Episode 1,000: The Simpsons Spectacular Part II

Today concludes our two part celebration of one of the greatest TV shows of all time - The Simpsons! It also officially marks our 1,000th episode. Can you believe it? We sure can't. So join us today as we wrap up our tribute to America's favorite TV family and hit the 1,000 mark.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, this is Chuck here with a tour show announcement.
We're gonna be back at Sketch Pest this year in
January and lovely San Francisco. We don't have the firm
date on that yet, but stay tuned for details, but
we do know when we're gonna be in Seattle and Portland.
We're gonna be in Seattle on January in Portland the

(00:21):
next day January. That's at the More Theater and Revolution Hall, respectively.
And there is a pre sale going on today for
the Seattle show. Used the code Hippie Rob. You can
either go to the More Theater website or just go
to h T T P colon slash slash bit dot
d o slash Seattle Live and use the code hippy

(00:43):
Rob to get your pre sale tickets. Portland goes on
sale tomorrow and that would be bit dot d o
slash p d X Live. Come out and see us, everybody.
We're looking forward to these. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome

(01:06):
to the podcast again to the actual real episode one
thousand of Stuff you Should Know, The one thousand episode
of Stuff You Should Know. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, Chuck. Episode one thousand
is upon us right now. You know what my mom
used to always say when I was a little kid.

(01:28):
She said, son, if you live your life right, one day,
you're going to have a four digit podcast. Wow. You
know she had some real predictive powers. Absolutely. Oh, I'm
gonna take her to the horse track. Uh, you should
do that. And we should probably just get right into
this since we left everyone with the cliffhanger. Hunh yeah,
I agreed, agreed, Everyone's like shut up. I almost feel

(01:48):
like we should apologize for splitting this up. But this
just there's no way to get this done in one episode. Nope,
there really isn't. All right. So, uh, you may remember
us from certain podcasts as Simpsons Tribute. Uh. When we
left off, I believe we had told our writer's room story.
We had, so that's as far as we got. No,

(02:09):
we got to the table read part. Yeah, that's what
I mean, sorry, table table read story. So once the
table read happens, then all of the um is everybody
with us. I guess they've had a few days for
this to stew right to discus stew. Yeah, there's another
great one too. Um. So after the table read, everybody's
kind of got their ideas down, the notes get sent

(02:31):
out and it's get made that kind of thing, and
then the voice actors all go do their parts. And
I think a lot of people think that they're all
in the same room together acting off of one another.
That is not at all the case. Yeah, I mean
this is this is no surprise, like people know, that's
how animation works. You don't all get in the big
room and read to each other. Well, you do by yourself, right,

(02:54):
And um, it's really up to the director now at
this point. So once the once the show or the
episods get divided up or whatever, they get handed off
to directors. And there's multiple directors for the Simpsons, right,
and so the director, or I should say, in this case,
I think it's the producer who would be handling the
audio bit at this part, and the director really is

(03:15):
working on the animation part. But they they go off
and they record the audio, the dialogue and the sound,
and they handed off and at the same time there
are animators who are working very closely with the director.
Two bring the script to life and to do that.

(03:35):
This is totally different from a live action show, right,
because at a live action show, you write the script
and then people mess with the script or whatever, and
you rehearse it and everything, and then you shoot it.
This is different. You have to draw everything out. There's
a several extra steps for any animated show, and from
what I understand, the Simpsons do far more than any

(03:57):
other animated show on television today. It's way more are expensive,
there's way more steps, but you could argue it produces
a really polished finished product. Yeah, And the steps really
begin as far as animation is concerned, by creating a
storyboard slash story reel. Yeah, and this whole process soup

(04:18):
to nuts can take about six to eight months from
pitching the episode of having a completed episode. So they're
they're constantly working this process, Like as soon as they've
have recorded those lines, there's already writers working on the
other episode, just like a just a constant cycle going basically. Right,
There's different groups of writers, there's different groups of directors
and producers and and animators, and they're they're working simultaneously

(04:40):
on on multiple episodes. All right, So we're at the
story reel and what the story reel does. It Uh,
sort of just sets the basics down for each scene,
how you position the characters, what kind of expressions they're making,
what's going on in the background. And then this goes
on to more artists who refine that storyboard and story

(05:00):
right and so um, apparently they used to do storyboard
and then story reel, which is like, Um, the storyboard
is just like a bunch of skills I've seen it
compared to like a picture book maybe, whereas like a
story reel would have a little more movement and animation
and motion to it. Apparently they've combined those now in
their process. And then there's also another step called layout,

(05:25):
and I think layout is takes the longest of all
of the parts of putting an episode together, because again,
if you compare it to like a live action television show,
when you shoot a rehearsal, the director and the producer
and the writers can go back and watch and then
make notes. When you're animating a show, you have to

(05:46):
animate that rehearsal. You have to animate the rehearsal so
that the director and the head of the showrunner and
and the everybody else can can get together and then
make those notes. So you have to kind of animate
it first, and you want to get it to a
certain level of completion so that you you know what's

(06:06):
going to come out ultimately in the end. UM, but
you you stop short of actually animating the entire thing
because apparently the Simpsons shoot their UM show in like
twenty four frames per second, and what they're doing, say
as far as layout, which is about the most finished
product they're going to do in the house, UM is

(06:29):
maybe a third of that or a quarter of that.
So that means somebody has to go and fill it in.
And once they've got everything set and we'll talk more
about that, they send it overseas. Yeah, and uh with
this layout, Like we talked earlier about the style guide
in the show Bible, and this is where that really
comes into play because you have different people drawing and
everyone has their own style unto themselves, but you have

(06:52):
to remain true to the show, so that show Bible
and style guide are really sort of the rules of
the show that everyone can refer to you and say
no when Homer yells literally like his lips, do this exactly,
Like that's how that's how it works. And we can't
deviate from that. It's got to be consistent, right, And um,

(07:13):
I saw a couple of style guides. And for example,
if you look closely, I never noticed this, but the
nose always overlaps the eye. I has never drawn over
the nose. Um. Their teeth are never square or pointy.
They're always slightly rounded, but not two round. So you'll
see like examples of these things, and you'll see examples

(07:33):
of yes and no kind of thing. Um. And here's
a bit of trivia for you, especially if you're an
animation nerd. Bart's body minus his shoes, but from his
shoes up is two heads high, so his body and
his head are the same size. Interesting, And then you
have his shoes, and if you put all those three
things together you have a correctly proportioned Bart. That's pretty good, alright.

