little did anyone do this like that kind of vibe because i know i certainly did not necessarily with like babysitters but you know well just as you happen at the hit i'm waiting no but like try to impress an older girl in that like oh maybe she i want her to like me kind of way you know as a kid in that weird childish attempt that you know you're first discovering those feelings and stuff like that No, know hit no, no. God, no, I feel pathetic. Let's keep talking about Simpsons. Clearly you're not alone because, uh, Conan O'Brien managed to write a joke about it in 1992. So yeah it must be a shared experience, just not one eye chair. This was written by Conan O'Brien, by the way, just, just as a side note. There you go. Weird thing. Did not realize until very recently from doing this podcast that Conan O'Brien was a Simpsons writer.
00:33:43
Speaker
yep We then see that the family are going to love a takeout and we cut to a, I don't even know what cuisine this was meant to be. ah Well Kabul is Afghanistan so yeah I guess cuisine from Afghanistan. We've got an empty restaurant with two blokes that are declaring that they both, one of them wants them to fail and everyone tells them to shut up. The phone rings and they fly over it.
00:34:06
Speaker
yes to again just a weird bit we don't see that the flora and the kids are now enjoying the good old acne food and uh yeah i mean it looks great looks great yeah looks banging i bet it and like i can understand why like you know middle america probably wouldn't be the go-to place to set up an afghan restaurant but like it does look banging i bet it would fucking ruin your toilet
00:34:32
Speaker
Meanwhile, speaking of ruining toilets, I'm always at the Farring Dutchman and Marge is struggling to find a new pickle. We all agree that that sign as well, that neon sign, is fucking lit, literally and figuratively.
00:34:45
Speaker
Marge can't order anything from the menu, so ends up just having tic-tacs from her purse, because even bread's got fish. Those are the two things I want to focus on, the fact that the bread has fish in it, and also yeah, the wit is sass when she when she says I believe I've got some tic-tacs, and he took us excellent choice.
00:35:04
Speaker
so good um but obviously onces the all you can eat and there's the way to yes oh you can eat thats way to about to give him his plate home has already had the ah at the table taking the steam traily out of please don't take the steve tracer We then cut back to the Simpson House and, uh, I was teaching the kids to dance, including Maggie, who's now doing her waltz with the cat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she didn't just teach Maggie to waltz, she taught the cat to waltz. Yeah, she doesn't even mention that, though. She's like, if I can teach Maggie to waltz, why don't you mention the fact that you taught her cat to waltz,
00:35:35
Speaker
Lawrence begins to direct Bart to tell him to put a his hand on a hip, and ah Bart makes a very high pitch noise at this. Yeah, his voice cracks, isn't it? And we get a nice little fantasy section of ah Laura and Bart in tuxedo and dress, doing a very elegant waltz throughout a very fine place of... place. You alright, Michael? Yeah, it was like a castle, I don't know. It was some sort of fancy land, yeah. If I was to guess...
00:36:02
Speaker
It was an obscure reference to an old black and white film where two characters danced. Oh yeah, that was back popular back in the day to do with it. I can tell you because The Simpsons Archive can tell me, which ah wo Tom Persere, to give him his credit, has identified it as being a reference to and a Stare Rogers movie, ah Cheek to Cheek. I did think he'd try to stare.
00:36:24
Speaker
It basically ends with but getting wedgy and going back to the present and looking very longingly at Laura. He's having a good time, but also having a good time is Homer, who is still chomping away while all the lights are off and everybody else has left the restaurant. yep One of the waiters informs the Captain Macalester that Homer has eaten all shrimp and two plastic lobsters. plastic lobsters. And you know, when you're excited about shrimp, you gotta eat some plastic to calm yourself down.
00:36:51
Speaker
Captain McCarster declares Homer he's not a man, but he's a remorseless eating machine. Which is a reference to Moby Dick. He then goes over to Homer and says that it's six bells and it's time for closing. Homer says he can't stop because he's eating, and Captain McCarster has Homer injected from the restaurant. Homer runs back in and continues to eat. He's just desperately eating shrimp. Oh, he's screwed. Hey! He runs back in, it's just amazing. We can all relate to desperately eating shrimp, I think. I think we can all relate to that.
00:37:19
Speaker
almost ejected again, and as he's pulled away, he sadly mentions that the sign said it said, oh, you can eat. Oh, you can eat. It's an awkward moment when Marge just stands there looking very depressed. Marge spends a lot of her time this episode looking mortified. Marge has a miserable time of everything in this episode. Marge does not have like any particularly positive moments today. Not a good day for Marge at all.
00:37:46
Speaker
We go back to the Simpsons bedroom and Homer declares that he's going to fight this thing. As Marge begs him not to, Homer says he can't because he's like the Spanish guy who fought the windmill. And this is of course Don Quixote and Homer is refusing to accept this and as Marge is more than adamantly telling him that it is Don Quixote, Homer walks away to- Right, I'll look it up. Homer looks it up and comes back and decides that he doesn't. As Marge, very smugly, just made him so satisfied.
00:38:15
Speaker
uh those are those are some of the best simpsons bits just the the really quick just never mind kind of gags Can I also take a moment to note here, though, that, like, this is surprisingly smart as a bit, a really well-written, because for all this exchange and, like, hahaha, Homer, um, has to look it up and, yeah, he's wrong and all that, whatever, like, he is like Don Quixote here. He is fighting a silly fight against an imagined enemy that's, like, just completely, like, just, it's just a ridiculous fight.
00:38:51
Speaker
Like, he is tilting at Will Mills when he's fighting the restaurant in court about whether it's all you can eat or not. This is kind kind of is literally a Don Quixote kind of thing. Like, it's really smart. Yeah, no I agree. I also want to point out that there was an actual court case like this where um two British blokes at a Chinese all-you-can-eat ah were kicked out because they just kept eating. and They took him to court and won. Oh, really?
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah, ah the really funny thing is, as well, is like the press, like pictures, you know, like newspapers and stuff, um had them looking very sad, but then a ah ah picture of them looking really full. Because they were like, well, they're too fat blokes, let's have them looking like they've eaten a lot. But they paused for it. That's the sort of funny thing is like, all right, you it kind of gave that vibe of like, all right, and now a silly one.
00:39:44
Speaker
That's a very, that's a very old reference to fucking when people actually took real group photos, instead of just incessant fucking selfies. mean well we see that the ah were a bar at the quickie bar to play a game which accurately chips the american justice system looks like this was dumb death row and uh the conservative judges means that the insanity plea is not working so when they go to a change of venue they end up in texas is this just me being miserable but i just like when they were saying hit the insanity plea button or whatever and she was just like saying i'm trying i just kind of thought this is i think it might be me as like you know a gamer but
00:40:28
Speaker
I just found it stupid. Like, anyone with you with even the slightest knowledge of video games knows that this is just dumb. Like, I'm not saying- I think that's the point of the joke. Yeah, I know. I get that it's just it's just meant to be weird and silly, but I just kind of thought, no, this is just weird.
00:40:46
Speaker
like Yeah, I mean there's a few sort of ah video game parodies generally I suppose scattered occasionally throughout The Simpsons and it always kind of reads like somebody who's got a vague idea of what video games are but it's the early 90s and they're not really that mainstream yet so like it's it's ah it's kind of an outsider's perspective on what they think video games up might be like if they were also trying to make a joke out of it.
00:41:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's it was just weird to just hit the insanity plea button like fucking what? Maybe I know too much about games to find the joke funny. Maybe someone who does like find it really funny. After Laura leaves, who drifts his way over and reveals that he thinks that Bart has a crush on this girl, but asks how he knows that a poo just pretty much confirms he's been watching him on the camera, which serves a purpose and waiting to see who's about to shoot him.
00:41:36
Speaker
Can we all agree that this weird obsession with adults caring way too much about their children's love lives is really fucking weird? A little bit. Like, we we we all do this. Well, I say we all, like...
00:41:50
Speaker
Anyone that like interacts with kids that are that age, like I only interact with my niece and nephew and they're like fucking children so they don't do this yet. But whenever a kid of like 10 or whatever, you know, talks to a girl they're like, who do you like her? It's like, why? Why is that what your mind goes to?
00:42:08
Speaker
Like, I'm not even gonna get on a little soapbox here and talk about the whole weird, like, heteronormative bollocks that that all is. It's just weird and creepy. Why do you care what a ten-year-old's childhood crush is unless they come in and ask you questions? It's just weird, guys. Guys, can we all stop fucking doing it?
00:42:25
Speaker
No. No, all right. Michael has spoken. You will be weirded out by it. I will. Because it's the law. And I can't believe it's a law firm is where Homer has paid his next visit to speak to our good friend Lionel Hutz. I immediately wrote when I saw Lionel Hutz, so the next episode is going to have Troy McClure, right? yeah Well they're usually together like I'm surprised they're not in both but like my one of my notes that in fact my first note for the next episode is Phil Hartman is really making bank this season. Yeah. Yeah he was doing well. Lionel Hutz declares that this is the most blatant case of fortune advertising since his lawsuit against the film The Never Ending Story. Which is a great joke. I think that was a like there was genuine like attempts at that. I don't know if that was a gag though but it it would not surprise me that someone tried tried that.
00:43:17
Speaker
Homer asks if he has a case, and Linus wants his responses to the lie that Homer is the greatest hero in American history. Yep. Which Homer is very delighted about. We then see that Bart is at the old folk home to pair a visit to Grandpa, and he doesn't get his Grandpa at first, he gets the character that I think is called Old Jewish Man. I think that is correct, yes. Here I am! Bart doesn't want anything to do with him, but Old Jewish Man tries to win him over with a dance. Can your Grandpa do this? And he starts slapping his knees.
