TWiT+ Club Shows 773 Transcript - Media Club #3

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TWiT.tv [00:00:00]:
This is TWiT.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:02]:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another Media Club. I want to thank all of you who took the time to vote in the poll for our next episode. And today we're doing sort of a combo deal because we are talking about 3 kind of top-rated episodes of adult animation. So there's obviously a long list of really well- received episodes of adult animation. And then there are also some that I just really like and thought were really well done. And so I kind of went through and picked the episodes from that. On the docket, so to speak, I believe is 2002's Futurama Jurassic Bark. There's Rick and Morty Total Rickall from 2015.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:00]:
And the Longtime hit from The Simpsons, Marge versus the monorail. And so we're talking about these today. Of course, there are— the poll will continue until morale improves. And so we're just sort of adding and adding to that list as some get taken away. So thank you again for voting. I think there were like—

Mikah Sargent [00:01:26]:
4,000 votes.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:28]:
It was outsized in terms of how many people voted for this. So really excited about it. And I think we should, we should get into things. I am not here alone today. Well, of course, Anthony Nielsen is here to help keep things rolling and rocking along. But we are also joined by 2 wonderful guests. Da da da da. Hello, Joe.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:53]:
Hello, Timothy.

Joe Esposito [00:01:54]:
Hello. Hello, hello. Happy Friday. Yes, Friday.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:58]:
Happy, happy Friday to you both, uh, as well. Uh, first and foremost, did you do your homework?

Joe Esposito [00:02:06]:
I did, yes.

Timothy Ingalls [00:02:07]:
I did.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:09]:
And you're still here, you're still, uh, keeping it together. That's good.

Joe Esposito [00:02:14]:
For now.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:15]:
Yeah, for the moment. Exactly. So first, I kind of wanted to, to, to break into things to talk about some of the overall, uh, kind of overarching themes and I think, uh, conversations. Because when you look at these shows, a lot of the people working on these shows have either shown up in others' projects or, uh, sort of got into what they did as a result of other things. And so really, The Simpsons then begat Futurama, uh, with Matt Groening being the creator. And then Rick and Morty is from Dan Harmon, who frankly was, I would say, a lot of the content inspired by the work that The Simpsons and Futurama did before. And I think that there's even some kind of other big names involved. Conan O'Brien with The Simpsons, as well as— who was it? Mike McMahan, who is the creator of Star Trek: Lower Decks and worked on Total Recall.

Mikah Sargent [00:03:23]:
And then Eric Caplan, who worked on The Big Bang Theory, was the writer for Jurassic Bark. So quite a few well-known names that are involved here. And, you know, there's lasting— there's staying power from these shows, given that they're still making content, right? Like, this is on and on and on, and we're so happy that that's the case. Before we get into kind of the nitty-gritty of these, I wanted to ask you both about your experiences with the 3 shows and if you are sort of regular watchers of adult animation, or if this was kind of, um, an invitation to visit it or revisit it. Uh, Joe, I'll start with you.

Joe Esposito [00:04:20]:
Uh, well, as far as adult animation, yeah, I mean, I've been a fan of stuff like Adult Swim since it started, Aeon Flux. Japanese anime for a long time. So, so animation, I know some people look at animation, they see it as kids stuff, and they can't really make that leap into the adult stuff with it, or the, the more serious themes. Like, my wife's like that. She just can't see animation as anything but a cartoon. So I don't really watch much with her. It's just not for her. Uh, but as far as the shows go, uh, The Simpsons I've watched since it was on because I'm probably older than anybody on this particular thing, but I've got some years clearly.

Joe Esposito [00:04:56]:
I mean, Look, obviously, I'm the comic book store guy in real life pretty much at this point, which is depressing as all hell. But, uh, so Simpsons, I remember from Tracey Ullman, and I read the Life in Hell comics that Groening did that I think are excellent. I wish would get adapted at some point because there's some of his funniest stuff, in my opinion. I love those comics. And then Futurama, as a sci-fi fan, jumped right into that. Loved that. And Rick and Morty was the only one I hadn't seen before now. For whatever reason, I just never watched it.

Joe Esposito [00:05:28]:
So I thought, okay, for this I'll watch the pilot, even though I read you don't really need to if you know the concept. I'll watch the pilot and then I'll watch this one just in case there's anything I would miss. And I would agree with most people, you don't need to watch the pilot if you know the concept. You're gonna get it in 5 seconds. So this is very familiar territory for me, uh, outside of Rick and Morty. But Simpsons and Futurama I've seen. so many times over the years. Uh, so yeah, adult animation I love.

Mikah Sargent [00:05:52]:
Nice. Timothy, what about you?

Timothy Ingalls [00:05:54]:
Um, I've watched a decent amount, uh, as well. Um, maybe not quite as much as others, but, uh, started with The Simpsons, you know, when I was younger and being right at that age where your parents were like, no, you can't watch that, it's inappropriate. But then as you get older, you start watching it. For some reason though, I stopped watching it after How many decades was it on? And, uh, but I got really big into Futurama, and then that interested me more because more of a sci-fi fan. So to me, the stories and the humor and the math and science jokes were much more entertaining for me. And then other things like, you know, South Park and Family Guy. And, um, but yeah, I too have not watched Rick and Morty ever.

Joe Esposito [00:06:38]:
Wow.

Timothy Ingalls [00:06:39]:
I didn't watch the pilot. I went straight into this episode and then afterwards did a little research, and that was kind of interesting.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:47]:
Yeah, interesting is a good word for it. I, um, for me, Futurama was my, my main. Love Futurama. And I think for the same reasons as you, Timothy, uh, it was the right kind of comedy for me, but also it had that sort of sci-fi, techie, uh, bit. And it was, it was also like raunchy enough that I felt like I was being a little bit devious. And so I really enjoyed it for that. As far as The Simpsons goes, I think I just— it was not part of my childhood, really. And so I didn't quite get into it as much, but appreciate it as a concept of being, you know, such a big and long-lasting show.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:35]:
And then Rick and Morty, Honestly, I remember the couple years, you know, 3, 4 years of kind of backlash against the fans of the show because of— there was like, there was this whole thing where Rick and Morty sort of repopularized a condiment from, I think, McDonald's. And people were just being terrible to McDonald's employees trying to get this Szechuan sauce. And then every time I would hear someone talking about Rick and Morty, it was so often a person with whom I did not gel, to be frank. And so I avoided the show. I did. I was like, okay, this is clearly not for me because, uh, the, the people who like it, and plus the people who are out there who like it, are not people I want to vibe with. And so I never gave it the time of day. But I finally watched a couple of episodes, and I thought, oh, no, this has some really good comedy in it that I am appreciating.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:45]:
And I watched more and more, and I said, oh, no, this gets real clever. There's a lot going on here under the scenes. And honestly, the reason why Total Recall made it to this list was because this was the episode that really made me go, made me feel like, oh, they're doing something more here than just— I don't know, it had depth to it that I really appreciated. And I think it's only gotten more depth over time. So I've quite liked these. But these— I'm hearing a little bit of feedback of myself coming from somewhere. But yes, they did end up having to fire the original creator of the show. And there was some concern that when they did that, because he played both voices of Rick and Morty, and there was some concern that it wasn't going to continue to be a success after that.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:41]:
But frankly, I think that it's climbed even more since then in terms of that depth that's there as well, the richness, as it were. So, yeah, I was curious to hear everyone's sort of place in the adult animation world. I used to do a podcast, used to host a podcast with Christina Warren of Mech Break Weekly, where she and I talked about animated shows, mostly adult animation, but also occasionally just animation across the board. Cartoon Network usually would be the place. And so, yeah, we both really have always appreciated this. And it's funny, Joe, you say that because— What you said about your wife, uh, my partner as well, is— has, has a little bit of a struggle with animation also being able to be taken more seriously, um, which I think is, is understandable, but, um, something that if you can get past that, you can really, um, appreciate, appreciate a show. So let's get into things. Um, I want to start with the sad so that we could kind of talk through it and, uh, move along.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:55]:
And that means that We need to start with Futurama's Jurassic Bark. This was written by Eric Caplan and is from season 4. It aired in 2002. And before we get into the sort of plot of the show, for anyone who doesn't know about this show or this episode specifically, it's essentially a boy and his dog. And taken to the extreme. And so, again, we'll talk about it, but Fry is sort of reintroduced to his dog and— or the memory of his dog, and ends— it ends up being a story of like the experiences that we have had in our lives, but also the experiences that others that we love have had in their lives. And it turns out That when Eric Caplan pitched this idea, it was going to be with Fry visiting a museum and not finding the fossil of his dog, but finding the fossil of his mother. So yeah, they wanted it to be his mom who he found.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:15]:
Uh, David X. Cohen said, oh, it's a little gruesome. And so, uh, Caplan said, okay, can we do a dog then? And then Cohen was like, okay. And apparently, there was even talk of, what about if not his mom, then could we do his dad? I wanted to ask y'all, how would you— because I— look, everyone has complicated relationships with the people in their lives, and they can be good, they can be bad. I think that— There's something about the innocence of an animal that makes it more impactful to me than it being a human being. But I wanted to get your take on how you would have felt if Fry came across his fossilized mother or fossilized father.

Timothy Ingalls [00:13:09]:
I think that would have been a little odd, but at the same time, depending on how it's written, it could have been Done, but I could see it'd be a lot more complicated to write finding a parent than it would be to find an animal or a pet. Just, it's always— things are a little bit more— it's a weird idea.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:32]:
It is.

Timothy Ingalls [00:13:32]:
It's a very weird idea. And I think other episodes, like recently, have done something similar, but it's been done in a slightly more comical way so it's, you know, more entertaining, and it's like they find the bully or something like that. So yeah, it could be done well.

Joe Esposito [00:13:53]:
The, the interesting part about considering if it was a parent, because I, I had a good relationship with both my parents, so I, you know, it wouldn't be— there's negative reactions depending on what your relationship is with the people you care about in your life, obviously. Uh, some people would probably want to take a sledgehammer to that fossil, but in my case I think the interesting difference is, and this is one of the core things about caring for animals, especially if you have pets and care about them, is you can talk to the people in your life. You can express to them what's going on. They express back to you very clearly. You know where you stand most times with a parent one way or another. Animals are much more ethereal. You project a lot.

Timothy Ingalls [00:14:33]:
Mm-hmm.