(07:57):
So once you have the layout done, you have moved
on to some thing called an exposure sheet. This is
a pretty complicated chart basically that really breaks down in
super super precise detail, each frame and everything in the
entire episode. So so think about this, Chuck, The Simpsons
shoots twenty four frames per second, and let's say that

(08:20):
it's the average episode is twenty two minutes of actual content, right,
So if you'll allow me to pull out my Texas
instrument pocket calculator as I am doing right now, we're
gonna do twenty four times sixty times twenty two equals
thirty one thousand, six hundred and eighty frames and say

(08:41):
a twenty two minute episode. Okay, amazing, amazing indeed, So
get this man with those exposure sheets you were just mentioning.
Every single one of those thirty one thousand, six d
eighty frames is accounted for. Everything that's going on in
every single one of those frames is down and accounted for,

(09:03):
like not not just like the movements of Homer's eyes
or what Homer's doing, but also what the background characters
are doing, how how whispy um Patty or Selma's cigarette
smoke is um. And you do this for every single character,
whether foreground or background, in every single scene, in every

(09:24):
every single frame of every single episode for thirty years.
Isn't that insane? Yeah, they break down words into phonems
so they can so everything just matches up in times
outright for not only to be realistic but for comedy,
right exactly, And the whole reason they're doing. This is
for what I said earlier that the people who actually

(09:47):
do the animation, the people who draw those thirty one thousand,
eight hundred and sixty frames for every episode, they're located
overseas UM. I think with the Simpsons in particular, they
work with a Calm, which is a South Korean company UM,
and they do the actual animation. Most animation from here

(10:10):
in the States has actually done overseas in Asia for
the most part, the final animation, right, Uh, the ones
who who the people who do the actual like animation
of every single frame. So up to the point here
in the United States in house, they've gotten it pretty close.
But again they've just maybe animated a quarter or a

(10:31):
sixth of the actual frames that are going to be
animated for the episode. And they've gotten it as far
as they have because they're trying to work out the acting,
the comedic timing, making sure that all the facial expressions
are right and the movements are right. But then the
people actually go through and animate those frames based on
that frame by frame bible for every single episode, and

(10:55):
it it serves as a blueprint for both the animators
and for the Simpsons creators because they can point to
and be like, no, we didn't want this, you guys
need to reanimate that. Supposedly, and this is like the
most mind bending, lee detailed process anyone's ever done. Supposedly
the Simpsons kept it up longer than anybody, but even
they have moved to almost all digital process now. Yeah,

(11:18):
I mean they use software that has streamlined some of
this um but it's not like they plug things into
a computer and it animates things, you know, right, No, no,
they're they're just using it to say, like, rather than
using a film stock to to slowly capture each phoneme
frame by frame. Now it's all digitized, like they can

(11:39):
upload the audio, upload the layout and put them together
in time. It like that, which is I'm sure the
productions assistance lives are so much better now. Yeah. And
of course once it's animated, it comes back from ACoM
in South Korea, and then it's sent to the editor
and producers. They're gonna add all the music that of course,
the iconic score from Danny Elfman, and it's edited all

(12:03):
together and you slap it on the television, slap it
on the behind. Wow, I know. And each one of
those takes about six months right to get an episode
done and again, like I've read south Park can can
be done in a week. Well, yeah, that's how they
there's that great documentary about south Park. How but they

(12:23):
put together a show and um, they do that so
they can stay super super current, which is how that
show works. You know. Yeah, for sure, different beast and
I mean it looks good too, especially once they made
their mark on this is what this style of animation
looks like. Now it's just like you're You're totally absorbed
into their world the moment you see it, you know.

(12:46):
All Right, So let's talk a little bit about Springfield. Um,
the beloved Springfield, USA, where the show is set. It
has been a a running joke over the years. Graining
picked Ringfield because there are many many springfields in the
country here in the United States, and one of the
running jokes is that they have never named where exactly

(13:09):
what state Springfield is in and shall not no, although
supposedly in I don't know, the last couple of years,
he gave an interview and said that he named it
after Springfield, Oregon because he's apparently from Portland's and so
everybody's like, oh, that's where Springfield is. And I think
the next episode they released Bart's chalkboard gag said Springfield

(13:30):
is in any state that but yours, not yeah, but yours. Yeah.
And I mean, I think he might have named it
because a lot of the streets in Portland or in
The Simpsons as well, but his characters. But I don't
think he was saying and this is why they did that.
I don't think he was saying, hey, it's an Oregon.
That's just where he got the name originally, right. I think, yeah,

(13:52):
the reason he chose that name was just to make
it as generic as possible and as relatable as possible
to any you know, small town. And the grab stir
makes a pretty good point, Um that simply that Springfield
is you could mistake it for any small town. Everybody
knows everybody else's name, everybody knows everyone else's business. Um,

(14:16):
it's just a small town. But then, just to keep
the plot going, and this is one of the great
benefits of making it an animated show, it also has
a gorge. It has not one, but two mountains. It
has like world class museums, an airport, Yeah, volcano has
a squid port, like the the the waterside um area

(14:37):
that they redeveloped. Um has malls, it has a casino,
It's got like all this stuff. Um. And so it's
a relatable small town. But at the same time, they
just played with it and made it as big as
they want it to be too. Uh. Yeah. And of course,
aside from all the big, huge things, the Simpsons has
got a lot of comedy over the years from the