00:43:47
Speaker
Well, Jewish man is escorted away, and Grandpa comes out happy that Bart remembered his birthday, but at a moment where he wonders what Grandpa's on about before he sees the twinkle in his eye. And he gives but ah Grandpa the the bush schedule the bus schedule, which Grandpa's delighted about.
00:44:03
Speaker
Why does that have a bus schedule? But whatever. He had to get there. It was to call the bus. Read the fucking signs. That asks her advice about how to attract an older woman and grandpa starts relaying his story of the 120 year old woman. That he lost to the Guinness Book of World Records. She got in with that Guinness Book of World Records crowd. I wore a five pound beard of bees for that woman.
00:44:28
Speaker
It was 15 pounds. 15 pounds, my humblest apologies. Good. You give them the grandpa's due equal 10 extra pounds. Obscure cuts that like, I don't know who this joke really particular is for, but he says, ah heres here's a picture of her delivering Yubi Blake. Yubi Blake being born in 1887. So for her to be delivering him as a baby, must she must have been even older still.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, she was insanely old. Like, Yubi Blake being a popular jazz musician, I guess, but never heard of him, I'm afraid. I guess it's a nice change from the Mr. Burns' is old jokes. Yeah, yeah. I didn't see Bart try to ask Homer for advice, and Homer tries to make himself busy by looking at the paper. but Yeah, he says like, ooh, the so-and-so's in town. I don't know why that genuinely got me.
00:45:20
Speaker
Mo's art was in town, wasn't it? Mostly Mozart. yeah but Mostly. Mostly. Marge encourages Homer to have the talk with Bart, and Homer says Bart should find out about sex the way he did. And Marge asks him if he thinks that's such a great idea, and we come back to ah kid Homer at the zoo, and he thinks the two monkeys are killing each other, but the zookeeper puts him right. So Homer begins his talk, and he compares a woman to a refrigerator, because they're six feet tall and 300 pounds.
00:45:49
Speaker
Jesus, Homer. Homer quickly abounds the straight and starts mentioning that women are now actually like a beer. I love how Homer always like doubles down on his analogies, because he does this a lot. But he's just like, no, I'm just gonna stick with it. Even if it's wrong, I'm just gonna keep going. But yes, sometimes he bails on it, he's like, ah, but beer.
00:46:09
Speaker
because it smells good and you'd step over your own mother to get one. So much of his beer and then declares that once you've had one, you've got to have another. This pretty much leads to Homer going down there, ranting, ranting as he gets steadily drunker. And eventually he just passes out at the table while Bart looks for him. You make me wanna retch.
00:46:29
Speaker
We then see Bart in bed unhappy and happy of wondering how he can get Laura to notice him. At that moment, Laura knocks on the and tells Bart to meet him in the true house alone. go And we see that Bart is now pacing in the treehouse as Laura comes up in a very pretty dress and she mentions to Bart that she's so happy she had to tell someone and Bart says he pleases to aim. Yeah, please to aim! Laura then takes this moment to declare that she has a boyfriend and Bart gets a moment of horrific fantasy where Laura rips out his heart and kicks it a across the wall declaring he won't need it anymore.
00:47:06
Speaker
This was the bit that I remembered so clearly, and I genuinely, just because of how brutal it is, assumed it was in a treehouse of horrors. right this is intense the the aesthetics of the scene are pretty treehouse of horror it's literally a treehouse at night yeah well i declare that the boyfriend is jimbo and Bart realizes that this is indeed jimbo jones as he gets a flashback to when jimbo was sticking his head down the toilet and visible skinner was simply asking jimbo if there was a problem and just patiently waits very well i'll continue to wait are there staff toilets apparently not And also, Bart screamed. Did Simo not hear that? Prince was Skinner is fucking terrible, man. Then see that, well, it declares that Jimbo's a bad boy and uses the story of the Jimbo poking the dead body with a stick behind the mayor's house.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah. Jimbo picks Laura up on his scooter and asks who the nerd is, and Laura says that Bart is just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid. Just a kid.
00:48:20
Speaker
Wait, yeah. No, but I took off his Just a jammies and got dressed. And Marge has gone into his room kid. to fold up his jammies again. Yes. She just accepts it. It's, uh, yeah, slightly confusing. We don't see that the family are having dinner, and Bart is probably depressed, and he asks Homer for advice on, uh... Also notice that even Marge is eating like an animal in this scene. Normally Marge is the only one... And they're all eating piles of greyslop.
00:48:49
Speaker
Oh God, fucking American cartoon food, man. Well, that's so well what to do with the girl that he likes is ah about to marry some. Lord Koma's response is, he married her. Yeah, this, you know, I've, I really couldn't not see this as all kind of pathetic and insely from this point on.
00:49:10
Speaker
Uh, you know, it really did just start to feel like, oh, the girls only go for the bad guys. Why don't they go for a nice guy like me? And I just, again, that's all like imposing modern thoughts on the episode, but. Yeah. ah But also like Bart's not a nice guy. no He's like, he's did like, he can't be portrayed as the nice guy in this particular story. The people that actually you like actually think that way.
00:49:37
Speaker
like yeah in in romance films that is true but in the people in the real world where people actually use that phrase they're never the nice guys oh i so i take your point yes fair enough yeah sorry continue michael he sort of wishes homo success in his trumped up lawsuit and uh yeah as they leave to have a lawsuit at night okay yeah yeah didn't pick up on that detail yeah he does yeah that happens yeah yeah
00:50:03
Speaker
Laura tells the kids that she wants them in bed before Jim arrives, and but response to this is why do you like him? He's just a good looking rebel that plays by his own rules, which leads to wishful size. Eh, incel.
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah, even, um, even Lisa. Yeah. And I think that the problem here is that they used Jimbo. Yeah. For for all of this, I was just like, nah, it's Jimbo. We don't go to night court and Captain McAllister is describing him as an appearance as if it's some sort of mythical sea monster attack. It was a moonless night, dark as pitch. That was good, man. A beast more stomach than man. Amazing.
00:50:41
Speaker
I don't know what's fired back by asking Captain McAsdow, he's actually a Captain. We don't see that the defense's plan is to show how much Grim Poma actually ate, and we see several male couriers coming with multiple sacks, and it reveals that they're actually letters for Santa Claus. I thought this was really weird, I guess this was a reference to Miracle on 34th Street? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Well, they're in the wrong room.
00:51:08
Speaker
I want to see an actual example of how much shrimp Homer ate. ah bluehead lawyer tries to use the fence too much that's ah ah but with eat a ten pound bag of flour when he was really hungry and How he know that? but to confirms this is the case and that's the defense How is that a defense that proves their point?
00:51:29
Speaker
Oh my meanwhile is also being delivered a pizza while this is happening. That made me want pizza man. I was actually eating pizza when that happened. Amazing. It was a very small world. Lionel Putz then asks Marge what they did after they were kicked out of the restaurant and Marge tries to lie at first but she's reminded she's under oath and she reveals they drove around for three till 3am looking for another restaurant. as the Or you can eat seafood restaurants specifically.
00:51:55
Speaker
Yep. As the court has shocked by this, my eventually reappears that they actually went fishing, which draws further shock. Asks the immortal question, does this sound like the actions of a man that has eaten all he can eat? withy We then to the jury, then which is, um, sympathetic to Homer's cause. It is a tremendous punchline is that Homer is very much being judged by a jury of his peers. These are 12 fat people who would all do exactly the same thing as Homer in this situation. Yo, I'd do the same thing. I'm built like a twig. The Foreman in particular stands up to declare that could have been him. That could have been me. We see him see Captain McArster come to Homer to offer him a business proposition, and we see that said business proposition is that Homer can now eat all he can eat, but he has to stand in the window and be the star attraction to the flying good one. Yep. As bottomless Pete. Well, I don't know why Marge has to be there though. Yeah, why is Marge there, yo? That's so mean.
00:52:52
Speaker
Marge is sat there looking completely mortified in the window as a the patrons outside declare that he's hideous and someone mentions that he thinks it's the shaved gorilla. come and see bottomless pete nature's cruelst mys come for the freak stay for the food I love homeless, boundless confidence as well. He's like, come on, why don't you give him a smile? He thinks this is great. He loves this. He's like, yeah, I i i don't care about people thinking I'm a freak. I get to eat bottomless shrimp.
00:53:24
Speaker
They resolved that court case and within like two minutes it was quite impressive. Like some sprint proof on the writing team. They had to fit in the getting to the restaurant arc. We didn't see the artist eavesdropping on Laura and Jimbo and Jimbo starts doing that teenage thing of putting the moves on.
00:53:44
Speaker
in the weirdest way. He sure was chafing me up to take it off. I mean, I kind of just read this as like, they're teens. It's awkward. Of course, it's awkward. They're teens. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely accurate. But yeah, as a 30 year old watching it, I was like, I hate this.
00:54:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well I realize he's got the stuff for teenage pregnancy here so... So we got to Mo's and Ruth Powers is trying to get her free beer and Mo's trying to get out anyway. No, this is... Bo's Cavern.
00:54:21
Speaker
It doesn't work, and Mo ends up having to curse this Springfield Vocalmobile. I knew it would ruin me. Well, Mo receives this customary crank phone call, and the name used is Amanda Hug and Kiss, and Mo makes a point that he laments the fact that he can't find a man. Why can't I find Amanda Hug and Kiss?
00:54:39
Speaker
It's been a long time since we've had a prank call and we got two in this episode. yep This leads to everybody laughing and whining to declare that most standards are too high. I didn't hear that.