Joe Esposito [00:14:33]:
You imagine things back. But the most difficult part about losing an animal is, in many cases, not being able to, I don't know, have that last discussion. When my dad died, I talked to him a few weeks before and he told me he loved me, which is when I knew it was really bad. But he said it. I have that memory. It's there.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:51]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:14:51]:
Didn't make it easier when he was gone, but I have that memory. Whereas when our first dog died, it was very quick. It was very sudden. The last thing I remember of seeing her was in the vet hospital that she was in.

Timothy Ingalls [00:15:03]:
Hmm.

Joe Esposito [00:15:03]:
There was no final thing. So for me, the pet fossil is worse. The parent, I could look back on the fond memories. I don't know whether I would try to clone either of my parents, but it would be interesting. I mean, if it was the kind of sci-fi cloning where it was the same person, I could sure use my dad's help with mechanic stuff and, you know, making things for the house because he was very good at that. I wouldn't mind bringing him back to say, hey, how do I build staircase? Because I suck at it. Or, why is my car making this noise? Because you know this stuff and I don't. I draw bunnies, I don't know anything about cars.

Joe Esposito [00:15:37]:
So that would be nice. But with the animal side of it, that's a lot more complicated because we know cloning doesn't work that way. So you're not guaranteed you're getting the same pet back.

Timothy Ingalls [00:15:47]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:15:48]:
You want that to be it, but that's not really ever guaranteed. So for me, the parents would have been easier because also I would never have been probably inspired to try to resurrect them. I'd be like, well, They lived a long time. That's great. And, you know, I love them. I have my memories of them. And if anything, I'd want to put a little write-up on the little fossil thing saying, my mom and dad were very good to me. They made sure that I never wanted for anything.

Joe Esposito [00:16:13]:
These are good parents. Find parents or people who love you. That's the lesson. And I'd leave it at that.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:18]:
Yeah, uh, it, it's— it would have been complicated, absolutely, to, to choose a parent there. And I can understand the feedback of, uh, of David Cohen finding it gruesome. Um, and I think I'm glad with how it ended up being. The show did get an Emmy nomination, um, in 2003 for Outstanding Animated Program. Unfortunately lost to The Simpsons. Um, and it has been voted— this, this specific episode voted number 1 by fans in a few places. Comedy Central's, uh, 2013 they did like a marathon situation and then people voted. And then Variety's 2022 list of Futurama's best episodes, this was ranked at the top.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:07]:
So let's start with the plot and we can kind of talk about some trivia that goes along with it. First and foremost, we see Bender the robot and also Fry's best friend in the future. For people who haven't watched Futurama, it's essentially about a pizza delivery worker who ends up getting cryogenically frozen and then wakes up again in the future. And so it's a guy out of time, and, uh, he's reconciling with this future that he lives in and the, uh, loss of, of family and friends, of course, uh, because they have died many, many years ago. So he has this alcoholic robot friend named Bender, and, um, Bender is like working on these magic tricks and is talking with Fry. Fry ends up getting distracted because there There's a sort of natural history exhibit that's going to be presented soon. He sees it on the news, and it turns out to be it's the pizza place where he worked so many, many years ago. And he hears— or no, he goes to this exhibit and he finds the fossil of his— it's a fossilized dog.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:25]:
And he recognized it as— he recognizes it as his dog Seymour. Well, he feels that because it's his dog, he deserves to have Seymour's fossil. And he ends up asking, you know, and they're like, no, obviously not. This is a museum. But he protests outside for so long that the curators finally hand the fossil over to him. And we'll get into what happens next. Obviously, you know, we're going to the cloning space. The dog's full name Is Seymour Asses.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:02]:
Fry named him after a prank call order he was delivering at the time. And the guy— one of my favorite characters in the show, Nibbler, the guy who voices Nibbler is also the guy who voices Seymour's sort of barks and whimpers. Oh, that's funny. And turns out Frank Welker, incredibly prolific in terms of like, if there is an animated animal that you've loved, the chances that Frank Welker was the guy who voiced it are very high. I was recently, as an aside, I was recently helping my partner with his film collection that he has. He's got like a DVD collection. we've been kind of building out this little organizer for him, uh, like, you know, a site app situation. And he was asking for, um, can I have a, like, a list of actors ranked by how many films that they are in in my, uh, library? And so, uh, helped him put that together.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:15]:
And this guy, Frank Welker, pops up at the top. And at the time, I was not tying the two together. And I was like, why is Frank Welker in so much of your library? Oh, because he voices so many characters. So definitely go check him out if you haven't. Like, looking at his IMDb is pretty wild, seeing all of the work that he does, the voice work that he does. And then lastly, Kaplan said that Matt Groening was responsible for the kind of character design of the dog, and he purposely did not give the dog a whole heck of a lot of character, a lot— like a whole heck of a lot of personality. He said he wanted a, quote, low-intensity, low-information kind of dog so that anyone who has a dog could be able to identify with this dog. So let's start there.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:18]:
You see, um, you see this happen. You see, you know, Fry, um, go to the place, protest to get his dog's fossil. I have to say, if I was in that situation, even before we get to the next part about the cloning, I think if I went to a natural history museum, I have somehow a Guy Out of Time, and my dog's fossil was there, If I wasn't protesting outside, I would be putting on my Catwoman latex and breaking in in the middle of the night to take my dog's fossil for sure. What about you two?

Joe Esposito [00:21:52]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's even breaking in the night. I would put my head through the glass and grab that animal and run out immediately. I don't think I'd be waiting. I mean, what's the point in waiting? It's going to happen, so we might as well just get it over with. And I'll just pull a Simon Phoenix and throw somebody through the glass and take my dog and run. So that's what I would do.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:09]:
Certainly take my dog and run. What about you, Timothy?

Timothy Ingalls [00:22:13]:
I, I don't know if I would. I definitely, uh, talk to somebody and let them know and, you know, probably try to work with them on getting more information, but I don't, I don't know if I would.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:25]:
Huh, interesting. Yeah, I, I don't think there's any way I could resist. Like, that's my dog. I understand that, you know, everybody— but yeah, I think it's different whenever it's something so personal. Um, but I don't know, who knows what my, my mind in a future time would be. But I think I would be, uh, more along the lines of Joe, of, I gotta get that, I gotta get my animal. Um, for sure. Now, of course, this also leads, uh, Fry to the question of why was his dog anywhere near the pizza place to be fossilized as part of this excavation of the pizza place in the first place.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:13]:
But we have more kind of going on here. Professor Farnsworth— I don't want to live on this planet anymore. Finds that Seymour was fossilized so quickly that his DNA is intact. So that means he can clone the dog, and in Futurama world, Your DNA, uh, and the cloning process also results in your memories and your personality being intact. Um, whether we have that level of genetic memory is not a conversation for an animated show, but, uh, that is what Professor Farnsworth promises. And then we get into flashbacks. We see, um, Fry sort of naming Seymour in the first place as he and Fry share some pizza. Uh, I believe it was Walking on Sunshine, and Seymour is sort of finding his voice, learning to bark.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:10]:
Ooh, that's so sweet. And, um, he then seems to be— and this is the big thing— Seymour is the only one who seems to notice when Fry vanishes on December 31st, 1999. Um, Seymour leads Fry's parents to the cryogenics lab It's sad because he gets them there and they end up walking right past their frozen son at the cryogenic lab. It is also— I wanted to mention this, I thought it was kind of interesting. Futurama premiered on March 28th, 1999. That was 3 days before a previous thing we talked about, The Matrix. That's just a few days before The Matrix premiered. But anyway, that— this— yeah, that I think, Joe, touches on the way that I feel about animals and the difference that we have between the higher-level thinking that humans have.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:20]:
The dog cares about his person, and the person cares about his dog. Humans have so many things going on in their heads that it's just like on top of everything else, and it can result in things like parents who don't recognize their son frozen in a capsule as they walk by. Oh, it was gut-wrenching, and it's kind of played as a gag, right? It's supposed to be, I think, a little bit funny, but it's not really funny to me. It's kind of heartbreaking.

Joe Esposito [00:25:52]:
I, I'm gonna be honest with you. I hate this episode. I will say that just flat out. I hadn't watched this since it originally aired. I said I would never watch it again at the time because of what ends up happening with the dog.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:06]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:26:07]:
I had forgotten a lot of what was in the middle, but I honestly have a lot of problems with the writing on this episode because—

Mikah Sargent [00:26:13]:
Oh, tell me more.

Joe Esposito [00:26:15]:
When Fry eventually decides not to clone his dog, which we'll get to why, The reasoning makes sense, and then the episode shows you that it's completely wrong. And to me—

Timothy Ingalls [00:26:26]:
Mm.

Joe Esposito [00:26:27]:
That makes it so much worse than just the idea that they didn't see him when the dog brought them. They're like, the loyalty of the animal is great. Like, that's— this is all the things that just start to slowly tear you apart from inside, is they don't show— if the dog had done what Fry said he did, it would be a lot easier to take the ending of the episode. Which I guess we— can we jump to the— to why he does?

Mikah Sargent [00:26:50]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Esposito [00:26:50]:
Okay, so ultimately right at the end, as they're about to clone the dog after the Dolomite gag, which is great because only older people or people who watch those films will even get what Dolomite is, which I think is fantastic. So that's just in the sidebar. I'm like, Dolomite, great, I forgot that entirely. But they decide, uh, Fry decides not to clone his dog Seymour because the dog had lived to 15 And Fry says, oh well, then he's forgotten about me. You know, he moved on, he had another family. I remember him, but he doesn't remember me, so there's no point in cloning him. All right, you know, we shouldn't do that. And if we didn't see that that was blatantly incorrect, I would sit there and go, you know what, that's actually— that makes— I would do that.

Joe Esposito [00:27:33]:
If I had seen that, I would make that same assumption. But then the episode shows that the dog kept waiting with this terribly sad song playing. And what you see is that this dog basically dies in front of the pizzeria waiting for Fry to come back.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:47]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:27:48]:
Which might be the worst thing I've seen in an animated episode since like Grave of the Fireflies type stuff, where it's just like, okay, how many knives do you want to put into my chest for me to watch what's supposed to be a comedy episode? Because the pizzeria stuff is funny. The Bronx pizzeria. Oh, that's great. I love that. But then as it goes on, you're just sitting there going, This is miserable.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:09]:
It is.