(14:58):
names of the businesses. Um. A few of my favorites. Uh.
There was a pastry shop called the French Confection. Uh.
There was a there are a museums Louve American Style.
Did you ever watch that show Love American Style? Yeah,
it was so great. Um. The soup kitchen was called
Helter Shelter. Uh. And there was a seafood restaurant called

(15:21):
the Frying Dutchmen. And those are just a few. That's
like sort of a long running gag is to get
good pun names out of the businesses. So there um.
In addition to Matt Graining saying that it was that
he chose or he named it after Springfield, Oregon, there's
an episode that um certain purists point to is the

(15:42):
tipping point where the Simpsons went from good to bad
it was the end of season ten, and the episode
was like a behind the Laughter or behind the Music parody. Yeah,
it was called behind the Laughter, remember that one? And
in it they at the very end the narrator references
them as a north northern Kentucky family but they knew

(16:05):
that they yeah, And I was like, well, they just
said it. But then apparently for reruns they had the
narrator also recorded different a couple of other um states,
so it's just totally up in the air. One of
them was apparently um Lena I like Lanai Hawaii Springfield
Lani Hawaii apparently is a place, but it's it's not,

(16:27):
of course. And then just to kind of they took
that fact that that they never identified Springfield and they
managed to use that as like a running gag as well. Right,
So the referential humor that the show is is deeply
involved in also was self referential too, and that like
anytime somebody went to point to a map where Springfield was,

(16:50):
somebody would get in front of the camera and between
you and the camera, um or would suddenly talk over
somebody who was about to say what state Springfield was in.
So it just became a kind of an in joke
for people who watched The Simpsons as well. Yeah, and
I think Ned even at one point said the state
borders Kentucky, Maine, Nevada in Ohio. So no one knows

(17:13):
where springfields. But I think that bart chalkboard thing was.
It was the closest we'll ever get to it. And
who wants why would why would you want to know
where it is? You know what? I know. I get
that certain nerds might be like, I want to solve this,
but to me, that's just part of the charm of
the show, you know, agreed. So um, I want to

(17:34):
say something. I mentioned museums, and you mentioned the louve
American style. I wonder if that was the one. But
there was one episode where the Simpsons went to a
museum and they took the audio tour, and the audio
tour was hosted by Melanie Griffith. But rather than like
talk about the paintings, the whole thing consisted of her going,
oh this one's nice. Look at this one. Oh this

(17:58):
painting is nice. Let's see it's in the next room. Oh,
this room is nice. Like that was the audio tour.
That's great. It was great. Man. So aside from the
multiple universities, the sports teams and stadiums, the International Airport,
the tire fire, the mystery spot, and all the huge
landmarks in this small town you're gonna see. The Simpsons

(18:18):
spent a lot of time at places like Quickie Mark uh,
most tavern, the power plant, power plant where Homer works,
Springfield Elementary where Barton leasas been going to school for
thirty years, which is I think that he decided early
on he didn't want to age the characters at all.
It was a good choice, yeah, because you can go
on forever. Bad news for Maggie because she doesn't have

(18:40):
many lines. Yeah, that's true. And I think Matt Greening
does the pacifiers suck too? Yeah? Uh. And of course
next door to Homer lives one Ned Flanders with his family.
And here's another little tidbit that I did not know.
I don't know how it got past me, but apparently
Ned Flanders is sixty years old. Yeah, he's he's cut

(19:01):
his youthful looks with a healthy dose of vitamin Church. Yeah.
It always cracks me up that Ned just looks like
a normal guy until, like like in the skiing episode
where they were skiing when he's all buff and his
buns are all tight, and or in the street car
named Marge episode, he has to take his his shirt
off because he's playing Stanley Kawalski, I think, and he's

(19:22):
like ripped. It's so funny. Yeah, all right, well, let's
take a break here. We're gonna come back and talk
a little bit about the odd episode numbering code right
after this. Alright, So if you're a Simpsons fan, you

(19:54):
might say, what about season seven episode three didn't for us?
That is good enough for us, But you'd be mistaken
because they have a very uh what's the word, not obscure,
but just very convoluted way of numbering their episodes. Yeah,
they do it. So remember they're working on multiple episodes
at once, and not all of those episodes make it

(20:17):
into the same season. So the way that they keep
track of their episodes is by batch number. And I
didn't see anywhere how many can be in a batch,
did you? Uh No, But let's say let's say between
six and a baker's dozen't okay, that's my guest stab
in the dark, and maybe magraining will right into correct

(20:39):
us one way or another, I hope. So, but um,
the batch number and letter is the first two digits
or um whatever you want to call them, number or
number and letter. Sorry, right, that's what I was having
problems with. So like, for example, season four, episode six,

(21:00):
that would be UM nine F zero three, and the
zero three is the number that the episode had in
the batch. So it really has nothing to do with
release data where it fell in the season. It had
to do with when it was assigned an inner production. Yeah.
I think what's important is that they get it. Yeah,
and then they even switched later in the series two. Uh,

(21:21):
letter codes only, isn't that right? Uh? They changed the
UM well, now not letter codes only, because season ten,
episode thirteen would be A A B F zero nine, right,
so they changed the batch code to letters. Okay, all right,
and god knows what A A B F O nine sanswer.

(21:42):
But but even Chuck, like, as far as I'm concerned, UM,
if you are referencing an episode and you say something
like season four, episode six, I don't know what episode
that is, Um, I don't even go by title. I
just go by the one about this well, yeah, I

(22:02):
mean let's say I go by title when it's obvious,
like march versus the monorail, UM but yeah, I usually
will go by yeah, the one where you know Homer
did blank right exactly, That's what Friends did. Yeah, that
was actually the title though, right. Yeah. So Season four,
episode six, by the way, was the one about the
Itchy and Scratchy movie, which Bart is banned from seeing

(22:24):
but ends up becoming a Supreme Court justice because Homer
took the stand and punished him. Um. So, they have
many staples on the show that they've done over the years.
We mentioned the blackboard gag at the beginning of the intro, uh,
and the intro itself is has got some long running
gags besides Bart writing different messages on the chalkboard during