00:54:51
Speaker
Mo threatens the man that he's going to shove sausage down his throat and stick starving dogs up his butt. To which point Bart reveals that he's actually Jimbo Jones and gives it the address. Mo declares this as the Jimbo somehow slipping up and pours out his very rusty blade, which is... Mo moa is not a smart man. Rusty and dull.
00:55:11
Speaker
mo leaps over the bar to leave and tells Barney not to steal any beer while he's gone oh god no oh this oh yeah no this was a gross but Barney is offended that Mo thinks he's now pathetic and then notices that there's some beer in the ashtray what kind of what kind of pathetic drunk do you think i am and yet oh god no that's so fucking wrong We then get cut to a very manic mover near a crusty wall. This is so weird again. That was weird. Where's that map? Mo consult his map and then we see that Laura and Jimbo are still making out the sofa as Mo very creepily came up with it. That's crazy. Now my pants are chafing.
00:55:53
Speaker
well Mo kicks down the door and declares that Jimbo has made his second mistake of the night. ah This leads to Jimbo weeping and begging for Mo to leave him alone as Bart sticks the knife in further by going, that's your outlaw? Well, Mo declares that he wasn't actually going to kill Jimbo, he's just going to cut him. I'm just going to cut you. Jimbo is so pathetic, Mo decides it's not worth it and realizes he's got to get back to the bar to check on Barney. This also just read as like,
00:56:21
Speaker
a fantasy of like, oh, this is what I wish would have happened to the bully in my school kind of thing. yeah Conan, are you okay? Do you go to therapy? Yeah, this is his, ah what's the word, um closure.
00:56:36
Speaker
I mean, I could kind of see it, I'll be honest, yeah. We go back to Barney, and Barney is now just drinking liquor out of the tap. He then declares it as hard to stop, and Barney just goes still for a moment. This awkward silence. Fortunately for Barney, it's hard to go here. There it goes. We don't go back to now, who's also manically running back to them. Yep. He runs into a wishing well, unfortunately.
00:57:02
Speaker
and i get see they got over wishing well somewhere and i'm wishing well laura breaks up with jimbo and jimbo gets his shirt back very path prophetically and laura thanks but for but being right about jimbo being prophetic and She tells Bart that if he was a couple years older and he had a bad teenage mustache, she'd date him in a second, and Barney gets his little kiss. Barney? Barney? Sorry. Barney may have been kissed at some point, I don't know. Not by Laura, and we could stress. We then see that Laura is now making her own prank call, and Bart gives the name Ivana Tinkle, and, uh, Mo again makes a great point of, uh... Put down your glasses, Ivana Tinkle!
00:57:41
Speaker
This leaves everyone laughing, including her and the sea captain who are now the best of them. And we see that the episode just ends with more and more laughing. yeah Laura never appears in The Simpsons again, just in case anyone wondered. Are you sure? I thought that... I think her mum does. Her mum does, but she does not. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, it seems seemed weird to me, like, that they're not slightly more prominent characters, given that they are literally now The Simpsons next door neighbours. Like, we see Flanders all the time, but the powers, no, that exactly as close to them as the Flanders, but we never see them. What else could you do with them, though, is the is the question there? What other plot lines could you do? Maybe... what did like rights as one we've We've already done the Rebel Lisa episode, so you couldn't have li Laura getting Lisa to be a Rebel or whatever. There's just not a lot to be done with them. How did we feel about the episode on the whole? I enjoyed it. Good episode. It went by really quickly, but I would say it was pretty mediocre.
00:58:46
Speaker
It had some good bits, but it was fine, like, you know, considering it's one that I remember so, like, I have like a moment so clearly burning in my brain, there's just not a lot of major laughs, just a few good chuckles.
00:59:00
Speaker
I'm not massive on the main storyline, but I do love the B storyline with the- The B storyline is great, yeah. and i do like And I do like the Barney Moe interactions, they did make the left. Yeah. I mean, maybe maybe I just have a real soft spot for the sea captain, obviously. Yeah. It is great. I think it and is another example episode of um the B plot could have just been the A plot, and it would have been a better episode, because the A plot was weird.
00:59:27
Speaker
It's weird that the B-plot was kind of re-written as well, like the original premise was actually they really wanted to get ah comedian Don Reckles on, a name I'm only familiar with because they lampooned him in a later episode of The Simpsons. yeah And also a gag that comes up in that later portrayal is He has the line that I'm a nice guy that runs off singing it. and I was like, what? No, I do not get this. I just assumed I didn't get it because I don't know Don Rickles. Yeah. But also, apparently, he didn't want to appear in this episode. He turned down the offer to a to to guest star in this because they portrayed him as
01:00:08
Speaker
a mean guy and he's like oh he's not a mean guy he's a nice guy i was like i i'm wondering if there's a connection and a joke there because because he was like no i don't want to be a mean guy so they wrote a story where he's a nice guy they still didn't get him to do the voice acting they still just got one of the regular guys to to portray don rickles hes he still did not guest star amazing but yeah weird just a weird thing i wasn't giving it out of coma I'm giving it a blow in your nose on your shirt out of Homer. You could still wear the shirt, but should you? What? Okay. As in, I could rewatch this episode, but should I?
01:00:47
Speaker
I see, I see. John, what are you giving it? I give it unlimited seafood out of Homer. It's a good time, but not for Marge. Am I marching this scenario then? No, it's like the one of my main takeaways, like i I really enjoyed the episode, but like I was also at the end of it left feeling like, Paul Marge, you had a rough time this episode, like this is a horrible time of it. It's a miserable day. I'm giving it a being kicked out at the all you can eat restaurant out of Homer.
01:01:18
Speaker
I've eaten my fill and I'm happy but I'm not full. Society. All you can eat food places are alive. da yeah like I think there was a little bit in there, and I guess maybe you guys can weigh in on this to to share your perspective on it, but like about sort of the parental role in relationships and sex ed stuff, where Homer just being basically useless at it. And I think there's probably an element of a lot of parents kind of don't really want to have to do that and we'll try and avoid it. and
01:01:55
Speaker
end of the day my experience is uh i didn't get that from any family ah figures honestly uh yeah i got whatever rudimentary mid-noughties school provisions there were and the rest of it's just uh figure it out as you go along you could take it further as well of like the whole dynamic that a boy should be taught this by his father because Marge just basically outright refuses to give the talk herself even though yeah she should kind of assume that Homer would be shit at it I think, like you said, most of it was just you learned it's mechanics of it at school and 90s media, specifically sort of filled in the rest of the blanks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, like and and for basically everyone of my generation, like.
01:02:40
Speaker
It's ah certainly for queer people. like All our relationships and sex ed stuff that came from a public place, i.e. schools, like was very much shaped by the era of ah Section 28. The thing where you're not allowed to like tell kids that gay people exist. Yeah, good times. Yeah, so yeah, that's so's how I didn't figure out much of my identity until nearly 30.
01:03:04
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks, Britain. Thatcher, mainly. yep I noted that you know frivolous lawsuits solve everything. And also writers of comedy will never get over that one time a girl didn't like them in high school and went for the charismatic and confident bully.
01:03:24
Speaker
Like, this is such a trope in, like, just comedy in general, but like, specifically sitcoms, there will always be at least one episode where the guy who is clearly the nice guy doesn't get the girl and the girl goes with some bully, but then miraculously the nice guy, you know,
01:03:46
Speaker
wins in some ridiculous fashion. And I i just think, i just just ah just a little message to comedy writers out there, grow the fuck up, go to therapy. It's really sad. Because that's all I see when I watch these episodes is just like the writer living out their pathetic little fantasy.
01:04:07
Speaker
You mentioned the frivolous lawsuit thing. i did It did cross my mind to wonder whether it was kind of some sort of pushback against the idea that there were too many frivolous lawsuits around ah post the McDonald's coffee lawsuit thing. yeah ah Then I looked it up and the McDonald's coffee lawsuit was 1994, so that was two years after this episode aired, so it can't have been.
01:04:29
Speaker
I mean, phrase of frivolous lawsuits have always been a thing. When um health insurance was a thing, loads of people were genuinely shooting themselves, like getting their friend to shoot them in the left arm so they could exploit their health insurance or sue gun manufacturers. And then we all we all noticed that they were all bullshit because everyone was conveniently shot in the left arm. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, and i may I suppose true enough, but I feel like the the point at which it became like,
01:04:56
Speaker
was the coffee McDonald's. The coffee thing, yeah, made it very public, like, a bit where people were like, oh my god, she sued because she poured coffee over herself. Oh my god, and got half a million dollars for it. ah Are you kidding me? Like, I can pour hot coffee over myself. Can I have half a million dollars? Yeah. It kind of made this very much this public talking point of frivolous lawsuits. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, shall we move on once I've told you Nate Myers score, which was three out of five. That's pretty fair. Shoehorning that one in. Pretty fair, you know.
01:05:27
Speaker
Season four, episode nine, Mr. Plow. Absolute classic, apparently. It is an absolute classic. Everyone knows Mr. Plow. That's his name. That name again is Mr. Plow. This aired on November 19th, 1992. And funnily enough, my first note for this episode was, I was right. Because there's Joy MacLaur. I'm always like the head. Do you think you want to know what happened on this day? Yeah, go on then. I just wanted to drop that in straight away. Karol.
01:05:56
Speaker
right that was that but waszolha That's what happened on this date and back to the number ones. US number one is ah still how do you talk to an angel? But Boyz II Men has finally been deformed. Okay, right. I'm annoyed that you missed the obvious joke. Boyz II Men, reach the end of the road.