Joe Esposito [00:28:09]:
And I, and I just sit there and go, I don't understand what the point— and I'm being honest, and this is no criticism to anybody who likes this episode. I'm not saying anybody should think the way I am. That's not what I'm getting at here. You enjoy what you enjoy. But I don't understand what the point of this episode is unless it's just to make pet owners feel bad, because that's what I ended up feeling. So in that respect, successful. But I just sit here and go, the rationale is shown to be incorrect. So all that does is keep punching people who care about animals in the face for like 5 solid minutes at the end.

Joe Esposito [00:28:43]:
So I struggle with this episode. I will never watch it again. That's fair.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:47]:
That's fair. Timothy, I want to hear about your thoughts. I want to quickly add some other context. Part of this episode, part of the sort of— it's my understanding, and from what I've read, this is the case, that This episode was, in a way, meant to honor a real-life dog, Hachiko. Or it's probably Hachiko. And Hachiko was a dog, an Akita, in— I believe it was from Japan.

Joe Esposito [00:29:23]:
Yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:24]:
And this dog basically does the same thing that Seymour does. After the death of his owner, he was reported to be constantly like staying at his owner's side, waiting for his owner to come back. And there ends up being a statue built for Hachiko to honor this dog for his commitment. And so I do think that part of what this is, is kind of a— just an— it's another form of a statue. And I think that to me, this speaks to— I don't think that it's About— I don't think that it's a— for me, about pet owners. I think it's about pets. I think this is a monument to the untainted and undying commitment and frankly, love. Scientifically, we do believe that dogs can love.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:24]:
Sorry, cat owners. There's just not proof that cats love, but there's more proof that dogs do. And so with that, I think that that's what this is, is more of a monument to the love that an animal has. But I agree with you, Joe. Like, there were maybe some punches that could be pulled at the end based on what Fry chose to do. Um, I think it also shows that Fry is a flawed person. just as much as the other characters in the show, as opposed to this sort of, you know, pure being like a dog is. And I think it speaks to just the complicated nature of humans, where we are putting all of this logic and thinking on top of things, when really all that it was for the dog, like, Frankly, there's no reason that I should believe that my dog would be anything other than this loyal thing.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:33]:
But it's a difference between, like, what I would want for my animal versus the reality of what my animal has gone through. And maybe, maybe there's something there. But also, I know that we can keep peeling back and inventing new, new thoughts about this. But Timothy, I do want to hear your takes on things as well, please.

Timothy Ingalls [00:31:55]:
Yeah, I don't remember how I felt the very first time that I saw the episode many years ago when it first came out. But yeah, I remember the first time I watched it, you know, rewatched it recently. It's like, yeah, I like, oh yeah, I forgot that. It's not just a sad ending because of everything we're talking about, but it— the way that they kind of went on for so long Just kind of really emphasized that, which it may be, like you said, paying homage to honor another dog that did something similar. But still, it was surprising just how long they went on and how emotional they made it.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:41]:
Yeah, gratuitous perhaps, for sure. Let's also then talk about kind of the other aspect of this, which is, as we talked about, Bender being Fry's friend. And Bender, you know, trying to have somebody to do magic tricks with, and his best friend Fry is not really paying attention to him. And so Bender is jealous of this fossil that could end up getting cloned, and Bender ends up trying to win Fry back first with a robotic puppy. Um, that doesn't work, and so he ends up taking Seymour's fossilized remains and throwing them into a lava pit. Of course, the one that's in, you know, the basement of the Planet Express. Um, but he sees how much it impacts Fry, and he— I think this is another moment of like Despite Bender's issues, he loves Fry. And so the fact that Fry is so hurt by his actions, he says that, um, you know, I'm gonna go and try and get, uh, get Seymour back.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:58]:
I, you know, made a mistake. And as we pointed out, um, the fossilized remains—

Timothy Ingalls [00:34:05]:
Dolomite.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:06]:
Dolomite. Bender, 40% dolomite. And so there's a chance that he can survive in this lava pit. Uh, The professor says, the tough black mineral that won't cop out. What's this heat all about? It's a riff, of course, on Dolomite, the '70s blaxploitation hero. And then it's like— The thing that I think is wild about this episode, and perhaps it's part of what ends up being so impactful for us and feels so egregious, is How it's like this thing happens and then there's all of this B-plot comedy that's taking place, right? It's— I think it's, it's nearly 20 minutes of, uh, funny ha-has, and then boom. He forgot about me a long time ago. Mid-cloning, the machine reports that Seymour died at 15 years of age.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:05]:
Fry's doing the math. He had Seymour until the dog was 3. So that's 12 years of not knowing what was going on for the dog. And so Fry says, I am not cloning him. Uh, Seymour, yeah, moved on, etc. And then we have, um, the fact that Seymour waited outside of the pizzeria until he goes to sleep, um, for, for good. Uh, Caplan ended up picking the song, the very sad song, I Will Wait for You. Um, he said for a personal reason, his grandparents used to play it at the piano.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:45]:
And it turns out that the scene was originally set to orchestral music, but then they ended up choosing this. As I said, Hachiko was the model, the Akita who met his owner's train at Shibuya Station and kept coming back for 9 years after the man died. Kaplan didn't specifically call to Hachiko. He said, true stories of dogs that have waited for their masters, was the idea. Although I hate the word masters. I don't ever think I'm the master of my dogs. But anyway, Billy West, that's not important. I'm looking at different trivia.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:25]:
I just like Billy West said that he, when he saw it, he was welling up at it. Like, yeah, so was everyone else. Then there is a well, actually, that I want to touch on in Bender's Big Score from 2007. It reveals that a time duplicate Fry ended up getting to live with Seymour until 2012. Kaplan did not work on that episode, and he says that he was surprised to hear about it. He called it, quote, some nutty baseball. He says that— he says that he feels that Fry tells himself a useful story, but it's not true. So yeah, what first and foremost Um, I think we've talked really about the impact that the end of the episode had on us.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:18]:
Uh, and I, I mean, there's not a whole lot more to say here, frankly, but I am curious to hear, what do you all— what do you both think about the, um, after-the-fact rewrite, uh, that happens?

Joe Esposito [00:37:35]:
Uh, I don't like it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have my problems with the writing in this episode, and I have a lot problems with it because I think there's some easily solved problems that still deliver what the episode was going for. But retconning it later to try to offset it, it almost never works.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:52]:
Yeah, I agree.

Joe Esposito [00:37:53]:
And especially because a lot of the reason this episode is remembered is the emotional impact. You've now basically gutted that by saying, oh no, no, no, another fry got to live out with them. Well then, this episode becomes even more useless. So what did we accomplish here? I— yeah, that— I don't like it at all. I don't know about Tim's opinion, but that to me is dumb.

Timothy Ingalls [00:38:13]:
Yeah, the, the rewrite's cute. It makes kind of a nice, oh, a touching story. But yeah, it really changes the impact and the original meaning of, um, this episode. So yeah, it's kind of— it's nice, but when you really think deeper about it, it's kind of like, I don't know if it was necessary. Um, I did find it kind of interesting though that just watching throughout the episode, uh, Bender's jealousy of a dog that is isn't— hasn't even been cloned yet. So that was kind of an interesting subplot. And then just some of the random, like, let's practice our hand-to-hand combat.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:50]:
And I love how human Bender is. Like, we don't have to do the whole, uh, I am beginning to feel thing. This is a very robot-looking robot that, like, you open him up and he looks like a— like practically a trash can inside. There aren't a lot of components going on.

Timothy Ingalls [00:39:08]:
There's Charlemagne inside him.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:09]:
Yeah, that's what it's— and yet He's so human. And I know that, like, this is me sort of backriding, but it feels more realistic than some of the other sci-fi that we have because we have to talk about how— how do you get a, you know, thinking robot with artificial intelligence? And how is artificial intelligence created by, as far as we know right now, training it on human behavior? and human writing and human thinking. So what is entirely possible? A substance-abusive robot, because there are a lot of those that are human as well. And so I just love that there's that. I— again, I don't— I don't know that there was any intention for that parallel to exist, but it feels sort of realistic in that way. I personally think that this is an episode worth watching once. But I agree that it is a difficult thing to watch again, particularly if you are a pet owner. I tend to— because I'm avoidant, that's my— that's my— what is it? Cross to bear.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:28]:
I tend to avoid content where animals die because it just wrecks me. And so, yeah, this is one that is fine once, it's hard to keep exposing yourself to, for sure. But final thoughts on this episode in terms of— well, I think, Joe, you touched on it. Not for you, not— but would you recommend, like, is there anyone who you would recommend watch this?

Joe Esposito [00:40:58]:
Well, I— it is a very effective episode in terms of what it accomplishes as far making you feel the loss of the animal. So there is that. I, I can't say it's, it's without any value. I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying it's a bad episode. It's a bad episode for me, and I, I feel like what they delivered emotionally is not necessarily written the way I'd like it to be written. But if animal stuff doesn't bother you as much, you may look at this episode and get more of the humor out of it. Because Bender— like, when Bender throws the dog into the lava pool, my thought was, Fry, throw him in after that. Of course, we didn't know he was right away.

Joe Esposito [00:41:34]:
But because that to me is just such a crossing-the-line thing, even for Bender, it's unusual to me. It was cruel in a way that I don't think Bender is always written.

Timothy Ingalls [00:41:44]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:41:44]:
He can be thoughtless and mean and that type of thing. So if you're not somebody who's that type of attachment to animals, you might find this episode to be more funny than I did. Uh, so I would say it just depends on what— like you said, you're— I'm the same way. doesthedogdie.com checked every time I watch anything. If you're not one of those people, you'll probably get more out of it. If you are, know what you're getting into is what I'd say.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:09]:
Timothy?

Timothy Ingalls [00:42:13]:
Um, I don't know, watching it again, it didn't— I guess it didn't really bother me quite as much, but I could see how it would be really tough for, um, some people. I was also very surprised with just how cruel Bender was written in the scene where he threw the dog in the lava. That was unexpected because, yeah, he usually does kind of mean, jokey things, but never like really— you rarely do you ever see him be that truly just viciously cruel.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:46]:
Yeah, I— yeah, it is, it is a little caught off guard. It feels like sometimes you get these moments where it's writing for the sake of the plot and you go I don't know about this. And yeah, I mean, for the most part, he— we know that Bender loves Fry in the ways that— you know, it's action, not words. And this did kind of— it was hard to reconcile that level of behavior. But at the same time, it was so obvious an action. Like, we've seen that sort of thing play out before. You care more about this thing than you do about me, so somehow you break it, or you take it, or you— you know, hide it. And so I think that that pattern of familiarity made it more easy to accept.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:33]:
But then you kind of look back and go, that's not really how that character would behave, or at least it's not how we would want that character to behave.