(22:46):
the tension hall over and over the couch gag when
the family runs in finally all together into the living
room to get on the couch. It's always something different
and special and funny, and apparently some of them are
like way longer than others. Um, they will add seconds
onto it if like an episode came in shorter than

(23:07):
they meant it too. Yeah, it's kind of nice to
have that leeway to play with, I think, and they've
actually made pretty good hey by outsourcing that too. Um yeah,
to like guest animators like Guiarmo del Toro Banks he
did one. Um, so they're actually doing those. I just
thought it was sort of an homage. No, No, they're
they're either actually animating them or coming up with the

(23:30):
idea or directing them. Um. Don Hertzfeld did one. Bill
Plimpton did one. John Krick Falsey, I've never known how
to say his name, but the guy who did Running Stimpy,
he did one. I just can't imagine what an honor
it would be to do the couch gag. But they've
come up with some really cool stuff. Um, Matt Graining,

(23:50):
can we do a couch gag? What if he's been
listening since he wrote that down on his script, man,
that would be something else. I would guess he would
be like, I'm not even listening to this one for
these two? Yeah? Or what if you listen to the
first and not in the second? That would be the
biggest dagger, Like that can't go on. Um So, Maggie

(24:13):
when she gets scanned the grocery store in the beginning sequence,
originally in nine, she got scanned is forty seven dollars
and sixty three cents, because apparently that was the price
the estimated price of raising a baby for a month
and then it is and then in two thousand nine

(24:35):
that was changed out. The grocery start with a number
of two and then Maggie when she has swiped doubles
at fifty two. And I'm not sure the significance in
that not either, but if it someone knows, Again, Matt Greening,
let us know what else Tree House of Horror very

(24:56):
classic was that in the first season. Did they started
in the first season? Do you know? I think so?
I think so too. But just like what a great
tradition to just throw like they threw continuite out the window,
characters could be killed off the routinely would um spoof
like great sci fi and horror movies. It was just
fun to watch because it didn't count, It didn't have

(25:18):
anything to do with anything. It was just like taking
the the cartoon aspect of the show and like just
flushing it out in the grand tradition of cartoons. Yeah,
and those are those are always some of my favorite
episodes over time. For the Halloween episodes. Uh many many
catchphrases over the years have become part of just part

(25:39):
of American culture, part of the lexicon. From dough from Homer, right,
which is translated in different languages. Yeah, in French it's
toe with the T, and then in Spanish it's ouch.
Did you know that? I did not know that, which, Uh,
it's weird because it's not a physical whole thing, but

(26:00):
it is sort of an ouch, an emotional ouch. Well,
did you know that? It's in the Oxford English Dictionary?
And what's the definition? Did you Did you find it
um somewhere? I did see it, but I don't remember.
Do you have it? I do? I found it all right.
It is expressing frustration at the realization that things have

(26:21):
turned out badly or not as planned, or that one
has said something foolish. Pretty good definition of dough. I
think everyone has had a friend over the years that
said accident a little too much. Yeah. Uh. And then
of course Comic book Man, Uh, worst episode ever. Yeah,

(26:44):
that one kind of a classic one. That's a good um,
good starting point to talk about their um some more
self self referential humor. So that was about I don't
remember what episode that was or what season it was,
but that was from the Itchy and Scratching and Pucci episode, right,
So at the time people were like kind of hating
on the Simpsons. It was becoming trendy too to talk

(27:05):
about how it jumped the shark, although I don't think
that was a term yet. And um, the Simpsons made
fun of it by creating this this episode where Itchy
and Scratchy had become hip or unhip and and old,
and so they to rev stuff up. They brought him Pucci,
the talking dog, who was an extreme like skateboarding guitar

(27:29):
playing ninja I think, and um just completely threw off
like the whole Itchy and Scratchy show. And that's where
a comic book guy says worst episode ever. And he's
talking about the Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci episode and
barts like, well, you know, um, you know, where do
you get off saying that? And he's like, well, as

(27:50):
as my as a loyal fan, I feel like they
owe me. He's like, what do you mean they owe you?
They've given you hundreds of hours of free entertainment, if anything,
you owe that, and he goes the worst episode ever. Yeah,
I would say that's a subtle dig from Simpson's writers
to Simpsons nerds for sure. And then also in the

(28:12):
same so there's another great one too, if I may, um,
like the super super Nerds. I don't remember the guy's name,
but just he's like got the messed up hair and
he's wearing like a green cardigan all the time in glasses.
But there's an itchy and scratchy like Q and A
or something like that, and the guy asked the question,
he says, um, he goes so an episode whatever whatever?

(28:34):
Um like itchy plays scratchy skeleton like a xylophone, and
they show him hitting the same rib twice in secession,
but it plays two distinct notes. I hope somebody got
fired for that screw up, you know. So they were
very much aware of the the growing um viciousness of

(28:56):
their own fans. That is just totally common play ace now,
but at the time it was just developing, because that
was about the time the Internet was really developing, and
of course everybody knows the Internet brings out the absolute
worst in humanity. Yeah. Uh, here's another cool thing that's
happened over the years is the Simpsons has had an

(29:16):
in Time magazine wrote this great article where they kind
of broke it down thirteen times the Simpsons actually predicted
the future. Um, it's it's not quite on the level
of me wanting to punch Jared from Subway for Sharknado.
I know, man, you do have a pretty good track record,
but it is pretty interesting over the years some of
the things that The Simpsons has parodied that ended up

(29:38):
happening in real life. So thanks to Time Magazine, we're
going to go over some of these, maybe not all thirteen, no,
just the good ones. One of the best. It's very
sad and tragic. But they actually did predict a full
ten years earlier. Uh, Siegfried and Roy's tiger attack. Did
they correctly predict which one would be attacked? You know,

(30:02):
I'm not sure because Roy was the one who was
attacked in real life, And I want to say, uh,
I think Siegfrey got attacked in the cartoons. I really,
I didn't know if it was one or both. I
can't remember. Oh maybe it was both. But that was
and it actually really did happen. In two thousand three
and season five, episode ten U springfield S Being a