01:06:16
Speaker
yeah yeah more i am I am too good for this. I tell you what, would I lie to you? Yes, I would. Because Charles and Eddie certainly did. You're all right, Michael. Yeah, I just told you what the UK number one was. Yeah, I know. I have no idea about either of these songs, though. No, many I think you would have heard, would I lie to you?
01:06:44
Speaker
yeah it sounds vaguely familiar it's probably like a radio song you know like you in a car and it's been on kind of thing and reckon the name you baby would and oh yes do you know i actually kind of like that song ah the song i actually know also excellent rendition Thank you. I will be leaving Bollywood in no more. It's gonna take you singing to it a cypress. I probably could to prefer getting into a fairly successful group. Oh damn, confidence, I like it. Okay, so, blackboard gap. A burp is not an answer.
01:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, was the intern was not earning his money this week. I i genuinely gapped it. like i When we got to this episode, I was like, oh, I can find out what the chalkboard gag is. So I just gapped it, yeah. i mean Hilarious, I guess. The couch gag, there is only one single chair of the couch it used to be. And everybody sits on it, and Maggie just pops out through the middle. I just realized I also gapped the fucking couch gag. Fucking hell.
01:07:54
Speaker
The episode begins for the television show but from Hawaii. It was beautiful Maliki Islands, which are not for lepers anymore. I don't get it. Can someone explain? I had to look this up to find out the context. It it was, in fact, a leper colony as recent as 1969. Like, if you got leprosy, they just... They put you in a little colony on Molokai Island, and you lived out your days and died there until they invented a cure for leprosy, and then eventually they were like, okay, maybe you it guys don't have to like...
01:08:24
Speaker
die here but it was genuine because this is just one of those gaps in my knowledge because i never felt the need to learn it what the fuck is leprosy is a virus or a disease it is bacterial so you can cure it or fight it with antibiotics which is why it's like pretty much under control these days and ah Yeah, ah yes, it it's not very transmissile, but it can be transmitted and yeah ah At one point the the solution to it was ship everyone off to an island the the only thing like whenever lepers are mentioned I always just think of um the the Jabberwocky the Michael not Michael. Yeah, Michael Palin and um Who's the right the artist for munch python? What's his name?
01:09:12
Speaker
Terry not Terry is Terry Gilliam anyway Gilliam yes Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin the Jabber Wocky there's a scene in that where he the sheltered guy goes to a city and meets supposedly a leper and he he speaks to him and he's and he's like what happened that I cut my own leg off because I was making no money as a beggar until I cut my leg off and then he simply like started making money and yeah every time I just think of that instead go watch the Jabberwocky it's surprisingly really good and very very Monty Python if you if you need a bit more Monty Python in your life yeah cool anyway Simpsons
01:09:53
Speaker
The Carnival of the Stars is taking place. I hate you guys. Good. Good. The Carnival of the Stars is taking place, and it is hosted by everyone's favorite, Troy McClure. And we may remember from the erotic adventures of Hercules. I'd watch them. Okay. I've watched Hercules in New York. I'll watch anything to do with Hercules, man. It does sound like a porno parody of Hercules in New York. Hercules in New York, yeah. And Dial M for murderous.
01:10:22
Speaker
which is a reference to just dial in for murder. Yeah. We see that Homer is watching this from Mo's tavern and at the same time we see that Christie has appeared on the screen and he's trying to tame free tigers. This does not go particularly well as Christie is attacked by the tigers and Bart, who's watching it from home declares that they're going to be chewing on him for a while and it's cute to turn the channel over and uh bumblebee man is now being chased by a giant wise water by the police yeah i was talking i was talking about um something similar like the the violent like crusty being attacked by three lions and being fine i was talking about this recently because i saw on reddit and i know don't go on reddit but i was on reddit and it was like who's the worst father like cartoon father or whatever you know so it was showing all kinds of characters but one of them was homer
01:11:18
Speaker
and you know me as a staunch Homer defender I had to like look into all this and someone pointed it out and it may like I kind of like thought about it even further they were talking about you've got to think about how absurdist Simpsons is, is Homer an abusive father in terms of Simpsons in the Simpsons world and then I kind of thought well yeah considering how easy it is to survive things like falling down the Springfield Canyon smacking your head on several rocks and being fine chucking someone isn't that
01:11:54
Speaker
bad, which take that out of context.
01:11:59
Speaker
yeah you know so i can yeah i get you it was It was that kind of thought. This is nothing to do with the episode, but just it came to mind again because of the crusty thing. And I was like, yeah, the violence in like, like you can survive basically anything except getting hit by a shirt and falling off a yeahp a set of seats. thats fake But that's fatal, but everything else is fine. You only die when the writers need it. Exactly. It's only fatal when the plot needs it to be fatal. Yeah, so I i wanted your guy's opinion on it because I only spoke to like one other person. like Do you think Homer, in the context of Simpsons, is a bad father? No, because anything that he does wrong, he does that out of ignorance. Yeah, he's very rarely malice.
01:12:44
Speaker
And the he does attempt to, if when he realises he's done something wrong, he does it attempt to make it right. He usually does make does make some sort of effort to redeeming himself, yes. yeah i mean again obviously like He was a shitty husband last episode, but it's not a father thing. Was he a shitty husband or was he just... He tried his wife to be humiliated in the window! well get Eating a food sauce that might have killed her! Oh, that's true. No, yeah, he did take it on. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's true. and um But yeah, in the context of the real world, home is a fucking despicable human being. But it's interesting that people do often and we do it we do it as well. Like I just did it with the whole gamer ah gamer joke in the last episode. We do forget sometimes to judge what's happening in the context that it was a written and be the show itself, the world itself, you know, so.
01:13:39
Speaker
just an just an interesting thought. I thought I'd bring that to the table and you guys are going to sit in silence for a few seconds and then Michael's going to go, okay, and then we're going to carry on talking about the fucking show. I think surely the whole point of this podcast is that it is interesting to analyze the culture of 1992 from the perspective of 2024, right?
Cultural Sensitivity in Simpsons' Jokes
01:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is. I think, but I also try and maintain that reminder i was i was want to be conscious of the fact that this was written in ninety ninety two you know again like the the the gay joke thing we talked about um john as our resident queer uh do you do you think do you think this would be considered the the the home the gay joke would have been considered would be considered like too much now like you do you think that kind of joke would get on telling these days
01:14:28
Speaker
of what from the last episode yeah sorry i don't bring it way back but you know i thought i'd bring some analysis to the to the show again i interesting question i don't know because you were offended but do you think other people would be i don't i don't think so but I don't know, it's always hard to tell with that sort of thing. Would ah would someone else be offended? I don't know, it's impossible to say whether someone would be offended by something, but I don't know, it felt fairly benign to me. Like the butt of the joke in that was the bullies having their own biases and prejudices turned around on them. Like the the reason they felt attacked by it was their own internalized homophobia. That's why the joke landed at their expense, yeah which
01:15:14
Speaker
I think it it wasn't a joke at the expense of gay people, it was it was at the expense of the bullies. At the ah the expense of the bigots, yeah. the Sorry as well, i the only reason I... like Because again, people will get offended. The reason I asked John for his opinion specifically was not because of John's queer, it was because it would be very fucking gosh of me as a straight white guy to be like, I don't know why white matters, but you know, it so as a so largely straight guy to go, oh well no one would be offended by that.
01:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I asked. But Michael, do you have thoughts? Do you think it would be too much for TV these days? Well, it depends. Because here's the thing that I think the thing people and this may be a generalisation and I'm sure that John will correct me if if you think I'm going wrong with this generalisation. I think people tend to get offended for people without maybe going sometimes understanding the full context. I mean, yeah.
01:16:13
Speaker
That joke that's true but joke that made in Simpsons, i don't I can see why that wouldn't bother you, but I can see why somebody that claims to be an ally is very i very prominent on Twitter would probably say that this is the single most offensive thing of all time.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, that it'd appear on a list of, like, examples of of dated jokes in TV kind of thing. Yeah, yeah potentially. eventual I mean, I know it's a very grey line, and I think there's ah there is some stuff where it it's just genuinely that it is just genuinely offensive.
01:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. But its it kind of falls into that gray area for me. But I mean, I don't find it offensive, but I'm a straight male. So yeah, I'm not the qualified person to ask. Exactly. I mean, I mean, within that space, the one bit that felt slightly iffier to me was giving the estate agent the stereotypical gay voice that they did. Oh, yeah, yeah they did do that. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:14
Speaker
ah top zoneed over the third ruless Yeah, they skirt they skirt they skirt the line. as it it was It was not really there, but it was a detail I picked up on. It was just just just a thing. Yeah, it's like, oh, we have an estate agent. and We need to do a voice for it. There, make him gay. Yeah. Camp, I suppose. Yeah, camp. I mean, The Simpsons has worse episodes where it's clear. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we was like we're glossing over the character of fucking Smithers right now that the only, like, really prominent gay character in this show at this point, even though he isn't named gay, is a pathetic little ass-licking weasel.
01:17:51
Speaker
So I mean, there's yeah, Smithers, Smithers is an awkward one. and We have we have discussed him in the past, but like i I'm most of Smithers whole character. I'm sort of inclined to hand wave away, I guess, for the reasons the writers gave early on is like he at this point in The Simpsons existence, they didn't see Smithers as a gay character. They
Absurd Adventures with Homer
01:18:15
Speaker
didn't see him as homosexual. They explicitly said they saw him as Burns sexual. Yeah.