Joe Esposito [00:43:41]:
If he had spread his arms yelling and knocked the dog over and it broke in half, that, that's like— and then realized what he had done, and then the professor's like, oh no, no, we can still extract it and blah, blah, blah. It's a lot less mean and it becomes petty and selfish. And that works for Bender, as opposed to, I'm going to throw this animal where I think it will be destroyed. That is just unforgivably cruel. And that's the difference— petty versus cruel.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:07]:
There you go. Very well put.

Timothy Ingalls [00:44:08]:
Or if he accidentally knocked it into the lava.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:11]:
Yeah, even to go as far as that. Exactly. Because then you still get to make his own life.

Timothy Ingalls [00:44:14]:
That would have been more what I would have expected, is him do something you know, silly and like that, and like accidentally damage it, not intentionally try to destroy it.

Joe Esposito [00:44:27]:
Right.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:27]:
Yeah. All right, we will, um, move along to the next episode, uh, which is Rick and Morty: Total Rickall. For people who have not watched, um, Rick and Morty before, almost every one of their episode titles is a pun, um, that typically references either Rick or Morty. And so if people are going, Anthony, you misspelled the title in the, in the lower third, no, he did not. It is Rickall. This is an episode written by Mike McMahan. I'm probably pronouncing his last name wrong. Directed by Juan Meza-León.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:09]:
1.96 million viewers on premiere. I was able to find that data point. And aired in 2015. It's from season 2 of the show. So first and foremost, I usually hate clip shows. I find them to be a waste of my time, to be lazy, obviously. Uh, and those, those are the things— they, they tend to be a waste of my time and they feel lazy. Uh, but here's what's great about this.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:41]:
The premise is set up like this is going to be a clip show, but it's a clip show Where there's no actual clips from previous things taken and dropped in. Every flashback in this is a brand new animation of something that never happened. That is so good. I love a fake clip show. And of course, uh, for people who've long followed Harmon's work, Harmon had already done a fake clip show on Community. Uh, there's an episode called Paradigms of Human Memory from 2011 And in this case, there's obviously more involved, but I do like that, you know, he knows how to do this. And this is also a pun. Not only is it a pun in terms of throwing Rick into it, but it's a reference to Total Recall, where implanted memories are part of the story there.

Mikah Sargent [00:46:35]:
This is also an episode where Um, it's all kind of— the plot happens in one room and we don't have a B-plot, so you're not getting— there's not a lot of confusion in terms of what you need to follow. And yet it's still a clip show. It's like really brilliant, uh, in that way. And then of course, this introduced a very important character to the overall lore of Rick and Morty. Which is— and is this part of the reason why I wanted this episode in here so that all of us had to say the following name? Yeah, I think so. Because this is the introduction of what has now become a mascot of the show. Mr. Poopybutthole is introduced in this episode, and he ends up becoming a narrator for the show from that point forward.

Mikah Sargent [00:47:33]:
And it's just so stupid. I think part of this show is like when I need to just let my brain guard down. And because I, I, I have been accused of being, uh, someone who takes things way too seriously all the dadgum time, and I'm an old man in a younger man's body, and this and that and the other. And And this show has just enough intellectual aspects to it and creative aspects to it that the part of my brain that is still judging me whenever I'm letting my guard down and not taking myself seriously doesn't start nagging at me when I'm watching this. And so it's a weird sort of balance to find, but this show has found that. And so I can laugh at things like, Mr. Poopybutthole and not feel like the, you know, 12-year-old boy that I'm so afraid to be. So, let me ask you about your overall thoughts on this episode before we get into kind of the plot and really dig in.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:44]:
Let's start with you, Timothy.

Timothy Ingalls [00:48:46]:
So, this was really interesting since this was the very— this has been the only episode of Rick and Morty that I've seen. So, they have this this bizarre character that is apparently introduced, but I don't know that this character hasn't existed until this episode. So I'm watching it and just kind of not thinking anything about it. The, the episode was just entertaining throughout because it was just the most bizarre memories and characters constantly throughout. And then later, after I watched the episode, I go back to read about it and it's like, this is the episode where this character was introduced. And I'm like, really? Um, so that was just fascinating to, um, go into an episode where something that major is introduced but you don't know that it was introduced. So you have just a very weird perspective of it. Um, but it definitely did make me think, uh, maybe I need to go back and start watching some of these, uh, Rick and Morty episodes because it It was quite entertaining, and I think the humor was something along the lines of what I would like.

Timothy Ingalls [00:49:55]:
And then I also then, you know, realized, or then found out, it's like, oh, Dan Harmon was involved, who did HarmonQuest, which I absolutely loved. And that was ridiculous. Yeah, like, oh, I have a javelina. Oh, I mean, I misread that. Javelin. Uh, but that, that's a separate thing from HarmonQuest.

Mikah Sargent [00:50:15]:
And Joe, what about you?

Joe Esposito [00:50:17]:
Yeah, so I, as I said, I only watched the pilot and this one, so I was sort of in the same boat where I didn't know if, you know, 2 episodes into the series they'd introduce this character. Actually, any of them, which— the episode is very clever. The problem I had with it is I didn't find it to be very funny, and that's where I, at the end, I'm sitting here going, I don't know if I want to watch more of this. I think it was bad. I actually like the construct of the idea where for a while they're you don't, you don't know how Rick is going to figure out what's going on and unlock the problem here. And the more these things that get layered in, these ridiculous characters that show up, I sat there and I'm like, I like the way— because, you know, if you know anything about Total Recall the movie or Philip K. Dick and the idea of reality and trying to figure out what is real, all that stuff is layered in here. It's very clever.

Joe Esposito [00:51:04]:
So yeah, I was in the same thing where I didn't know if this— although the Mr. Hankey thing, there's obviously a, a well-known affection for poop characters, so this is Well-trodden material. But yeah, I didn't know if that character— and then the, the character who was involved with the dad, I thought for a while that was something that I didn't know that it existed because it was written as if it was just a known thing. So I'm like, wait, was he having a relationship and cheating on the mom with this other person and this is a thing that's just well known? But that's what's, I think, smart about it is if you're— if you just watch this, you have to doubt what you're seeing and think about your memory. And I think that's the point. So again, I, I respect the clever writing, and I like the fact that it just starts piling up with all these— there's a Frankenstein character, there's, there's, I don't know, there's so many interesting characters.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:52]:
So many.

Joe Esposito [00:51:52]:
This room just starts filling up. And once you figure that out, it does become funny to go, how many can they fit in this room? And they can fit a lot. And that's great because you just sit there and every flashback comes back and there's 10 more, 20 more, 30, whatever. It's just a clown car of a room, and it works very well. So again, in terms of the writing, very clever. That part I enjoyed a lot.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:15]:
Um, so this is kind of a wild episode to be dropped in randomly. Um, and he, uh, he— like, the whole thing, I think, does— it, it gains value if you have seen some of it before, for sure. And I kind of struggle with that when it comes to anime animated stuff, because for me, typically, typically, I— one of the things that I look for with an animated show is the ability to kind of pop in anywhere. Um, there are some that I— that do not qualify with that rule for me because it's worth the investment. And frankly, when it comes to this show, for me, it is worth the investment. But when I'm watching something I'm also considering, I, I like this thing. How easy is it for me to get to share it with people that I care about that I think would also like this thing?

Timothy Ingalls [00:53:15]:
Right.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:15]:
And so I tend to like stuff where I can do a one-off and people will go, oh, I get it. I like that. And then I feel seen and they, you know, get something fun added to their plate as well. So I did honestly struggle a little bit with making this part of— this was a selfish choice. I'm going to be honest with you. This episode was like my lock-in clock-in for this show. And this is the opportunity to kind of talk about it. But also, again, this idea that we can do a clip show that's not a real clip show, that flips me on my head because I was like, oh, great, here we go.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:50]:
We're gonna do a clip show. And it's nothing. And I go, that's already clever and fun to me. So the show kicks off with the well-known, well-beloved Uncle Steve. Uncle Steve, of course, of course, has been living with the family forever. a year. And Uncle Steve is great. Now, I, having watched this show, look to my partner and go— because I, I do for— I'm bad at names of characters.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:19]:
I'm bad at names of actors. We will— Sebastian and I will have been watching a show for months— not months, but we'll be— we'll have been watching several episodes of a show, and he'll go, uh, when Cameron said this, and I go, which one is Cameron? I'm so bad at names. So I did turn to Sebastian and say, who's Uncle Steve? I don't remember Uncle Steve. And he's, you know, doing the same thing. I'm like, okay, something's going on here then, because if he doesn't remember, then something's definitely going on. And then Rick walks in and shoots him. Um, turns out that the— there's this alien parasite, and the way that it makes more of itself is by implanting false memories into its host. And so Rick writes down a number, um, and, and puts it on the wall, and it's the number 6.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:09]:
And he says, we're sealing off the house, and if there are any more than 6 people, then it is not, uh, okay. And let me be clear, because 6 people technically is one too many as far as we know, uh, because there's There's Rick, that is the grandpa. There's Morty, which is the grandson. There's mom and dad, which are Jerry and— see, this is Beth. And then there's the daughter, who is this granddaughter, who is Summer. That's 5 people. And so who's the 6th person? Oh, it's me, Mr. Poopybutthole.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:55]:
Obviously. And then the open credits roll and somehow Mr. Poopybutthole is just part of this. So we're all going, in theory, I imagine that— go ahead, Timothy.

Timothy Ingalls [00:56:06]:
And Mr. Poopybutthole was in the opening credits if you watched closely too.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:10]:
Yes, he even gets superimposed into the opening credits.

Timothy Ingalls [00:56:14]:
So thus more confusing for somebody that's never watched a single episode.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:18]:
Yes, because you're like, okay, well, he must be part of it. That's the whole thing. But those of us who'd seen it before are like, Mr.—

Joe Esposito [00:56:26]:
who?

Mikah Sargent [00:56:26]:
No, what? So is he one too? Obviously, that kind of— that edited title sequence makes the audience also a victim of this parasite, right? Like, we also are now getting parasitized because, especially if you haven't watched the show before, then you're kind of like easing into this idea that Mr. Poopybutthole is part of it.