(30:23):
Dollar Sign or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love legalized gambling so great. That was the one where
Robert Cooley hits Millhouse with this microphone's right and That title,
of course, is also a reference to uh, doctor Strangelove. Right,
all right, what else we got? Um? Let's see voting
machine errors? Yeah, counting the wrong votes? Um. I don't

(30:46):
remember what the episode was, but um, say episode four
Treehouse of Horror? Oh was it that one? So Homer
was trying to vote for I guess McCain at first,
and then ends up it ends up being switched to Obama. No,
he tries to vote for Obama and he does it
a few times and it gets switched back to McCain. Gotcha,

(31:06):
which actually happened in real life in that very election,
that's right, in two thousand twelve. That was that famous
video footage of uh in Pennsylvania people voting for Obama
at switching it to Mitt Romney. Oh, that's right. So
the next election, Um? What else? The auto correct one
was kind of funny Episode eight of season six, Lisa

(31:29):
on Ice. Lisa was um Or Curny actually during a
school assembly, Um asked Dolph, this fellow bully, to take
a memo to beat up Martin on his Newton. Remember
the Newton apples? Little? Uh? I guess the original p
d A from Apple it was, but it had Um,
it had I guess writing the text function that didn't

(31:51):
work that well. Yeah, so it's he said to take
a memo beat up Martin and it changed it to
eat up Martha, which is pretty funny. And everyone suffers
through that today with it, Well, it's get real. It's
not suffering, but gets annoyed by it feels like suffering.
I got another one, President Trump. Yeah. So there's this

(32:14):
clip apparently of Trump announcing his candidacy that they made
after he actually had announced it. But people sent it
around and said it just became an urban legend that
they had made this before he actually announced his campaign.
That's just false. But there's another earlier episode from My
Belief two thousand, if I'm not mistaken, where it shows

(32:37):
the future and Lisa is president and she um just
references President Trump. She says, we we inherited a pretty
big debt debt crunch from President Trump, so we're gonna
have a lot of work ahead of us. UM, And
I guess al Jean or somebody who was interviewed said
that they just they asked themselves like, what would what

(32:58):
would represent the lowest point for America? UM, that that
we could possibly hit in the future, and they said
to themselves, well, President Trump, So now now we've hit, um,
apparently the lowest point as far as the Simpsons are concerned. Uh,
last one, I'm gonna pick America's Ebola outbreak. And this
one I'm picking because it was a seventeen years early. Uh.

(33:24):
In season nine, episode three, Lisa's sacks, Marge offers to
read Bart but he was depressed. She offers to read
him a book called Curious George and the Ebola Virus, which, um,
I mean, no one knew at all what Ebola was.
That's pretty pretty interesting. Not bad Simpsons, Yeah, the other ones.

(33:48):
All right, check out that Time magazine article to uh
if you want the full list. Um, So what's up next, Chuck?
Shall we talk about the successive Simpsons the cultural impact?
I feel we can take our final break now, Man,
what a journey. It has been a heck of a journey, buddy,
all right, and we'll come back and finish up with

(34:09):
a lot more Easter eggs what some critics have said
over the years, and and kind of just a lovely summation. Alright, Chuck,

(34:36):
So you promised Easter eggs. People want Easter eggs. I
want Easter eggs. Let's talk Easter eggs. Yeah, this was
compiled in m E put together a list of fifty
Easter eggs, and we've covered a lot of them, and
so we'll go over some of the faves here that remain.
I did not know this, but Bart obviously he's very

(34:58):
famous for his prank phone calls to most tavern, one
of the great great running bits over the years. Uh.
And the number he dials is seven six four eight
four three seven seven, which is funny in itself because
it's got one extra digit, but that actually smells out,
spells out, smithers perfect. Pretty good. Um, I got one.

(35:21):
Everybody on the show has four fingers for four digits
on their hand, that's right. And there's only been one
person on the entire show who had five, and that
was God. When I think heretic Homer episode where Homer
decides he doesn't want to go to church anymore, that's
a good one too. Pretty good, Speaking of don't, Originally

(35:44):
that was just written in the script and continues to
be written in the script unless they may actually write
it as a line now. But originally it was in
the script as annoying, annoyed grunt, and that's what Dan
Castelenetta came up with, She's not bad and he apparently
he based it on a recurring character from the old
Laurel and Hardy series. Yeah, dude, that is an arcane

(36:06):
reference right there. Not bad um. Like we said, Doe
made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, so too did me. Yeah. Yeah,
and they didn't make up man, but apparently they kind
of brought it back into popular usage and it was
kind of big starting in the nineties. Now it's just
a timeless classic basically. But it was added in two

(36:28):
thousand and fifteen to the O E ED and the
definition is expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm. Pretty succinct.
I think Al Jean said something about it being like
one of the funniest words in the English language. I
think he's right. It really if you time it out right,
a good man is really pretty great. Yeah, because a
lot of times it's used to very like not sarcastically,

(36:52):
but what like if something is really great and then
you say it's math, it just shuts it down automatically. Yeah,
it is pretty great. Here's on Principal Skinner his prisoner
uniform in Vietnam was two four six one uh, and
he shared that prisoner number with uh Jean Valjean from
Layman's Rob from Hank Jennings and Twin Peaks who no

(37:15):
doubt it got it from John Valjean and then side
show Bob also has that very same prisoner number. So
it's a good prisoner number. Bob a k A. Robert
to Williger right, Robert Underdunck to Williger's this bull name, Yeah,
such a great name. Yeah, Um, I've got another one.
I did not know this. I hadn't even heard this,

(37:36):
but the do the Bartman single that actually topped the
charts in the UK and I think the US two. Yeah,
not a fan, so you had, um you had remember
that where Auto is listening to the Simpsons Calypso record
yea so um. Apparently Michael Jackson actually produced that song.