01:18:20
Speaker
like he's not attracted to men he's attracted to mr burns and that is it yeah i i guess it's like um they will flesh him out later we know this but like ah in season four he was burned sexual i guess but that could just be seen as a little hand wavy maybe anyway simpsons i know we're talking about simpsons but that's that's what we say when we get back on track so anyway simpsons God, where were we? It is starting to snow. Okay, yes, it is starting to snow when Marjack's home is to come home, and we see that Homer is struggling to see as he's swerving on the road. Eventually, Homer hits a car, gets out and says that at least he got the other guys. I love how proud he is. We don't come to the family standing in the doorway looking horrified and Homer realizes he's backed into his own other car.
01:19:07
Speaker
And then we get a great shot of the tow truck picking up both cars. Like it's towing the first car, but because they're so mashed together, i they're like one car getting towed away. i do It's just great visuals.
01:19:21
Speaker
The insurance man is ah about to get home with a check that asks him what moses and it's some sort of business. Homer's own brain works out that he probably shouldn't say he wasn't over. But he wonders what was open at midnight and he goes for the pornography stuff. I was buying pornography. It's the way he says it. It's so good. That was great. Then congratulates him by saying he would have never fought. He wouldn't have.
01:19:48
Speaker
We don't see that Tomo is now hitchhiking to get to the car dealership and the window opens to reveal a pig, which you isn't that because... ah I don't know why that got me. That got me so much. the Because the pig's face, the pig gives him a judgemental look.
01:20:03
Speaker
which it was fine to do because former reveals that the pig has to sit up front because it can't be trusted by the watermelons and we see that- Just leave it at the home, bruh. Just leave the pig at home. you know Why are you bringing the pig? Now Zeke's gotta come with. Zeke's gotta come with. Homer's just eating the watermelons as he arrives at a crazy black cloud place of- I think we can all agree though, I would go a fucking ham on watermelons. like i love I love watermelon. Holy shit is watermelon the best.
01:20:32
Speaker
We don't see that Homer has squeezed himself into a very small car, which can go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene. I love this, but I... This bit... I didn't remember which episode this bit was from. Like, this bit is obviously lodged into my brain, or at least the line, put it in age. Put it in age! Because put it in age is so good. I did not remember which episode it was from.
01:20:55
Speaker
so but asks what country the cars from a crazy blackla reveals that it doesn' no no doesn't exist and what and it does lead to hum of taking his test drive which blackla has the pushing out of I don't know if either of you wrote this down because i I would love to know if it is actually words but when he says this car will surely make you say and then he says something I think in Russian but it could be any Eastern European language I am going to Google that because I did not like check that. He said, you know, because he says like something in another language as if it's like a very common phrase. I'd be very curious to know what it is and if it is anything or if it is gibberish. Okay, so Simpson ah ah Reddit r slash Simpson shitposting has analyzed this. this clearly is the reliable so also get It is a weird mishmash of a number of languages. You've got Zagreb, which is a city in Croatia.
01:21:49
Speaker
Ebnan is German for flattening or paving. Zloty is the Polish currency. They also just mean gold. And Dien is Vietnamese well crazy for crazy?
01:22:06
Speaker
That's so... yeah they Yeah, they just wanted to not offend any anyone by offending everyone. Yeah, so the vague general gist of it that is suggested here is that it's like drip it's like driving on streets paved in gold in Zagreb. That kind of makes sense, yeah. That's an actual like well you no it's not an actual phrase, but it sounds like one.
01:22:34
Speaker
Let's see that the kids have not taken up the crazy fat lab on his offer and we've ended up at the auto show. and so's so just Sorry, I have to note the detail though that we just... The hood ornament on the car is a fly.
01:22:49
Speaker
i know i did not notice it i know it i only just notice it's weird i didn't look at it enough to notice it was a fly yep i just love that it also is very clearly a three-wheeler um because you can only see the two back wheels oh shit totally yeah you can't see the front wheels oh such a good and little gay little soviet car i love it gay little soviet car is now my favorite insult um i yeah i love that homo has his like legs right up to his head yeah
01:23:24
Speaker
We don't see her at the auto show that Homer enters a competition to try to win a fancy car and he asks the beautiful model if she comes with the car and she just giggles and says oh you. The next guy comes up and but immediately the same interaction happens. Yeah and she says it exactly the same way. We need jokes like this and jokes like this need to be constant because Genuinely, jokes like this remind me to not say shit like that. You know, like, when when a when an item doesn't get scanned, you know, and it's like, oh, I guess it's free. I, you know, I'm a dad joker. We all know this. I fucking bite my tongue. I bite my tongue so hard when when the opportunity to say shit like that comes out, because, yeah, I can imagine that woman fucking murderous intent. Murderous intent. Well, she's trained.
01:24:15
Speaker
you We all need a good trained woman from time to time, Michael. Thank you for the... for the Well, trained to deflect lecherous men with ease. Yes. Yeah, sure, that's what I meant. We then
Mr. Plow Rivalry and Small Business Satire
01:24:29
Speaker
go to Bart and Bart is in the Bonnie and Clyde death car doing some ah machine gunning. Homer tells him to have a bit more respect and Bart hits the glove compartment which has some money in it. and Anyone else notice that when Homer was walking by, the you could not see him through the bullet holes in the glass, but you could see him through the glass?
01:24:45
Speaker
yeah Really weird detail. Yeah Yep, well, that's the thing though. They just just draw the bullet hole and then Like it's more effort to make him not visible through them. You go one you would think We then cut to Lisa watching a crash test for the 4th Reich Motors, and we see the crash test... Oh, 4th Reich Motors! Jesus! And we see the car going to the wall, and we see that one of the dummy starts crawling away, which Lisa inquires about, and the exhibit is immediately closed. Is this exhibit closed? We then cut to Homer being excited to see the Batmobile, and look, it's Adam West!
01:25:24
Speaker
and genuinely is oh my introduces him as batman and the kids don't believe that it is batman and adam wester comes out and i assume that this was just adam west riffing entirely possible he just goes off onto a bit of a tangent about uh it the muscles in his costume being Adam West is a very uncomfortable presence in any cameo he does because he always just plays himself and he always plays a massive pervert and as we know from more and more biographies and autobiographies he was just a massive pervert
01:26:04
Speaker
and he just is really proud of it. He wasn't too bad here. I mean, he lists off all the bad ones. He was asked to leave a city because he was having sex too much. What? Genuinely true. I do believe that, yeah. Okay. and But basically this basically just ends with Adam West starting to dance as the kids walk around. Yeah, doing the bad... Why doesn't bad men dance anymore?
01:26:27
Speaker
Also, ah maybe one of you who are more cultured than I can explain, what's the deal with the weird camera angles? I think it's supposed it's supposed to reference an episode in the 60s where he does actually start, Batman does actually start dancing and he does those exact dance moves and they sort of move the camera from side to side to make it look a bit more trippy. But Adam West shows up again later in the episode and they do the same thing that as he's talking the camera like turns to one side.
01:26:56
Speaker
yeah batman was famous for that particular camera angle yeah okay right that that that's that's what i want to know is like is this the old school batman stuff right fair enough there's uh the kids try to get the hell away from uh madam west he bumps into the uh kumatsumoto snowplow and uh omar imagines what he could do with this particular plan and it's uh basically he's at the white house and george w bush gets her homework to drive with some protesters oh that's a bit rough in the context of 2024 though yep homa in every republican's wet dream says he's about to give those youngsters a dose of reality yes yeah there are way too many people who are way too create keen to drive through a crowd of protesters in this day and age yep
01:27:41
Speaker
As the um but as a salesman tries to encourage Homer on the idea of using the snowplow to earn some money, Homer says he needs to discuss it with Marge, and the salesman starts making the whipcrab sound. And Homer's response to this is, you really didn't go by a $20,000 trip just because you made that sound. It then makes the sound three more times than Homer gave.
01:28:01
Speaker
That truck costing 20 grand in 92 makes me sad. I mean, ah ah I noted the i noteed the price as well, which like, that sounds pretty cheap and I feel like even in 1992, I feel like that sounds cheap for an entire ass snowplow? I'm guessing it's like a part payment thing because again, yeah, you're like paying off the rest of it via the the doing the job thing. But yeah, something like that, a snowplow,
01:28:29
Speaker
i'd be confident saying one mil at that point those things are not cheap because they are incredibly powerful and you know can go can drive in snow also not to sound too much like a stuck record but that's that's a three month salary for homo yep
01:28:48
Speaker
Editing Moroka here, because this was something I was just genuinely quite curious about, and it turns out that no, snowplows don't cost anywhere near a mill. I mean, maybe there are some high-end brand new models that can cost a mill, but like, a casual, quick Google, like, there are a bunch at, like, fairly reasonable prices. There are some you can buy now that cost less than what Homer paid for in 1992, so... Genuinely kind of seems like Homer paying 20k for it.
01:29:15
Speaker
probably potentially a reasonable price, actually. We then cut back to Marge, claiming that Homer should not have bought the snowplow, and Homer's response to this is that Marge is going to yell at him, but every time he does something stupid he's going to stop doing stupid things, and Marge's response is that he will never do anything stupid again, but immediately turns around and walks into the open door of the snowplow. Oh, and that looked like it hurt. But Homer's response to this is no.
01:29:43
Speaker
then cut to Homer advertising his business by putting out loads of flyers but unfortunately the wind blows them away we then cut to Barney dressed as a baby pointing out to Homer the futility of what he's doing is uh several patrons ignore Barney's attempts to hand out flyers including one man declaring that Barney sickens him Talon Big Baby sent you Barney then says that uh they they can't catch a break but Barney can't sink any lower at that moment his diaper flies off and Barney chases it down the street runs into his mum who actually lives in fucking Denmark Yeah, she was just there. Yeah, she just came by. Oh, Norway, I think. One of the two. We don't see her in church, and Homer's been invited to give a guest reading, but instead he plugs his business, as Reverend Lovejoy mentions how low this is. Not as low as my prices. He's then kicked out and... with a Church bounces.