Timothy Ingalls [00:56:51]:
Oh boy!

Mikah Sargent [00:56:52]:
And it's like, at the same time, you're going, well, I've heard how stupid and bizarre this show is. why wouldn't I believe that there's a character named Mr. Poopybutthole that's like this weird little yellow thing? He did say that the character was originally called Bullet Boy and was like this literal bullet that had goofy eyes, arms, and legs. And then it ended up becoming Mr. Poopybutthole. It is— that's kind of how things kick off. So now we know there should be 6 people or 6 beings in this house. And if there's any more, Then it's not good.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:32]:
Uh, so again, the way that they— these parasites work is that they implant memories into the head. And the way that they implant memories into your head is by saying, do you remember when, uh, this happened? And then it cuts to a flashback to a clip that actually has never been seen before. And that is where I said yes, because Here's what typically happens if there's a clip show on. They say, do you remember when? And I go, oh, I watched like the first few scenes, you know, seconds of the scene. And I go, oh, I do. I did remember when. And then my ADHD brain goes, let me just focus on something else because I remember this. I don't need to see it again.

Mikah Sargent [00:58:14]:
But here I had to stay locked in to see the clever things that they were doing. And it's also perfect for the ADHD brain because it's like bizarre things they're making up. There's Cousin Nicky, Mr. Beauregard the butler, Frankenstein's monster, Photography Raptor, Reverse Giraffe, Hemorrhoid, Amish Cyborg, Ghost— I'm— these are real things I'm saying, people. Well, they're real in the show. Ghost in a Jar, Pen Sylvester, Summer's magical lamb Tinkles, and of course, the very well-known, very well-loved Sleepy Gary, who is Beth's husband. and yet also is the secret love of Jerry, who is actually in real Rick and Morty life Beth's husband, not Sleepy Gary. But it turns out that the fake husband of Beth also had a secret love affair with Jerry.

Mikah Sargent [00:59:15]:
This all results in the crowd turning on Rick because there's no way that the paranoid guy with the gun who's killing off all of these people that they have such fond memories of is is a real person, and they're all trying to convince him to open up the blast shields so that they can go out. So let's start there. Tell me, Joe, what do you think about the premise of this episode, the premise of these characters, and how did you let this bizarre stuff, like, uh, sort of, uh, hit you?

Joe Esposito [00:59:50]:
Well, you were talking about how, you know, you don't want to just drop into something without having seen the— what came before sometimes. This is actually a perfect episode to drop somebody in who knows nothing because it makes the person doubt, especially with the opening credits. They, they will be completely thrown off every time there's a flashback, and that's great as a way to keep the person guessing. It works. That's what I mean about I really appreciate the, the writing of this episode, even if it didn't necessarily work for me what it usually is, it's very smartly written because you do start to sit there and go, okay, with all these characters— and there is some— I mean, the velociraptor photographer is probably my favorite. That thing is awesome. But the, uh, the fact that you have to sit there and start to go, well, how are they going to figure this out? Because everybody's falling for this. There's these in there, you know, until you— because I didn't pick up on the positive memory thing until Rick said Like, once he realized it, then it was like, oh, okay.

Joe Esposito [01:00:48]:
But up to that point, you're just trying to keep track of this and trying to see if there's a tell, if there's a giveaway or something like that. And I did wonder if it would be something that if you knew the episodes before, you would figure out right away. But then again, a lot of these shows, especially ones like this, will have a character that just gets introduced for that episode for whatever that plot is and then gets discarded. That happens a lot.

Mikah Sargent [01:01:09]:
Yep.

Joe Esposito [01:01:09]:
So again, the construction, the way this Rube Goldberg thing works out, is really good. And, and, and the idea, again, because I'm a Philip K. Dick fan, the unreality part and how it just starts to overwhelm you, that was such a core part of his writing. So I admire this. I admire this episode more than I enjoy it, but that's fine because it's smartly written.

Mikah Sargent [01:01:30]:
I, I, I— that's a great pull quote. I admire this episode more than I enjoy it. That's a really lovely insight, Jo, and I mean that. Let's see, let's continue on to kind of talk— Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, Timothy. Now you have talked a little bit about this, but again, this is kind of lovely that you are so new to this because you're getting introduced to all of these characters, and I'm curious for you, what was your attention like with this? Were— did it draw you in more? Did it leave you feeling just so lost? Were you like, I'm gonna buy in and try to figure out what was going through your head as this strange thing is happening?

Timothy Ingalls [01:02:20]:
I would say kind of a combination of all of that, where you're drawn in by like, what bizarre character is going to come next, slash a combination of like, okay, when are they going to be done with this? Because Because it's so many bizarre characters, wondering, okay, how are they going to figure out who's actually real and who's a memory parasite? And it was really interesting figuring out or seeing how they figured it out, where it was the memory parasites could only do happy memories. So they had to think about all of the unhappy memories that they had with And some of the examples and flashbacks to those were quite interesting and funny. And to a certain extent, it was kind of sad that they had to do it that way, but it was done in a very humorous, very bizarre, uh, bizarre way.

Mikah Sargent [01:03:17]:
So, and that's again, this is where it goes into More than just a silly show being silly. And I want to talk about sort of the psychology there and the commentary on real life versus wished-for life and the complication of being human. But I want to get to this trivia first. Keith David plays the— And I should I should have provided a little bit more context for who these folks are. Keith David, which for some of you are probably just going to know by the name, but I'm just again bad at names. He plays— I'm trying to think of his sort of most well-known roles, but I feel like his face is very recognizable.

Joe Esposito [01:04:10]:
He— He had a great fight scene with Roddy Roddy Piper in They Live. If you know that fight scene, he's the guy beating up Roddy Roddy Piper he doesn't want to put on sunglasses. That's the easy one.

Mikah Sargent [01:04:21]:
There you go. Um, and Keith— so Keith David plays Reverse Giraffe. Tom Kenny, who is of course the voice of SpongeBob and so many other characters, plays Penn Sylvester. Um, Tara Strong plays Tinkles the Lamb, and Tara Strong is known for her work as, um, Batgirl, uh, as well as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls and Harley Quinn in the video game Batman: Arkham City. She's played Raven in Batgirl and Teen Titans Go. She's done a lot of animated characters that I think a lot of people are well known for. Oh, I didn't know she's played Timmy Turner. That's amazing.

Mikah Sargent [01:05:03]:
Anyway, Matt Walsh, also very well known, plays Sleepy Gary, who— I just love Sleepy Gary. But Matt Walsh, I know him the most from Veep as Mike McClintock. the redhead with the great mustache. And then Kevin Michael Richardson plays Frankenstein's monster. And Kevin Michael Richardson is probably most well-known for his work as a bunch of different Transformer characters, Captain Gantu in Lilo and Stitch the show. So I would know him especially for that. He's played Sebastian the Crab in The Little Mermaid and Clayface in a lot of things. He's great.

Mikah Sargent [01:05:57]:
So lots of people. And then for the Buffy fans out there, the premise of this show is often credited to Dawn Summers. And if you aren't familiar with Dawn, Dawn is the— unfortunately, rest in peace to the actress who played Dawn— but the sister in Buffy the Vampire Slayer who ends up getting randomly dropped into season 5, and despite that, everyone in the show remembers her, and you're left going, what is— like, are—

Timothy Ingalls [01:06:31]:
do—

Mikah Sargent [01:06:31]:
am I supposed to know who this is? Um, I won't say any more than that, uh, because people will be upset. And then, as, as you both, uh, alluded to, there's the tail. So Morty and Rick end up getting into an argument in the garage, and And Rick is sort of like going in and talking about how every interaction I have with you makes me angry, and da da da da da da da. That leads to Morty going, oh, I realize now if I've got only good memories, then that's probably a parasite. And yes, this is where people start to remember the bad things that have happened with the different characters that are real. And I think that this is brilliant because we know that human beings are psychologically predisposed to filtering for the bad. It is, it is a like base lizard-level firmware that we have built in due to the fact that for For thousands and thousands of years, we were not more than sort of input-output machines just trying to get on day by day and needing to find food and being able to stay alive. And the way that you do that is by remembering the bad things and the bad places and the bad foods that would kill you, and then hoping that the rest is okay.

Mikah Sargent [01:08:02]:
So we are— it's incredibly difficult for us to not filter for the bad. But that also means that when you are looking to the people that you trust the most, you're remembering the bad things that they've done to you. Your nervous system holds on to that. Like, I know that people roll their eyes at that book, The Body Keeps the Score, but that is grounded in neurological, psychological, sociological truth. And I think that this episode touches on all of that. And that is where— Like, if you take the time— I know I'm starting to preach a little bit, but if you take the time to lower your guard a little bit on shows like this that have characters named Mr. Poopybutthole, you can see some of the brilliant commentary that exists underneath. And I think that's honestly, like, the word is beautiful for me.

Mikah Sargent [01:08:55]:
I think that it's beautiful. And yeah, these are those moments where you're going, oh God, I I remember the time that you hurt me here, but that also means that I know you're real. And hey, wouldn't it be nice if we maybe remembered more of the times that you were wonderful with me? Because it's very easy for me to remember the times that you weren't wonderful with me. Ah, I think that's just so, so good. Um, but yeah, I wanted to ask you both about About— I mean, that, that frankly, that family are the people that you have had bad memories with, um, and like reconciling with that fact. Unless that's too therapy, we don't have to talk about it.

Joe Esposito [01:09:44]:
Oh no, I, I— Tim, go first.

Timothy Ingalls [01:09:47]:
Oh, I was just saying that's, that's unfortunately part of life is to— and to a certain extent, you don't necessarily have good memories unless you have a couple of not so great memories, because you kind of need that difference between the two to be able to really kind of cherish one more than another one.

Joe Esposito [01:10:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Star Trek V gets a lot of hatred, but Captain Kirk had it right. You have to have your pain. If you don't have that, then it does fundamentally take something away from you because you have to be able to balance these things. And the reality is all people are flawed. Therefore, if all you remember about somebody is all positive, you have to be suspicious of that, either of that person or yourself, because that just doesn't exist. So I think it is— it's one of these things where the show leads up to it, and as soon as they land on it, it makes complete sense that, oh yes, this is what's off.