(37:57):
Oh really that track? Yeah. He was a guest on
the show too, he was. He was an uncredited guest.
He played a large white um maybe construction worker I
think who Homer met at a mental hospital who thought
he was Michael Jackson and had Michael Jackson's voice, but
they never credited Michael Jackson on the episode. Interesting. Here's

(38:19):
one of my favorites, Millhouse Van Howton. His middle name
is Mussolini. Yeah. I think one of the greatest Millhouse
gags of all time was um when Bart had his
leg broken and they got a swimming pool and they
basically did rear window remember that one? Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
And Millhouse is signing Bart's cast and he's like, I

(38:41):
gotta go Bart, and he Bart looks down at his
cast and says Millpool because he wants to go to
play in the pool rather than hang out with Bart.
It's one of those ones you just gotta see it.
I think it's it's funnier scene than explained. And actually,
isn't that the premise that it's just funnier to just
go watch this stuff? I ho everybody knows that. We

(39:01):
know that, yes, absolutely, uh please go watch the stuff
if you haven't already died back in and if you have.
Um here's another one Springfield Hill Billy Cletus which we
mentioned earlier. Cleetas is like John Yokel and his wife
brand Dean forty four kids. Some of their names these

(39:22):
are great. One of his name is Incest. One of
them's name is Crystal, meth uh spelled like the name Crystal.
Uh normal head Joe. I think that's probably the best
one of all. Normal head Joe is good. My favorite
one is uh Mary WrestleMania. The normal head Joe is

(39:44):
great because it's it references the idea that the other
kids heads aren't normal, or that that there's another one
named Joe who doesn't have a normal heads, you know,
and that actually brings to mind, if I may, another
joke of that I think is possible. Lee the best
joke ever said on The Simpsons Are you ready for this?

(40:05):
I don't remember what episode it was, but Homer is
reminiscing about something that happened in his past, in his life,
and he like he got in trouble or something with
some bootleggers, but luckily his friend Fawns he came and
beat them up and saved the day. And Marge goes,
that was happy days and Homer says, no, they weren't

(40:26):
all happy days, Marge, And it says a lot so
number one. Homer is thinking that in a Happy Days
episode is an actual memory from his life. That's funny enough,
but there's also like this other nuanced joke to where
he thinks that either Marge's grasp on grammars so bad
that those were Happy Days comes out that was Happy Days,

(40:51):
or his own grasp on grammar is that bad that
he thought that was correct and he fails to remember
the show Happy Days right exactly. So there's like five
different things like writhing in this perfect joke that that.
I mean, that was just like a throwaway joke for
the Simpson jinny. But if you put thirty seasons of
that combined, you get just an amazing masterpiece, one big masterpiece. Yeah.

(41:16):
So I went through and uh looked up a bunch
of um best episodes of the Simpsons lists, and I'll
just rattle through those, uh to see what different people think.
And you can see a little bit of a pattern here.
I'll just name like the one and two. You're gonna
share yours too, though, right, I didn't narrow it down, Okay,
I got a couple of them mentioned then, all right,

(41:38):
So Rolling Stone Magazine says, uh, Marge versus the Montero
rails of their best ever with Lesta the Vegetarians number two,
so good. Digital Spy says Homer the Great is number one.
Homer the heretic number two. I g N goes with
Marge versus the Monterareils number one again and Rosebud is
number two. So good. That one's so great that Citizen

(41:58):
came parody. Yeah. Uh, Entertainment Weekly monter Rail again is
number one, and I think actually there are Number two
is one of my top two. The Cape Fear spoof.
That was great, you know, yeah, where Sideshow Bob comes
gets out of prison and stalks Barton family and they
go into the witness protection program and Homer can't get

(42:19):
that he has a different name now and he's supposed
to respond to it. Yeah, He's like, when I call you, Bob,
will you step on your foot? You say yes? Uh.
Denn of Geek goes with you Only Move Twice is
number one. That's the great James Bond spoof. The Hank
Scorpio and then Homer versus the Eighteenth Amendment is number two.

(42:41):
What was Oh is that the beer bearing episode? Yeah?
I think so that was so great. Consequence of sound
Homer goes to college number one, Monoail number two, and
then Vulture goes with Cape Fear number one, and last
Exit to Springfield is number two. That was the one
with the dental plan in Lisa needs braces. It's all
about like union organizing and union busting and all that. Yeah,

(43:03):
so I mean definitely minor in there, and I'll just
go ahead and throw the stone cutters in there as well.
That was a great one too. Yeah. I have a
couple of others to add to it, if I may. Homer,
h O M. Backward Are the one where it turns
out that Homer has a cran lodged in his brain
which accounts for his sub average intellect, right, and he

(43:25):
hasn't removed and he suddenly becomes smart. So this is
like a really good example of the impact The Simpsons
had on my life. I love that episode. I thought
it was great. I watched it again last night. It
was as good, if not better, than it was ten
or so years ago. Um. And then today, as I
was researching it some more, I realized and I didn't

(43:46):
realize this, but it was based on the premise of
Flowers for Algernon, and then the movie that was made
based on Flowers for Algernon Charlie, which explains the backward are.
There's a backward R and Charlie in the movie title,
and um, it's kind of roughly parallels that there's a
rat that Homer is playing a test with that I

(44:08):
didn't get until I read up on it. So this
episode that I love and I think it's hilarious, just
introduced me to Charlie and Flowers for Algernon, which I
did not read in middle school or high school. So
I will probably go back and watch Charlie now and
I will love that Homer episode even more as a result. Yeah, man,

(44:29):
they really do. Because also it's not just that, like
if they didn't just leave it at well, here's a
parody of Charlie or Flowers for Algernon, and you'll love
it for that. It's also the premise of the episode
is it's an examination of anti intellectualism, you know, and
the the whole, the whole basis of it is like, hey, no,
actually it's pretty great to be smart, and that it's

(44:50):
hard to be smart too, especially in a world of
dumb dumbs. It's from Matt graining his top ten and
this was uh, I mean, it's hard to believe that
this was done seventeen years ago, but a lot of
people look at the nineties as sort of the golden
age of the Simpsons. So as for that Golden Age,
graining stop ten or Bart, the Daredeuble Life on the

(45:12):
fast Lane much a pooh about nothing, the street car
named Marge. That one was so good. Uh. In Marge,
we trust Homer's Enemy Treehouse of Horror, seven natural Born Kissers,
Krusty gets busted, and there's no disgrace like Home. I
don't know. I'm always that the one where the child
services maybe becomes Oh, I don't know, but that one

(45:35):
was good. If that is the one if you don't
have keep your milk in a refrigerator or barring that
in a cool wet sack. Oh man, maybe we should
just launch a side podcast on The Simpsons. Yeah, just
called Josh and Chuck giggle a lot. Yeah, I think
that's right. Can I throw out a couple more? Oh? Yeah, sure.