01:30:33
Speaker
Yep, yeah, that loads the exact words I wrote down church bouncers. I tell my laments the fact that he's about to lose his snowplow. Lisa suggests buying some advertising time and the demonstration that this is our good friend the sea captain. He's back! And he's got sea shanties and the particular commercial is a romantic couple having a That's a wine by the fire while Ro-Ro-Ro your boat is singing in the background. 90 sea shanties on three compact discs. Fuck yeah. Sign me up. I want this. I'm here for this. I would buy the shit out of this. I'm gonna buy you some sea shanties. That's what I'm gonna do. You also get a few tape of flute sounds. Well, I will note they call them sea shanties, not sea shanties. It's weird. Maybe there's a weird copyright or something?
01:31:17
Speaker
Pretty sure Shanty's just a ah genre, but okay. We don't see the Thelma Hasbro advertising time, or unfortunately it's at 3am. But ask some who would be up at this time and help me list alcoholics, loners and the unemployable. Yep, so he's basically describing me.
01:31:33
Speaker
You're not unemployable. You have a job, my dude. I know you do. I know you do. this There's a weird threatening aura to that sentence, man. I know you do. We don't see that the commercial comes on and it's the family acting themselves, including Grandpa Simpson as Old Man Winter. This was this was really wholesome.
01:31:55
Speaker
It was quite good, yeah. Grandpa is dressed in some sort of homemade devil outfit and he starts kicking- No, it's pajamas. It's like Long John's. He starts kicking snow at the family until Homer arrives and Homer tells him to get away and actually physically kicks him up in the arse to do it as Grandpa just casually walks back to the house. I'm overhead, I couldn't eat a lie down. I love Abe Simpson, man, he's the best.
01:32:19
Speaker
Homer's sale pitch is that ah you will inevitably cut your hands off with a snowblower and you will suffer a heart attack if you trouble the snow yourself. And we see that Homer's... Lisa asks Homer how they can afford such slow prices and Homer says that these people will think he suffered brain damage by the amount that he's charging. Homer asks if Homer is licensed by the city and Homer has to tell him to shut up. all but another He also offers a free t-shirt, if you call now, which weird, weird, slightly recurring bit. He holds up a t-shirt and is like, ah to show like show us, I guess, the one he's planning to give away, which is Stockdale for Veep. Stockdale was the vice presidential candidate running on an independent ticket in the 1992 election. Like, how does that work?
01:33:11
Speaker
So he would be the v he would be the VP of whoever got elected who already has a VP. Well, no, the the so so there was an independent candidate running. So not a Republican, not a Democrat running. And they nominated this Stockdale guy to be his vice president. So he had the independent candidate being like, he would have been weak. Which is Homer has previously referenced obscure, independent candidates for president in the past. Well, Homer has a weird knowledge of independent candidates. Like who follows politics this closely that the like,
01:33:44
Speaker
they know all the indie candidates in American politics. I think part of it is to regularly make it clear that Homer is neither Republican nor Democrat. Maybe, maybe. Because they don't, you know, if they if they actually picked a side, they would eliminate a large portion of their audience. So what we're learning is that Homer would vote for ah RFK Junior. I think he'd vote
Cultural References and Listener Engagement
01:34:08
Speaker
for um the dude with the Wellington boot on his head. I don't know who that is.
01:34:13
Speaker
Oh, dude, i like, yeah, ah just Google presidential candidate Wellington boot on head or whatever. ah He is absurd, hilarious. And one of his policies for the pack, because he's ran every every election for like 20 years, just as a bit. And one of them in Supremes, vermin love Supremes Supreme. verman supreme ah One of his policies is that everyone gets a free horse. And that's one of his most normal policies.
01:34:44
Speaker
He's part of the Libertarian Party, actually. Oh, right. Well, he yeah, because he... I think he's doing it as like a... He's making a point. He's not just doing it because he's like, I think I could be president.
01:34:55
Speaker
yeah He has campaigned on a platform of zombie apocalypse awareness and time travel research and promised a free pony for every American. Yeah, there it is. What more do you need? So this is America's Count Binface then, clearly. Yes. okay After Homer sings the Mr. Plow Jingle for the first time, he then declares it's now time to play the waiting game. We get a few moments of silence but Homer decides that the way waiting game sucks and they decide to play hungry hungry hippos.
01:35:21
Speaker
ah Can we also note that like as soon as the commercial ends, it goes to like the, I don't know what you call it. It's like, yeah, the like the testing thing. will do is Yeah. Like the test card, isn't it? It has colours and numbers. And yeah, it that basically this was the last thing that aired on this channel that night is clear. Broadcast has now ended. The Simpsons were the singular last thing to air on this channel. Yeah. They didn't, they didn't end on a show. They ended on ads.
01:35:47
Speaker
Yep, but as we see it is effective because so we see Homer plowing the cookie mart and Appu is happy about this, failing to notice the armed robbery that's about to take place. Let's do this! We then see that he cleans the driveway of the retirement centre and Grandpa declares they can go if they want before deciding it's cold and they're frightened. I'm cold and frightened!
01:36:10
Speaker
We didn't go to the school and Martin has somehow hiked his way there from the snow but he's neither of them bothered because otherwise cleared the way and that's gonna thanks Bart by saying his dad is responsible Nelson and the rest of the school kids beat the crap out of him with snowballs. The visuals there of Bart getting hit by ah snowballs seems very akin to a film.
01:36:35
Speaker
it was uh it's a reference to a thing um godfather it's reference to the godfather there you go i also just liked how seriously principal skinner was like there will be no class today because principal skinner loves fucking teaching dude yeah just We don't see that Mayor Quimby is delighted that Homer has meant that people don't have to get public transport or carpool. So that gains Homer the key to the city. We don't see that Homer gets a free beer from Mo when Barney's shot because he didn't even give any to those Iranian hostages. and but They shouldn't have been there in the first place. lord yeah
01:37:11
Speaker
like And Barney's upset about this, but Homa tries to give him a pep talk telling him to pull up his diaper and go out there and be the best Barney Gumbly can be. This inspires Barney to run out into the streets screaming and we hear him crashing into several things. Homa asks Moe how he thinks he'll do, and Moe is pretty confident that he's gonna do just fine. yeah There's a lot of bits in this that I'm just like, i don't you just needed filler. It's like Barney running out, hitting the trash can, and then it's like, You could have just ended the scene there. Why did you have- or ended it with Homer saying, how do you think he's gonna do it? You didn't need this bit of more saying, I think he's gonna be fine. It's just weird.
01:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, potentially. It's just weird pacing. We then got to the Simpson bedroom, and Marge, we now discover what Marge's new turn on in, which is Homer and his Mr. Plow jacket. Guys, Marge is so fucking horny. By the way, if you want this jacket, you can buy it on Etsy for 55 quid I've found. You can have a Mr. Plow jacket.
01:38:09
Speaker
I'm not surprised. a paritable pair of meundies and Oh boy. Yo, I'd love a pair of mee undies that said Mr. Plow. Mr. Plow mee undies, mee undies, hit us up. Give us a cut to the commission on your Mr. Plow undies. Yeah, mee undies sponsor us. with We're geniuses. We don't just come up with great ideas like my greasy little piglet. We also come up with Mr. Plow.
01:38:29
Speaker
Watch those watch the sexy times roll. I don't see that ah despite those 60 times rolling, Homer is fully dressed when he wakes up the next morning ready to plow. But unfortunately every driveway has been plowed because Barney is now the plow king.
01:38:45
Speaker
Oh, it's very sad to learn that Barney has stolen his idea, but Barney tells him it's alright for some friendly competition before proceeding to shoot Omar's tyres out. Yeah, literally pulls out a fucking revolver. And driving away, manically laughing. I didn't remember Barney being so psychotic in this episode, man.
01:39:02
Speaker
It gets worse because we get to see Barney's commercial, which starts with him being the hell out of a cardboard cutout of stuff like a baseball bat before being dragged off by two-stage hands. We don't see that... I wonder if you'd like to get this woman's name right. It's Linda Rong's that, is it? Yep, that's the one.
01:39:22
Speaker
some woman a she is she is a country singer as if you couldn't tell from the country song that she sings in a moment i thought she sang sea shanties sorry sea shanties i wish my wife's how bonnie got her and bonnie confirms that they've been looking to work on a project for a while that was that was dumb it's dumb but funny though no it wasn't funny how'd you get lynda rosa oh we've been lucky seasoning for a while Which makes no fucking sense! Barney just happens to know Linda Ronstadt, and they were looking for a project to do. Yeah, of course, why not? It's great. We don't see that the country song begins, and it's the ah nice little jingle upon his business, and which ends with Linda Ronstadt declaring that Mr. Flowers a loser, and he's also a loser. It is a better song, though, to be fair. Doesn't quite top Back me a Homer yet, though, for Best Country Song. That's true. That's true.
01:40:19
Speaker
We then see Homer lament that Alke Barney could have done this only after everything Homer has done for him. We then cut to a flashback of ah Barney but preparing for his SATs, and it basically looks like he's going to do quite well until Homer sneaks in and prior pressures him into drinking a beer. And we then see Barney drink the beer and his face becomes slightly more deranged with every passing second. ye Yeah, I'll get a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kinda bit with the animation now.
01:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm gonna make a bold statement, since again we're talking about what Simpson says about society, um because this is a running bit, you know, in in like a lot in Simpsons and in a lot of like media, it's like holding a grudge against the guy that gave you your first beer or taste of cocaine or whatever.