Joe Esposito [01:10:46]:
Not that these memories are bizarre because Frankenstein's monster's in it, but because there's no negative anything on all these characters and their interactions. And as soon as they land— and it does, it does make it very funny that then they have to conjure these terrible images of themselves to be able to shoot the, the fake ones and kill them. Because, you know, it, it, it is a very twisted concept, which is what makes it really smart, is that it, it's the inversion of everything. Because a lot of these shows a lot of things that we see, they revolve around the positive interactions with people and the people you love, and that's all great stuff. But this takes that and it makes it smothering. That positivity is as toxic as negativity if there's too much of it, because then something is wrong. And to ingest that into, I don't know, sock puppet monsters that you have to reveal through the fact that they have no faults I don't know what the underlying theme of that is supposed to be, but it's a wild idea for an episode. It works really, really well.

Mikah Sargent [01:11:49]:
Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Timothy Ingalls [01:11:51]:
I know I did it. I just thought of this, but how many stories, uh, do the classic trope of like love always wins and like, you know, that's what you have to do to, you know, love conquers all type of thing. And this taking it and just completely flipping it where no, all the positive memories is not what you want. Yeah, well, sort of a real life experience.

Joe Esposito [01:12:13]:
You're right. But the thing is that love means you have to accept people for their faults as well. You have to accept the whole person. If you idealize somebody, you are erasing what they actually are. So it is actually a— in its own really warped way, a brutally honest idea of what love is.

Timothy Ingalls [01:12:30]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [01:12:30]:
Is you can't just see somebody as this sculpted, chiseled, perfect thing. You have to understand their flaws so that you can love them despite them in some cases. I mean, not if they're doing terrible things to you. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. But, you know, we all have these little quirks that seem funny and neat and normal to us, and somebody else goes, oh, can you not just— can't you just put the dishes back one time? One time. Stuff like that. And you got there, but you know what, this person brings so much light into my life that I'll just put the dishes away. It's fine.

Joe Esposito [01:13:00]:
I love them despite that. And things like that.

Mikah Sargent [01:13:03]:
Timothy, I like that point. It's to adjust it so that it's also inclusive of Jo's response there. It's the classic idea is idealized love always wins. And that, Jo, what you're saying is like, no, love still wins, but it's just that we have, you know, it's written typically that it's this idealized love where you look past all the flaws and you did it instead of accepting them as part of who the person is. So yeah, that— I, I, again, I think that's the value of this episode there that just, uh, that takes things to the next level. I want to kind of round things out here because we got to move on as well to the final, um, episode. But after the whole thing happens and they figure out how to kind of clear out the parasites, we have to reconcile with the Dawn character, aka Mr. Poopybutthole, um, because the house is clear now.

Mikah Sargent [01:14:05]:
But then Beth, uh, the mom, is looking over and goes, wait, none of us have a bad memory of, uh, Mr. Poopybutthole. I'm sorry, I just heard myself say it.

Joe Esposito [01:14:16]:
There's a sentence you don't often hear on TWiT, everybody. Enjoy that.

Mikah Sargent [01:14:21]:
And so Beth shoots him, and instead of doing the thing that all the other ones did where the parasite like appears essentially and dies, He bleeds! So, he's real, which, like, makes Beth freak out 'cause she's accidentally shot someone who's real. So, she runs into the kitchen, she's pouring wine. And then we find out that he's in— Miss Peepabuttoh's in physical therapy. And he tells them through this agent that— not agent, but, like, through another person, that he's sorry that they don't have any bad memories of him. Which is such a— It's like, I'll pray for you, sort of thing. You know, it's got that vibe of, like, underhanded. But the thing is, I don't know that the character of Mr. Poopybutthole means for it to be that way.

Mikah Sargent [01:15:11]:
But the way that that could be received is like, mm, you shot me. I'm so sorry that you don't have any bad memories of me. Now, here's the thing. We do not know what this character is. Harmon, creator, says that he sort of maybe sees it as This benign species that lives in the memory gaps that the parasites leave. So it's sort of like a secondary species that comes along with these parasites. Where there's flies, there's spiders. And this is a little bit of a David Lynch moment of him saying, honestly, there's no right answer.

Mikah Sargent [01:15:55]:
But what I love is that MPB is part of the story from that point on. The season 7 premiere, it's an intervention where MPB is like, he's failing his family. And he says that, you know, getting shot by Beth was part of the reason that he ended up there. At the same time, Adult Swim did cut ties with Justin Roiland, the original creator and voice of the 2 main characters in January 2023. This, for people who don't know, this was after domestic violence charges became public. Prosecutors did end up dropping the charges, citing insufficient evidence. But since season 7, Ian Cardoni voices Rick, Harry Belden voices Morty, and John Allen voices MPB. So everything that you hear from those 3 in this earlier episode, they're all Roiland.

Mikah Sargent [01:16:55]:
Um, so that's something to just be aware of, that the voices do change. But, uh, he sticks around and ends up like sort of capping off every season or kicking off every season.

Joe Esposito [01:17:06]:
Can I just say briefly, I love the fact that you're saying MVP for this character, which is hilarious on its own, but also that people demanded an explanation for this character. This is your logic line that you need explained? That's so funny.

Mikah Sargent [01:17:19]:
You're so right.

Joe Esposito [01:17:20]:
I mean, man, oh man, people are interesting.

Mikah Sargent [01:17:24]:
Uh, I mean, you should hear— go ahead, go ahead.

Timothy Ingalls [01:17:27]:
One thing we never really covered for people that have never seen the show, if you don't look it up, this character is like a weird banana, like inflatable balloon character, yellow humanoid thing. It is the weirdest looking, bizarre character, and everybody just accepts it. It's very— it was very odd.

Mikah Sargent [01:17:52]:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he looks very weird. Uh, absolutely. And you're just kind of going, okay, uh, he's part of the story now, I guess. Uh, and so that is, uh, I mean, there's a lot There's a lot, obviously, in that episode, but I think that, that, that pretty much covers the bizarre nature of the show and also, um, just the bizarre nature of this episode. All right, we're gonna round things out with the final episode we're talking about today, The Simpsons: Marge vs. the Monorail. This is from season 4.

Mikah Sargent [01:18:31]:
It aired January 14th, 1993. Um, I have to tell you, that was, let's see, almost a month after I was born.

Joe Esposito [01:18:47]:
Oh, come on! Come on!

Mikah Sargent [01:18:50]:
I was born at the end of 1992, and so January 14th, 1993 was just under a month after. Written by Conan O'Brien, we've heard of him, him, directed by Rich Moore. So this actually— some lore— this episode started— the concept for this episode started with a billboard. O'Brien saw a Los Angeles billboard that said monorail and had nothing else written on the billboard. And because he found monorails inherently funny, he decided to make an episode out of this. He said that it was, quote, a phony promise of the future. Turns out that he was told not to pitch this idea. They did a story retreat, and showrunners Al Jean and Mike Reiss— or is it Reiss? I'm not sure— R-E-I-S-S— worried that James L.

Mikah Sargent [01:19:44]:
Brooks just simply wouldn't go for it. But Conan wanted to. Turns out Brooks loved it. O'Brien sold 3 ideas that day, and Reiss said that it's unprecedented to get 3 ideas sold. And so— So hey, they moved forth with it. This is sort of The Music Man, but The Simpsons, because it turns out that The Music Man is O'Brien's favorite musical. Lyle Lanley is Harold Hill. The song is essentially Ya Got Trouble, and then it does end up turning into more of a disaster film in the end.

Mikah Sargent [01:20:26]:
There's a lot of Oscar talent in this episode as well. Director Rich Moore went on to— Wreck-It Ralph and an Academy Award for Zootopia. And then of course Conan O'Brien has now hosted the Oscars in 2025 and 2026 and is reportedly in the works to host it in 2027. So let's start with initial thoughts on this episode. And if you can recall when you first watched it, Did it have as big an impact on you at the time that you were not surprised to see it end up being such a standout?

Joe Esposito [01:21:10]:
Well, I remember it being— I was big into The Simpsons for about the first 7 or 8 seasons. I was a huge fan. This is when I really started getting into like Spike and Mike's Animated— like weird stuff by weird people because I'm a weird art person. So I was big into The Simpsons and I really enjoyed it. And this episode The best thing about this episode is, is The Simpsons, when it fires on all cylinders, has jokes constantly. Visual gags, puns, background stuff. I mean, I was trying to look at all the signs that were flying by, all these little things, and there's so much interesting, funny material that The Simpsons can pack into an episode, especially at its height. And this is right when they're really going, uh, that I didn't— I remembered Leonard Nimoy from this episode.

Joe Esposito [01:21:56]:
after I initially saw it. I saw probably— I rewatched the whole Simpsons run through, through season 8 maybe 6, 7 years ago, and I remembered this episode. But the interesting part is fundamentally the monorail story is kind of boring. It's everything around the monorail story, and that's for me the best Simpsons stuff, is all these weird characters reacting to something that is flatly ordinary. They The concept of town gets money, everybody has to agree on what to do with money, they get hustled. That's the story. That's all it is.

Mikah Sargent [01:22:28]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [01:22:28]:
But it's all the stuff like Homer being the conductor. Of course that's going to be a disaster. I mean, it's just, you know what's coming. But when The Simpsons is right, you don't care because you want to see how the jokes will be delivered. And this is rightly remembered as a highlight episode. I was laughing out loud at that, which I do not do typically. I love this episode.

Mikah Sargent [01:22:49]:
It's great.

Timothy Ingalls [01:22:49]:
Wow.

Mikah Sargent [01:22:50]:
Wow. Tell me about your experience, Timothy.

Joe Esposito [01:22:55]:
I—

Timothy Ingalls [01:22:55]:
it was an episode. It was a Simpsons episode. It had a lot of jokes like you were mentioning that were funny, but it's kind of like— I don't think I would remember watching it when it first came out because I was around 13. So I probably saw it in reruns at some point and great.

Joe Esposito [01:23:15]:
I'm older than you too.

Timothy Ingalls [01:23:17]:
Oh, so the, um, probably early on watching it, I— the one thing I do remember is like, oh, it's like a parody of The Music Man, at least to start with. And then just kind of didn't really pay too much, you know, detail, you know, in-depth detail to it. But watching it again, it was like you said, everything you expect, you know. Hey, you know, They get money, they get conned, and now they have to deal with the con. And, you know, how do you solve that?

Joe Esposito [01:23:50]:
Were you a Simpsons fan, Tim? Do you remember? Were you into it, or was it something you just kind of knew culturally everybody was into?