(45:57):
Lisa the Skeptic was a great one where Stephen J.
Gould is in it. They find like what looks to
be an angel fossil, but it's a PR stunt for
the local mall. H Yeah, yeah, I remember that one.
The Death of Maud again I think was just about
as good as an animated TV show has ever gotten,
as tackling like a serious subject and then I went
back and watched it again last night and it is

(46:18):
really great. Um so it's still in my top echelon.
But in Marge We Trust, which is the Mr. Sparkle episode, Yeah,
and that was on Matt Graining's list, and I think,
I mean, I look through the top tens of all
those sites, that one's in the top ten of everybody's
it's just so good. But the thing is is it's
so trendy now. It's like a social signifier that you're in,

(46:40):
like a hip in group to say the Simpsons sucked
after season eight or the Simpsons sucked after season ten,
and that is demonstrably false. There are so many good
episodes that you can point to that came after season ten,
um that that you can't. Like, there's this whole idea
that there's this thing called Zombie Simpson and it's the

(47:01):
show that closely resembles the Simpsons and look and feel,
but it is nowhere near as funny as The Simpsons,
which actually took place during the nineties. And to me,
it's smacks of that whole refusal to surrender. What you
thought was cool or what was cool when you were
young is now not necessarily as cool as it was,

(47:24):
which means by proxy, you're not as cool. Right, And
so there's that whole side thing of aging where you
want to remain relevant or whatever, and you can become
cursed to just hang on to what you identify with
rather than branching out and looking at the world as
it changes as it changes, right, Um, and I think

(47:47):
that that's part of it. And I just I think
that's stupid to just close your mind like that and
be like the Simpsons sucked after season ten, end of
story period. And there seems to be a lot of
people out there who are more than happy to do that. Yeah,
I mean the Grabs sure actually had a nice little
summation about that whole attitude. Um. And dude, what this
has done is it's made me want to go back

(48:08):
and I'm going to and start watching the show again.
Well you can, and here's a little bit of buzz
marketing for f f X f x X. Sorry. They
have um every Simpsons episode online and you can watch it.
I'm not sure if you have to pay or if
you just have to sign up and submit to spam
or whatever, but it's all there. Yeah. Well, I know

(48:31):
what I'll be doing now at least, like seriously, Yeah,
you're regressing. UM. So ED had a lot of good
points as far as that, like, it's not as good
as it used to be. UM could be a perception
thing because they might be a victim of their own success,
that it was so great during the nineteen nineties that

(48:53):
even the slightest fall off from that might be bigger
than expected. Yeah, and they addressed that in the Itching
Scratching Pucci episode two, because Ken Brockman reports that um
cret or Um, the fans of the beloved show have
been watching for Crux and It's Veneer for years, you know,

(49:14):
and it's the same thing. It's like, um, if if,
if you are that good, can you possibly keep it up?
And if you even slip a little bit, people are
just gonna throw their hands up. Yeah. Part of it
is the fragmentation of the audience. I mean, I'm forty
six years old and I saw the first episode my
senior year of high school. Yeah, it's ridiculous how long

(49:36):
the show has been on. And I didn't I think,
Oh the show sucks now, gotta quit watching it. I
got a little busy, it fell away and never came back,
and that just happens sometimes. Sure, I think that happens
with people who listen to our show, absolutely, you know,
like I don't. I don't think people who stopped listening.
Some people stop listening and discussed mostly conservative Americans, but

(50:00):
a lot of people they just like their lives changed
a little bit that you just end up not listening anymore.
That's fine. Yeah. It also makes a point about, Um,
the Simpsons was so groundbreaking and it's satire that that's
being done so much. It's not as Uh, it's just
not as unique as it used to be. Like they
they didn't create satire obviously, but in nine and nineteen

(50:25):
ninety there wasn't a lot of stuff like this at
all going on television. So there's so much of that
now there again a little bit of victims of of
their own success, and that there's there's just so much
to choose from satirically that it's tough to stick with
something like that for thirty years and say it's just
as sharp as it ever was. It may be just

(50:46):
as sharp as it ever was, but it just might
not seem that way because so many other people are
doing what they started. Um, I've read this article and
I think the New Statesman, and it was basically saying
the Simpsons is a direct challenge to the GOP's identity
as the party that provides for, you know, the the

(51:09):
middle America, the middle American family, because if if they
were doing such a great job of it, then there
would be no popularity for the Simpsons or for Roseanne. Right.
So early on it was like a real challenge to
the status quo in the established sense of like wholesome
American nous. George Bush even very famously said George Bush

(51:30):
sr Um who was a president before w for those
of you who aren't alive back then, but his George
Bush sr Said, I want America to be more like
the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. And Barbara Bush
said it was the dumbest thing she'd ever seen on TV, right,
And there was a lot there was a lot of
that at first, and especially it was because bart was

(51:51):
his T shirts were everywhere and kids were saying like,
don't have a cowmand to their parents and stuff like that,
and so part of it was the initial a stake
in taking of the of the Simpsons and being missing
what it actually was. But then Another part of it
was America was just a different place and the moral
majority was in charge and pretending like everything was absolutely perfect,

(52:14):
and shows like this came along and really challenged that.
Today if you look at the current climate. I saw
a really great, great description of how hard it is
to be satirical. It was in Al Jazeera and they said,
in an era when Dennis Rodman is serving as a
makeshift ambassador to North Korea, it's difficult to write satire