01:41:02
Speaker
it is not their fault it is still your fault for getting you know say bold statement i know gonna offend offensive people but that's not homa's fault in that situation he was young and stupid and offered him a fucking beer to be fair and and play devil's advocate here barney does not hold a grudge against homa but he still sees homa as a friend like yeah or you know business rivalry aside like this wasn't to say oh this is why barney's is why he's doing it yeah it's yeah absolutely After all I've done for you, flashback, actually Homer has never done much good for Barney, but Barney is still friends with him anyway. That's accurate. No, that's very fair. We go back to Adam West and, uh, I was upset because Mr. West promised him a job and, uh, Mr. adam West later says he called Homer 45 minutes ago. and We get the camera angles again. This is the only moment that, like, we kind of get that Barney, ah as much as Barney is being a psychopath, he is doing a better job.
01:42:01
Speaker
Yeah. Adam West gets in the Batmobile and it's not quite the dramatic Batmobile driving away the road. No, it's real awkward. No, you de-exhaust is hanging off. Batman has seen better days.
01:42:14
Speaker
We don't see that Toma is waiting for the phone to ring, and he gets called up by the motor company asking for their payment, and I don't know what happens here, but it just ends with Toma saying, yeah, they were gay. I'm guessing there was a plough joke in there. He says, miss up yeah, i'm I'm not that Mr. Plough, I'm Tom Plough. I think he says, of the, of ah Eager for Beaver, I think. He says to yeah he says Tony Plough from Leave It to Beaver. There's a character called Tony Dow in Leave It to Beaver.
01:42:43
Speaker
Clearly there's someone on the other end says something else. Yeah, there we go It's probably a very very 90s joke or 80s joke like what Yeah, absolutely. I don't get it. It is definitely a completely you had to have been watching TV in the 70s 80s or 90s All the thing first broadcast 1957 rental Simpsons even the people watching Simpsons writers might not get that joke Yeah, this was like 30 years old but plus ah This was as old and when the Simpsons aired as it is for us now. That is wild
01:43:25
Speaker
Yeah. ah Also, a bit of trivia on this is they they had a whole back and forth with the censors on this, like, because they thought, this again being the 90s and referring to anyone as being gay, ah they they feared it might be libelous. The Simpsons writers' protest was they could be anybody. So they they weren't saying anybody was gay. oh yeah They were gay. Could have been referring to anyone.
01:43:52
Speaker
I kinda get that, but if you sue someone over being insinuated that you're gay, you're a piece of shit. Yes, yes. Yes, you are. But people do it. Kids suggest that, uh, Oma should release it of a commercial and hope I suggest a rap and then we get to see the Mr. Plow rappers, which is so bad the cat runs away and the kids bang over and never ever do it ever again. You know a rap is gonna be bad when it opens with, I'm blank and I'm here to say.
01:44:18
Speaker
We then see that, uh, Omar goes to an advertising agency for help and, uh, the guy assures him that he was the guy that, uh, created the radio adverts where two people with annoying voices talk to each other. Omar just decks him! And he's been really proud of it! He's like, happens all the time. We then get to see Omar's actual commercial and, uh, it's black and white with a woman looking thingy. A shirtless man comes in and breaks a snow globe.
01:44:43
Speaker
Yeah, this was parodying. I think it was a perfume advert that was airing at the time. I think I vaguely remember that. Perfume adverts even today are completely unhinged because how do you communicate a smell through TV? You just have to get weird with it and just like vibes. So yeah, they're just taking a bit of that. I like the ones of Johnny Depp playing guitar with wolves.
01:45:05
Speaker
Again vibes mainly though like I don't I don't know what it smells like all I got is a Johnny Depp vibe. I'm not saying it's a good a good advert for perfume I'm just saying I enjoy those adverts. I find them very amusing and very enjoyable. Yeah, I think also I think I saw something about the music I think they use Russian opera music because at the time, american America and Russia did not respect each other's copyright laws, so nobody would pay the fee to use it. So it was like, you know, we just use Russian music, we have to pay them.
01:45:38
Speaker
and also america producing an opera
01:45:45
Speaker
uh... to explain the joke that i'm saying americans have no culture mississims account for you i was at the most i was american fucking shit spoiler alert he probably wasn't all right i thought you were genuine and most of us not most of us not american i'm fairly certain most i was german he was oscar actual Can one of us be cultured, please? Never. No. I am like Homer in this, uh, key handing back over ceremony, in which the key is handed over to the plow king, and, uh, Eric would be noticed that there are bite marks in it and homework body was made of chocolate. I put chocolate in it. It's very awkward.
01:46:28
Speaker
I also like that Mac Quimby said past instead of past, like in American. It was very weird. i I think that was the guy not quite getting the um the Clinton impression right. I mean Kennedy. Kennedy. Nailed it. I have no culture.
01:46:46
Speaker
We then cut to a news report of the blizzard, and we see that Arnie Pie is in the sky, and you can't see anything, and Kent Brockman wants to know what the ski conditions are, and we see that the helicopter is crashing, and Arnie Pie wants to get on with the day. And the picture photos out of Kent Brockman are just lightly chicles. Yeah, it's just no more Arnie. Fucking Kent Brockman, man. What a dick.
01:47:08
Speaker
This gives Homer an idea, and he calls the Barney to put in a fake job on Widow's Peak, and Barney's in the hot tub with Linda Rothstad, and apparently this is a 10,000 tip with all the president from the dollar bill- Did you guys notice the ah absurd lip movement for Homer? No. Like- I think it was- I think it was supposed to emphasize- Like he's doing a voice? Yeah. It was so weird. I was watching it just thinking, what the fuck is going on? Right.
01:47:36
Speaker
I think they did that intentionally just to make it show that he's trying to make it obvious it's not him. Yeah, yeah. So strange. As Barney climbs out of the hot tub Linda Ross tells him that she's going to do a Spanish version of the ploughing song and she starts doing it. Very impressive vocal range. Barney does not give a shit. This is just them getting their money's worth.
01:47:54
Speaker
Yeah, the producer, the producer John Vitti described Linda Ronstadt singing the Spanish plowking jingle as the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. What a fucking idiot. was not who's nice she's go She's got a good voice.
01:48:10
Speaker
I mean, it's not misedorean by Pavarotti. Michael Adamant to prove that he's cultured. Naming every bit of culture he can. The Beatles, guys. I believe he's Australian. Right, fucking hell, Jesus. oh No, he is not. How have I fallen for that twice?
01:48:34
Speaker
Pavarotti, ah the classic Australian surname. I'm just very trusting and slightly drunk. Mate. me Anyway, Simpsons.
01:48:48
Speaker
because Obra is ah picking up on the plowking's customers as he declares that the plowking obviously doesn't care about them. One lady asks someone to watch her ass fall. Please don't scrape my ass fall and you can kiss my ass fall. Which Homer delights in telling the family later. We then learn that the plowking is trapped and we see Bob only in his stock footage handing over a cheque for $50,000. This shall be the way for some random reason.
01:49:15
Speaker
Why is Shelbyville though? Boo Shelbyville? Yeah, Boo Shelbyville. But yeah, I guess they're just making him out to be like a really incredibly good guy. It's Barney Gumble, he's philanthropic, he's giving money to charity. and How much money did he make in the space of a fucking week? Enough to donate $50,000 to ah the the arts, I guess. You got me there, you got me there. He's a man of culture.
01:49:37
Speaker
He is a man of court, he knows where Pavarotti's from. He was in a fucking, definitely what looked like a mansion in a hot tub with Linda Ronstadt as well. Is he making... BANG! Yeah. I just realised, they do not reset to zero, really, after this. Like, Barney should still be minted. Kinda not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Simpsons.
01:49:59
Speaker
The footage I've got of the proof of this is the Bigfoot documentary of this. Unfortunately, Bigfoot is wearing his watch, but we don't have the money to drink and have lunch with a burp.
01:50:10
Speaker
it's like a Gandalf where you can, in Lord of the Rings you can see Gandalf wearing a watch. Oh am yeah? Yeah. Homer accepts responsibility for this and goes to save Barney. Which is basically him and his truck filling up his thermos with beer. Marge begs him not to go but Homer declares that this mountain is as sturdy as a mountain goat. No, we see a goat brutally fucking die. i think It didn't die because it made a... I know but I mean it like it really got fucking owned.
01:50:38
Speaker
ah go to, it's not short-footed and falls several stories down this mountain and we get the classic gag of the character's eyes following its descent. One thing that sent me down a minor Wikipedia rabbit hole was it noted Widows Peak having an elevation of 13,613 which was like, I did wonder if there's any significance to that and I cannot figure it out. What I do notice is that as per heights, it places it somewhere roughly in the range of the Rocky Mountains kind of heights. It's ah it's a lot of numbers. So maybe it's a phone number. Since it's done that before, like in the opening, there's the phone number for their old animation studio. I mean, it's only five numbers. Like, could you get a phone number of five numbers? No, that's true. Yeah. she didn't In America, you'd need another like six in it. Yeah.
01:51:28
Speaker
Oh, I set off and we see him trying to cross a rickety old boat bridge, but he turns his head and realizes there's a brand new spanking bridge on the other side. Yeah, suspension bridge leading up to a fucking ski slope.
01:51:39
Speaker
Okay, that bridge, what the fuck is going on with that bridge? Like, I know it's just there for the gag, but like, there is nothing holding that bridge up. now it the The pillars that the suspension is suspended from are just in the air. There is not a thing holding that bridge up that would collapse instantaneously. What's a good thing? Absolutely, yeah yeah. What about the worst time?