Timothy Ingalls [01:23:55]:
I was. I was for a while when I was, um, younger. And then I think after about season 10, I was just like, okay, this is just— I'm just— it stopped being interesting to me. Like, just the humor just didn't really fit me anymore. And then I went on to like Futurama and other things. And so it was a lot of, a lot of really good jokes. And watching it again, yeah, there, there are. It's just—

Joe Esposito [01:24:26]:
The popcorn truck, man. That popcorn truck. That was when I was actually laughing. I went, oh, and then the popcorn comes up and I'm like, that's the best, man. It's one that goes in the hole, but then 10 seconds later the popcorn comes up and it's like, yes, perfect. That's how you do that type of joke.

Timothy Ingalls [01:24:42]:
The tree that falls on the cabin and then the cabin explodes.

Joe Esposito [01:24:45]:
Yeah, that is—

Mikah Sargent [01:24:48]:
yeah, there are some good little sort of vignettes, right, that exist. Uh, so I, I, I, I feel a little bad because, um, it is clear that this episode and this show is something that you really appreciate, Joe. And so I feel bad that I'm also saying that for me, this— I struggled to understand why this episode was so popular. And I think it is simply— you, when you asked Timothy, like, were you into The Simpsons at the time? I think that that's part of it. I just, I've never really been. been into The Simpsons. Um, and so for me, it was kind of just— it was, it was a Simpsons episode, but it had those little moments that I thought were great. First of all, I love that it started with the Flintstones thing.

Mikah Sargent [01:25:44]:
Like, that was just funny. Um, and then of course, seeing, uh, Mr. Burns, um, you know, trying to hide nuclear waste is funny on its own. Um, I love that Marge was the one who came up with a great idea, and then Grandpa Simpson ends up getting credit for it, which is funny as well.

Timothy Ingalls [01:26:07]:
The squirrel in the tree.

Mikah Sargent [01:26:10]:
There's so much here that's delightful. But I ended up—

Joe Esposito [01:26:16]:
Taking $3 million out of his wallet in court and also, I'll take the Statue of Justice while I'm at it. That's great.

Mikah Sargent [01:26:21]:
Yeah, that was good.

Joe Esposito [01:26:22]:
I also don't know why this one is held up in such high regard, because it is funny, but the story isn't anything remarkable. It's certainly not like some of the other ones I remember, like Krusty the Clown's Brother or Santa's Little Helper. Those are the things I would be like, oh well, these are the ones that are memorable. It's the monorail episode. Why is it— I will admit, I don't know why this is considered a great one except Laird Nimoy's in it for nerds, and that's fine, but I don't know why else.

Mikah Sargent [01:26:47]:
Funny enough. I was wondering the same thing. Funny enough, the people in the show also don't understand why this episode has gotten— and we'll talk about that too. Supervising director David Silverman says that the Flintstones parody meant they actually did like a frame-by-frame study of the original on VCRs to get that right. And of course, the reference to Hannibal Lecter as Burns is wheeled into court, that was—

Timothy Ingalls [01:27:17]:
Oh, yeah.

Mikah Sargent [01:27:18]:
The Silence of the Lambs was only about 2 years old at this point, so it was, you know, a relatively recent reference, as it were. So Lyle Lanley, who is played by Phil Hartman, has sold monorails to other places, and he wants to do it there as well. It only takes a song to do so, and the town is suddenly chanting, monorail, monorail, monorail! And then Main Street and the fact that it has all these potholes and is an issue is just completely thrown out of of the thing. And Marge is like, Main Street's still all cracked and broken. And I think it's Bart who responds, sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken. Look, I love a rhyming song. I love those little moments where it's sort of the in-between where you have dialogue but it's also part of a song. So basically musical writing I think is fun.

Mikah Sargent [01:28:22]:
O'Brien went to the LA library and checked out The Music Man soundtrack to study it. And he said that Conan's lyrics were essentially unchanged from the first draft, and then Jeff Martin was the one who supplied the music. He said it was barely a melody, just sort of a rhythm. So Conan O'Brien did a lot of the work there. And the comparison there is that he was the Bernie Taupin— I can't think of how to pronounce the guy's last name, but Elton John's Bernie, as it were. Phil Hartman was always pretending to be a glad-handling salesman and nailed every line on the first take. And O'Brien said this about Hartman, who again played Lyle Lanley, he could have been the star of The Music Man if he wanted to. O'Brien and Hank Azaria ended up performing this song at the Hollywood Bowl in 2014.

Mikah Sargent [01:29:22]:
And for those of you who play Fortnite, it became a playable Fortnite track in November of 2025. So yes, you Gen Zers watching this, you too are included. It moves on, of course, that Homer ends up enrolling at the Lanley Institute and is picked as the conductor sort of at random. frankly, finds a family of possums aboard. Marge finds Lanley's notebook and goes to another one of these cities that was supposed to be a place where there's a monorail, and she realizes that Lanley is a lying liar who will join Elizabeth Holmes in prison. No, sorry, that isn't what that says. The episode ran over schedule and over budget. To save time, Rich Moore ended up photographing real buildings, including Old Town Pasadena, in order to do the Landley Institute, and then North Hollywood for North Haverbrook, and then took those photos straight to layout.

Mikah Sargent [01:30:31]:
And Groening says that it's called— oh no, sorry. Groening said that the part where Homer is naming the the family of animals is like one of his favorite lines in all of the entire show, one of his favorite scenes in all the entire show. So let's talk about sort of, again, like you said, it's sort of an obvious thing that we've got this guy who comes in and he's like, I'm really interesting and I'm getting you all to follow along. And then no surprise that he's a swindler. This of course is right after the mayor, right, that's up on stage says $2 million and then Lisa corrects him to say $3 million, which I thought was really funny too because this is very much commentary on, I think, local government and bureaucracy as much as it is about con men in general, and I quite like that as well. That was one of the things that I took away from this because there's— I've talked about this in some of the shows, but across the street from me, they're building— there's a park and they recently decided to fence in the off-leash dog portion of the park, which I think is great. It protects the dogs, it protects people, etc. But due to the way that the feedback structure is set People technically don't have the right to comment on whether or not it should be done, but the city decided to give people the option to provide feedback instead, or any— anyway.

Mikah Sargent [01:32:13]:
And then people end up getting upset because they felt like, um, they weren't told enough and in enough places that there was a place to go give feedback. And so it resulted in this protest, and then they ended up having more. And I have been— I just eaten my popcorn because it's no skin off my back either way. And that bureaucracy stuff is so interesting and funny at times, and also ridiculous at times to me. And so that has been kind of a source of entertainment that I tied into this episode for sure, as you see, like, again, the city not getting attention. Um, I wanted to ask you both, like, let's say it is your job now To convince other people— this is hard, I know— convince other people that there is a reason that this episode gets so much attention and is sort of well remembered by critics.

Joe Esposito [01:33:18]:
What do you—

Mikah Sargent [01:33:19]:
Joe, I love your face. What do we think? There has to be something here that people like. Is it just Conan O'Brien? Is that what it is?

Joe Esposito [01:33:27]:
I mean, somebody in the comments said that this one is apparently one of the highest throwaway gag ratios of the series. And maybe that's why critics admire it in that way, is that they packed so much in. Which, you know, as somebody who watched a lot of these episodes, would I really be able to tell you that it was 15% more than the episode before? I don't think so. They all did that when they were really good.

Timothy Ingalls [01:33:46]:
Mm-hmm.

Joe Esposito [01:33:46]:
So I don't know how I convince somebody about this episode, but I would tell anybody that if you wonder why people— like, let's say you're younger and you don't— you weren't around when this series started, which sadly is a lot of people, because again, how old am I? Because it's like 34 seasons or 37, whatever we're in now, which is ridiculous, but that's where it is. And somebody says, I don't get it, I watched one of the ones the other night that just aired and I don't understand why. I'd be like, well, don't watch the modern ones. Go back and watch like the first 5 seasons, including the Tracey Ullman stuff, because that's where the show was Wild West. They didn't know it was going to be a hit. It was when they were experimenting. There's a lot of really interesting creative talent in there. There's a lot of comedic talent, like, all over the place, and some of the best voice acting in terms of people playing different characters.

Joe Esposito [01:34:34]:
It's all really good. So my convincing of somebody wouldn't be, watch this episode. It would be like, well, watch any of the episodes that sound appealing when you read the synopsis, from the first 5 seasons. And if you like them, then start from the beginning and go through to whenever you feel like, as Tim said, it's running dry. There's no bad point to exit. Like, a lot of things you can point to and say, that's when it went off the rails and it just sucked after that season. The Simpsons really is so particular to your comedic leanings.

Timothy Ingalls [01:35:06]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [01:35:06]:
But there are people who think it got better in the mid, you know, like 20 seasons. I've read that and their rationale makes sense. It wasn't for me. I'd already checked out. So the nice part is you watch an episode and you like it, that's all the rationale you need. But I don't think that this episode— I don't know what I come up with to say this is the one, because I don't think this is the one. I think at this point any of them are the one. It just depends on what you respond to.

Mikah Sargent [01:35:32]:
Timothy, what about you? Do you think you have anything specific?

Timothy Ingalls [01:35:37]:
Um, if you really like The Music Man, you might Like the start of this episode because you'd get the reference.

Joe Esposito [01:35:45]:
Or the Flintstones, I guess.

Timothy Ingalls [01:35:46]:
Yeah, or the Flintstones.

Mikah Sargent [01:35:48]:
I didn't realize— this is the other thing too— I didn't realize when they, when they did that Flintstones moment that I just thought it was a funny thing that was a delightful way to start the episode. But the fact that they put that much thought into it, that they like studied VHSs to do it, it feels like an odd thing to do in the middle of of a season. But I guess like that's part of the—

Joe Esposito [01:36:12]:
But, but here again, uh, somebody younger might not even know what The Flintstones is, so that's gonna go right past them. Whereas the joke of, and now I'm driving into a chestnut tree, and he hits it, that's funny. I don't care whether you know The Flintstones or not, that's funny. And that's where it's like, well, I, I don't— I think there is a, an, again, this kind of nostalgia for different Simpsons episodes for different people, which is fine. But I don't think any of that makes them better than any of the other ones because it's comedy. And comedy is wildly subjective and personal. So I wouldn't— again, I don't know how you convince somebody this is the one by any objective metric. Again, Tim says The Music Man.