(52:36):
that stands out. Yeah, And we have friends that uh
right for uh, for TV and for the Onion and
and satire, And I know that it's been a challenge
for them to come up with anything that seems fresh
and unique in this day and age, you know. So
I'm sure that's part of it too. Uh. Here's some
sanctimonious drivel from Bill Cosby August thirty, first nine nine

(53:01):
Entertainment Weekly magazine. Mr Cosby said TV should be I
would do a Cosby voice pecific funny to do that anymore. Uh.
TV should be moving in a direction from the Huxtable's forward,
not backward. The mean spirit and cruel think this kind
of programming is the edge, and their excuses that's the
way people are today. But why should we be entertained

(53:22):
by that? So and this was the time when Bill
Cosby was like the moral mouthpiece of America, you know.
And and so in a sense like Matt Greening took
him on and took on the bushes and um just
took on that whole false wholesomeness. And today it's like now,

(53:44):
you just it's not even a question like of course
that that whole thing is taken on. Like go try
to find a show on Prime Time that even vaguely
resembles Major Dad or My Two Dads. You can't find it.
They're not there. Everything is has gone the opposite end
of the spectrum, and it's become we were just entirely cynical,

(54:07):
but we're so cynical that there isn't room for satire
like there used to be. So now I think there's
gonna be a backlash, probably from I don't know where
it's gonna come from, but I predict basically a wholesome
backlash or um, I don't think it's gonna be that
whole earnest thing that didn't actually take off very well.
Everybody got sick of that really quick. But there's going

(54:29):
to be I think something a little more um bona
fide and genuine that will develop out of cynicism, because
I don't think you can keep I don't think cynicism
can be maintained for too long before everybody just kind
of commits cultural suicide, you know, I think it's already happening,
Like shows like Masters of None and uh from Zis
and Sorry and tig Nataro's One Mississippi, Like, have you've

(54:52):
seen those shows? They're not cynical. They're very kind of sweet,
warmhearted shows, and they're funny, and they may bring up
relevant satirical things, but they're both very genuine shows and
it's just done in the right way. It's not, you know,
touched by an angel. Right, And that was another reason
Chuck that that Barbara Bush and George Bush really missed

(55:16):
the point because The Simpsons may have ultimately kind of
created the groundwork for America to create the cynical shift
or shift to the cynicism maybe or maybe that was
politics one of the two, right, Um, but they missed
the basis of the Simpsons, and the basis of the
Simpsons is morality, like actual real morality, like making good

(55:41):
moral decisions, making bad moral decisions, having consequences, family coming
together and actually like looking out for one another. Things
actually kind of working out in the end, like bart
And and Marge having their marriage tested. But then it's
surviving and being stronger on the other side. But without
a hint of schmaltziness, without a hint of fake wholesomeness.

(56:05):
It was they had the wherewithal to put that through
those those tropes or those those moral ideas, through the
grinder of reality and managed to get it out on
the other side and said, see, you actually can be
a good, moral, upstanding person and and survive in cynical times,

(56:30):
in times that beat you down. And um, we're proving
it every Sunday with with our show man. What a
great show, What a great show. Thank you, Thank you,
Thank you to the Simpsons and everyone who's ever been
involved in it for making it. Because you literally changed

(56:51):
the world and and for the better. That's right. And
as a May of this year, uh, the Simpsons as
broadcast more than six hundred episodes, aired for more seasons
than any prime time scripted show in TV history, and
by the time the thirtieth season will end, there will
be more episodes of the Simpsons than any other prime
time scripted show. Uh, finally, finally passing Gun smoke Man

(57:18):
Man Alive, Chuck Dude, great job, great job to YouTube buddy.
This was a pleasure. Um, I think I'm gonna just
go back and start researching the Simpsons against So maybe
we should do that side podcast meet my good Um
so is this it? Is this the end? Yeah? So
when LOUI of listener mail uh nine and nine, nine
and one thousand episode, we shall give thanks to everyone

(57:43):
out there that, uh, how appropriate that the Simpsons is
our tribute such a long running show, and here we
are at someplace that we never ever, ever ever thought
that we would be, to say the least. No, we've
done pretty good for a show that has rights free
theme music, you know, yeah, like software canned theme music. Yeah.

(58:07):
Like people write in sometimes like I heard your theme
song on a mattress ad. Are you guys gonna suthe them? Nope, Nope,
can't do it. Uh So we said it a lot
of the years, But obviously we would not still be
doing this if all of you were not out there
downloading and listening and interacting with each other via this stuff.

(58:27):
You should know Army coming out to see us live
on tour. It is uh man, this is surpast every
expectation that either one of us, including Jerry, ever had
for ourselves. And uh, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you forever. Yeah, thank you to not just like
the super fans, but the fans, the casual listeners, basically

(58:49):
anyone who's ever heard of stuff you should know episode,
Listen to it, learn something from it, laugh to themselves
over it, maybe got a weird look on the subway
or what have Thanks to all of you. Thank you
to all of you for supporting us for this long
and um, chuckers, here's to the next thousand episodes. Buddy,
let's do it. And then Jerry, you are you down

(59:11):
with another thousand episodes? That's great, Jerry. And you know what, Jerry,
do you want to say a few words? I think
I think she should chuck All right, let let's hear it.
Go for it, Jerry. H Well put Jerry, Yeah, that
actually made me tear up. Yeah. Uh So. In the meantime,

(59:34):
while you wait for episode two thousand, you can get
in touch with us. You can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast. I'm also at josh um
Clark on Twitter, Chucks at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook.
I'm a Josh Clark, I think on Facebook something like that.
You can also visit our official Facebook page at slash
stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email,

(59:57):
including Jerry Dear Jerry Rowland, who I'm just gonna go
ahead and say it for a thousandth episode, Chuck Jerry
does in fact exists. You can send us an email
to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Uh
and as always, joined us at our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this

(01:00:21):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
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