01:52:05
Speaker
Oh well, almost falls off the edge of a cliff, but I just think his radio means he can't get back on something. I like that bit. That was a good bit. We don't see Barney lamenting in the snow that he's about to die, but he's flapping that he's going to be able to see his dad and that plant he never watered. Yeah, his loved ones, his dad. That plant he never watered. Barney leads ah almost as pathetic a life as Lenny.
01:52:27
Speaker
Fortunately, Homer comes to clear out the snow and pulls Barney free. Barney declares that they will now be partners, and this makes Homer very happy because as he declares that not even God can stop them now. God likes this personally. Yeah, God literally canonically talks in The Simpsons. Like, I did not know there was ever an actual bit where God literally talks. Oh, there's plenty.
01:52:52
Speaker
I know there's yeah that's the thing I knew there was bits where like like we had the other the episode the other the day where he um he dreams he's talking a hearttic yeah but does he does god regularly fucking talk not regularly but i think he comes sometimes so yeah it comes the fuck but anyway god's not having this he sends the sun and but he melts he sends the sun he did that once it didn't work out
01:53:22
Speaker
We then see that Abe and the pensioners are excited that they can now go outside because the snails melted. I don't like the look of those teenagers. I'll go straight back in. We then see Kent Brockman being delighted that global warming is causing this heatwave in January. Yeah, doing the traditional, I guess, conservative thing of like, oh, well, hey, global warming means we had nice summers. So what are you complaining about? Yeah.
01:53:45
Speaker
Homer gets a phone call from the repo position saying they're just distracting him while they take his plow. Homer says, how dumb do you think I am as this plow is being taken away? Marge tells him not to worry about it and tells him that he's still got it and Homer's excited and and goes and puts his jacket on and we get the very... Sexily sings the Mr. Plow theme. We then get the very R rated version of the Mr. Plow song. The forecast declares for loving.
01:54:13
Speaker
And yet another episode ends in dangie. Yeah! baby Now you know it's an episode of Simpsons.
01:54:21
Speaker
This was one that I definitely, i've we've had this happen a couple times, I definitely enjoyed talking about it more than I did watching it. This episode is fine. is you know it's what it Considering it was a classic episode, I don't think I actually laughed out loud watching the episode much. It's a fun episode, but it's a much more like an actual sitcom kind of episode than it is like the absurdist cartoon that Simpsons becomes.
01:54:48
Speaker
So I wouldn't say this is like a classic episode of The Simpsons. I'd say this is like a classic episode of like season two of The Simpsons. Interesting. Okay. It was okay. You know, I enjoyed it. Like, i you know, if if it was on telly, I'd watch it. But I i i don't actually see why this is a classic, personally. What do you think, John?
01:55:08
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. like i I do think it is a classic. I can say, well, this is a classic. i sort of like It has that sort of cultural cachet, I suppose, that like ah when we saw this coming out, it was like, what's in season four? Oh, Mr. Plow is coming up. I was fully expecting it to be a good one. And yeah and ah frankly, I don't think for me, I don't think I was disappointed. It is genuinely regarded by a lot of people to be one of the best. and like don't disagree particularly as bold as bold. Well, I'm about to make a friend gambling the David B. Gorger. I think so. Yeah, I really like this episode too. I think it's a ah very, very strong good episode.
01:55:55
Speaker
It's okay. i enjoy I enjoyed it like genuinely like yeah, i'd I'd say I enjoyed the episode, but I don't know just didn't wow me I don't know, but I am all I i do tend to be the contrarian Which is funny because then I'm always the one that's annoyed at David be gross Well, we haven't seen David V. Grelk in a while. We're on to Nate Myers. I hope he's dead. I've got to be honest. like I mean, i'm I'm carrying on with it as a bit, but I actually haven't seen Nate Myers mentioned on any of the Wikipedia articles recently. ah The name that actually is slightly getting to annoy me is a chap called Nathan Dittam.
01:56:29
Speaker
who at some point created a list of the best movie references in The Simpsons and he always gets sighted and it's really annoying because the Godfather reference is apparently the 37th greatest film reference in The Simpsons by according to Nathan Dittam.
01:56:42
Speaker
What does greatest mean in that? It's just a reference. It's just a listicle that's been referenced in every Simpsons episode now. Yeah, it's fucking annoying. i hate Fuck Nathan Dittem. Yeah, people like it is just people inserting themselves into the fandom as if they matter. Like yeah if you matter, the fandom will make you will put you on a pedestal. You don't get to build a pedestal and put yourself on it. But it is the Simpsons. So people will do that.
01:57:12
Speaker
so will zo her but I'll go with mine first then so we can end on positives because I gave it a distracting phone call while they repossess your plough out of Homer. It killed 20 minutes and honestly I just wanted to write a really long out of Homer. Fair enough. Mr. Plough out of Homer. Is that your name? ah I was a little worried I was giving too many Homer's so it's Homer's alter ego. I don't think you've given that many though.
01:57:40
Speaker
I gave one last week. This is the problem. I gave one last week. You convinced me to up mine to a Homer the other week. I can convince you. I think if you genuinely think this is one of the classics, that sounds like a Homer to me. Also, just to note, I love that somehow two years into this, I still refer to the previous episode as last week like we did this last week. Spoiler alert, we did not do this last week. No, we did not. Michael?
01:58:09
Speaker
I'm gonna give it pure 100% West out of Homer. Okay. So it was really creepy. and bit of a Bit of a sex pest? Yep. Okay. So society. Flower related businesses are probably not a good idea.
01:58:26
Speaker
A bit seasonal, to be honest, yeah. um If two friends work together, there's nothing God himself can do to stop him. Unless he physically intervened, yeah except he can't, yeah. no To be fair, I got no real real takeaways from this, it was just a good episode.
01:58:41
Speaker
I mean, you could get overly analytical about this episode and say that it's a critique of small business ownerships and the ever-present risk of striking out on your own, coupled with the predatory businesses that will prey upon those dreamers and believers in order to profit off their initial hope for a better life and inevitably make it impossible to make those dreams a reality due to crippling costs and restrictions, but is that really what this podcast is about?
01:59:04
Speaker
No, this podcast is wondering what 300 hectares actually we equals. and this This podcast has no culture is what we've learned. The hectares joke is hectares is area. So she's saying oh this car can go 300 units of area is like, it's great. Love, love crazy back love.
01:59:23
Speaker
yeah i do i do think there is like you could get overly like analytical about what this episode says about society but i don't think any of it was really intentional i think it's more one of those like analyzing the beliefs of the writer kind of thing similar to like the last episode with with what i did about the whole writers living out fantasies thing that wasn't a deliberate thing the writers were doing you know they weren't trying to make a comment on that but that's what I read into it and I think again you could do that with this episode with the whole American independent business thing mm-hmm so you could do it you don't need to cool ah our thoughts yeah cool ah yeah advertise some shit then but go
02:00:05
Speaker
I've got fucking nothing. We're going to record an episode of All 4 Arnold soon. um I also regularly appear on our good friend Azerath's streams currently every Tuesday and Sunday at around 1pm GMT, whatever that is in America. On Twitch, we're currently doing Baldur's Gate. It's really fun. Yeah, I just make myself a nuisance on other people's projects these days rather than do any projects of my own. It's great to be. Yeah, absolutely.
02:00:34
Speaker
michael You can follow me on the X at Bmashforce. It's mostly just simps and memes, but you never know, there might be a gem of culture now at some point. One of the main reasons why I want us to get popular is so that people then can message us and be like, why doesn't Matt ever give his social medias out anymore? I'd be like, because Matt fucking hates you all. Matt wants to be left alone. That's a, that's the only point to get the audience involved.
02:01:02
Speaker
It's not a podcast if there isn't at least one host that has utter contempt for everyone involved. Sorry, my throat's really harsh because I thought, well, that's not a lot of rum. I'll just down that to finish the glass. That was a lot of rum. My whole mouth is on fire. Brilliant. Well, my day's done. Where can we find you? I am on the verge of attempting to give up ah Twitter, the Everything app.
02:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, I saw you followed me on blue sky. um I might actually start actively posting on blue sky just for the everybody is doing it it's it's kind of wonderful and also hilarious like I don't know what the current figure is like but the official blue sky account said that they'd gained 1.2 million new users in like 24 hours, which is all because Elon Musk was like, right, we're turning off the block function. You can't block people properly anymore because I want to be able to see my ex's tweets. And also, by the way, everything you post will be used to train AI. This came out in the same day and everybody, ah all the fucking you know freaks who are still on Twitter and still using it, even those, even me, was like,
02:02:15
Speaker
Now I'm done. yeah out That's it. Nah, nah. You have crossed a line at this point that I don't fucking give a shit anymore. i'm what What else is out there? What's better? And everybody collectively seems just gone. Okay, blue sky, I guess. i like so Yeah, it's- it's so pleasant. If you are the sort of freak who still hangs around Twitter and is like, I fucking hate this, I hate everyone on this platform, this platform makes me angry constantly because it's designed to. Uh, try Blue Sky. It's so nice. The vibes are great by comparison to Twitter. Everyone's just like having a good time. It's a nice platform.
02:02:54
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by blueke Blue Sky. It's good. Follow me on Blue Sky. I'm at Maroca. I don't even need the fucking underscore BM anymore. I can get rid of that bullshit.
02:03:05
Speaker
If you want my recommendation, just remove all social media from your life. I deleted the apps off my phone. It's probably better, yeah. And i I have Facebook open when I like use my computer just because I have a couple people that message me on there. But otherwise, I just don't use social media anymore. And my life has been, well, I'm not going to say better, but like 0.01% better. And that hey, that's still something. Bye, guys. All right. Bye, everyone. Bye, everybody. You fucking bastard.