Joe Esposito [01:36:52]:
Sure, there's your reason. That's about all I can come up with too. That would be it.

Mikah Sargent [01:36:57]:
Well, let's continue on with the grand opening. There is, of course, celebrity guest Leonard Nimoy. Mayor Quimby, may the Force be I agree with you. Uh, Landley slips off to the airport with the cash, and the monorail immediately runs wild. Um, the fact that it's a solar-powered train plays a role in the sort of movement— like, the, the— it's a good thing that it's a solar-powered train. Um, and Cobb ends up kind of talking Homer, who's running this train, through, uh, through it by radio. Um, Homer pries off the logo on the side to make it into an anchor. It snags the very well-known, very beloved giant donut.

Mikah Sargent [01:37:45]:
Donuts, is there anything they can't do? Very good. And interestingly, Lanley's flight ends up making a stop in North Haverbrook. This is a rumor, That originally it wasn't going to be Leonard Nimoy. Instead, it was offered to George Takei. The writer assumed that Nimoy would say no, but Takei actually declined. And the writers said that the reason why they think that Takei declined was because he had served on the board of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and he didn't want to mock public transit. O'Brien said, though, that they had found the only actor in the world who took monorails seriously. And in getting Nimoy, Conan O'Brien said, that's better.

Mikah Sargent [01:38:39]:
He outranked Sulu.

Joe Esposito [01:38:41]:
Oh!

Mikah Sargent [01:38:42]:
And in Marge's closing narration to the monorail incident, the popsicle stick skyscraper, the 50-foot magnifying glass, the escalator to nowhere, This is the episode that's admitting that Springfield will absolutely do something like this again. Um, it wasn't instantly beloved. Uh, Rice— or Race says fans found it too weird, and even some of the cast disliked this episode. Uh, Yeardley Smith in 1995 called it, quote, truly one of our worst. It's the episode where The Simpsons tips from grounded family sitcom toward an anything-goes cartoon, and that is why fans both dislike it and like it, and why critics seem to dislike it and like it. It is now number 1 in Time's 2019 expert poll, and the former showrunner Josh Weinstein calls it the best episode— calls it the best episode of television ever made. He says selling them a monorail is shorthand for a civic boondoggle, and that, frankly, this is sort of the idea where the parody has outlived the thing that it parodied. Reportedly, love this little tidbit, the Monorail Society has blamed the episode for the technology's reputation.

Mikah Sargent [01:40:09]:
Groening's 2021 response to that was, Because that's a byproduct of what the show does, and it makes him sad.

Joe Esposito [01:40:19]:
These people are delusional. I, I— this is— this might be the most insane bunch of stuff you've said in terms of how people respond to this that I've heard in a while. A, Sulu ran the Excelsior, so shut up. He had the best ship that Star Trek ever put out, so I don't want to hear any of that. Let's move right past that. The idea that this had any impact on the What? Okay, The Simpsons definitely had cultural impact, but if you're saying that this is why people don't build monorails—

Mikah Sargent [01:40:46]:
Delusional.

Joe Esposito [01:40:47]:
What school did you go to? Because it's got to be torn down and replaced with one that has proper functioning educational teachers. Please do not tell me to stop monorail. No. And it was a grounded family sitcom? Since when? What is this? These people People just need to write about stuff. I, I mean, I, I just— my brain is starting to melt inside my head like Bender's eyes when he came out of the lava. I don't get it. I, I— sorry, I don't get any of that nonsense.

Mikah Sargent [01:41:19]:
Nonsense, I say. I, I agree. I think that that's a little silly, and I think the monorail people need to chill. Uh, Timothy, what are your thoughts?

Timothy Ingalls [01:41:30]:
It, it was a funny episode. There was a lot of, you know, jokes throughout, but like overall the story, I was just kind of like, what?

Joe Esposito [01:41:38]:
Just why?

Timothy Ingalls [01:41:41]:
And but yeah, it's grounded family sitcom, grounded dysfunctional family.

Mikah Sargent [01:41:49]:
That's how I see it too. I actually, to be perfectly frank, I think I've talked before about growing up in a religious family. And so there was not a lot of media that we were allowed to watch because so much of it was quote unquote, the devil. And I remember my grandma asking my mom if she ever watched The Simpsons and did so with us around. And of course my mom said no. But was that the truth? No. And so then I remember asking my grandma, oh, you know, because at the time I'm taking everything that my grandma says you know, gospel. And I said, what's— you know, oh no, what's wrong with The Simpsons? And she said that it makes the head of the household, of course the man, look like a fool.

Mikah Sargent [01:42:47]:
And that's just not what the household is supposed to look like. So I definitely think that sort of Middle America and Bible Belt area would never have seen this as a grounded family sitcom. Um, and so then that just leaves the coasts. And I'm not sure where both of you are originally from, but if you have lived on the coast, then you've got some insight into probably how people received this show in those places. But grounded seems really silly.

Joe Esposito [01:43:19]:
Gang, they had 4 fingers. What grounding is this? This is why you just— you lose me. They're the color of a yellow crayon and And they have 4 fingers and they're grounded.

Timothy Ingalls [01:43:30]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [01:43:31]:
This is— again, I'm sorry I'm getting hung up on this, but it's just, it's hurting my intellect to think that people take this stuff this seriously. It's a gag show. It's a funny cartoon. It delves into commentary here and there, obviously on purpose, and makes some very, very good satirical points. But it's a show about a family where the, the matriarch has a hairdo that would surely get broken in the doorway Every time she came home, and it's grounded. Got it. So was married with children, I guess. Please, this is just nonsense.

Joe Esposito [01:44:07]:
This bonkers stuff. But I will say, the monorail people should have actually used this as an example to say, well, when done properly, what they were showing you was that mass transit can avoid wear and tear on the roads, and therefore actually reduce your tax bill if we can keep the roads better maintained by having people use mass transit. That is proper. Yes, if a con artist comes into your town and sells you a Cybertruck— I mean, a monorail— then you deserve what you get. But if you pay attention and you debate things and not just listen to songs, then yes, mass transit is actually good for most cities. So again, they should have used this as a way to say, no, no, this should be done responsibly, and not say that this episode's why the monorail's dead.

Timothy Ingalls [01:44:50]:
Okay.

Joe Esposito [01:44:51]:
I—

Timothy Ingalls [01:44:52]:
that reminded me, I did love in the classroom when there was questions about the monorail. Um, Lisa raises her hand and the guy's like, oh dear, are you at— did you want to know if your doll can ride the monorail? And she's like, no, I want to understand why a small town that is mostly centralized, has a centralized population, needs a mass transit system.

Mikah Sargent [01:45:12]:
Yes, that is true. That's also true. Oh dear. And I recently heard I heard that there's finally been the revelation that Springfield is indeed in Oregon. So that's good to know because I actually lived in Springfield, Missouri for a long time, and people in Springfield, Missouri always wanted to believe that it was that Springfield that they were comparing it to. Alas. It's not the case. Uh, folks, that is the 3rd and final episode of allegedly the best of the best in, uh, adult animation.

Mikah Sargent [01:45:56]:
There are— I mean, these lists, trying to combine all of them and sort through them and pick from them, there are a lot more that are, uh, included as well. Uh, but those were the ones that we chose this time. And I want to thank you both, Joe and Timothy, for taking the time to join me today to talk about it. I would love to see more of you join the fun, join the show. And as I said before, still the case, email me, mike@twit.tv, or you can send a little response here in the Club Twit Discord if you feel like there's anything that we could do to make the choice to join us and provide commentary easier or more inviting? Because I would like to hear if there's something that's sort of keeping you from wanting to participate or anything like that. I'm all ears on that. But I am so grateful that you two have braved the stage to join me today. I love your insights.

Mikah Sargent [01:47:03]:
I love hearing from you.

Timothy Ingalls [01:47:04]:
Thank you.

Mikah Sargent [01:47:05]:
And again, thank you all for your time. We'll be back next month. I just sent Anthony the titles and he's running everything, so it may take a minute to get there, but we're adding 2 to the poll. We're adding what is now my favorite film, replacing my previous favorite film. And since I'm the one in charge, I've added I added my new favorite film and my previous favorite film. New favorite film, Project Hail Mary of 2026, and my previous favorite film, The Social Network, 2010. That one has the most incredible soundtrack. I love that soundtrack so much and the cinematography in that film, the subtle, subtle, subtle computer graphics that are done in that film to get the alleged cannibal Armie Hammer to appear as 2 twins is really impressive.

Mikah Sargent [01:48:12]:
I thought he was a cannibal. Yeah, there's so much about that film that is— Oh, and also Jesse Eisenberg's performance is great as well. And I will fight anyone anyone who tries to compare him to Michael Cera, I swear to God. Anyway, those are going on the poll. Remember to vote so that we know what we're covering next. Again, thank you both. Anthony Neilson, thank you so much for your talent and your attention and everything that you do behind the scenes. Oh, thank you.

Mikah Sargent [01:48:44]:
And I've probably said it now 5 times, but again, your support means the world to us. Tell your friends, tell your family. And And if you see clips from our Club Twit stuff that you think might be interesting to other people, that's also a great thing to share with them. They might end up coming and joining the fun. Recently, I was doing Micah's Crafting Corner and there was— was anyone there who's in the chat right now? Because I'm forgetting what their name was, but they had a really funny name. YouTube chat while I was streaming. And then suddenly—

Timothy Ingalls [01:49:21]:
That was Fart Supreme.

Mikah Sargent [01:49:22]:
Yeah, Fart Supreme. Thank you, Timothy. Yes, Fart Supreme.

Timothy Ingalls [01:49:26]:
I was there.

Mikah Sargent [01:49:27]:
That's right.

Joe Esposito [01:49:28]:
Okay.

Mikah Sargent [01:49:28]:
Yes. Oh my God. Yes, you were there.

Joe Esposito [01:49:30]:
Uh, I was—

Mikah Sargent [01:49:31]:
because I was looking at Wadfan, I was like, Wadfan wasn't there. Who was? Yes, Timothy, you were there. Fart Supreme, uh, messaged on YouTube and was like, hey. And I was like, hey, you know, thank you for being here watching. And then suddenly, boop, Up pops in the Club Twit Discord, Fart Supreme! Um, which then made me more happy to get to talk about MPB, Miss Poopybutthole. All right, that's it. Uh, vote in the poll, and we'll see you all again soon. Bye-bye!