Talking Simpsons - 'Tis the Fifteenth Season With Pop Arena
Added 2024-12-18 05:00:06 +0000 UTCWe go slightly off schedule to do 2003's holiday Simpsons ep, and we welcome back YouTube creator Pop Arena (check out their Nickelodeon retrospective Nick Knacks)! After we reflect on all of the Xmas specials we grew up watching, we follow Homer on a journey of self-discovery. Can you give Certs as a gift? How many bits were cut from the script? And how accurate is this to Mr. Magoo lore? We dig into all of that in this seasonal podcast!
Comments
Okay, we did watch Tokyo Godfathers on Christmas Eve. We had to go through a lot to find the new dub version. It was really important to my son that we watched that particular one. I'm glad we did. Shakina Nayfack is incredible . Paprika is back in theatre tomorrow. We are hoping to make it.
Kevin Nash
2025-01-08 01:12:51 +0000 UTCI don't know if somebody has already said this, but for Futurama fans I think you might find an interesting that Patrick verone wrote the pilot for class of 3000 and is also credited as developed by, at least on Wikipedia My anecdotal knowledge of the show is that it seems like after the final episode aired it vanished into thin Air, it had basically no rerun presence and I always wondered why Maybe the reruns were expensive considering things like music rights, writers guild people, and celebrities Unless I'm mistaken I think Nicki Minaj and Pitbull show up in the Christmas special as Mr and Mrs claus, and neither of them sing in any of the musical numbers, probably for contract reasons or something LOL
Covey M.
2024-12-22 19:38:36 +0000 UTCPOP ARENA!
FamiCommie
2024-12-21 22:36:48 +0000 UTCAs a fellow commentary nerd, I have to give a correction for Greg: Ronald Haver was the one who did the first audio commentary for King Kong on Laserdisc, not Roger Ebert. For other audio commentaries, the holy grail for collectors are the ones (also from Criterion) for the first three James Bond movies, which were not approved by the Bond film's producers beforehand and contain juicier, unsanitized stories from their productions. The producers ordered them to be recalled and rereleased without the commentaries, but enough original copies have survived and go for high prices on auction websites. Luckily hardcore Bond fans have managed to capture the audio commentaries and put them online, so you don't have to spend tons of money to hear them. Another Chiodo brothers connection to something else brought up on the podcast: They did the effects for Philo's departure in UHF, which according to the commentary looked so good they decided to bring to the forefront as originally it was just a background gag. There's one more Tuesdays with Morie reference in The Simpsons Movie, where it's thrown by Lindsey Naegle out of frustration for being the book club's only book they're still reading. Cementing the reference, she yells "you're the five people I'm going to meet in hell!" as she throws the book out a window. It's appropriate Henry compares Santa Claus is Comin' to Town to Wicked, because another Rankin-Bass special, 1985's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, is an adaptation of one of L. Frank Baum's non-Oz books where it outlines his own origin of how Santa came to be. Interestingly, this version of Santa is progressive in that he doesn't have a naughty or nice list, understanding that children have nuances in their behaviour and can't be naughty or nice all the time.
Harry Thornton
2024-12-21 03:42:27 +0000 UTCI'm sorry but "The Year Without A Santa Claus" is truly awful. Sure, as Henry pointed out, it does feature those fun Miser Brothers, but outside of their three minutes of screen time, the rest of the special is a grueling slog about annoying characters doing stuff that ultimately doesn't matter in a bland southern town. It's bottom-tier Rankin/Bass - even worse than the bizarre "Leprechauns' Christmas Gold" and the redundantly named "The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow." I am not a crackpot.
brian bonelli
2024-12-20 02:41:42 +0000 UTCNot sure if you’re a Michael and Us listener or not but their episode on the song poem documentary Off the Charts is great (as is the doc).
Tyler M.
2024-12-19 22:57:42 +0000 UTCthere's a real-life connection between c.w. mccall's "convoy" and christmas music: the original song hit #1 around christmas time in 1975, and the success led to the "convoy's" co-writer/producer, chip davis, having enough funds to fully realize his side-project: manheim steamroller. i also love unusual and forgotten christmas songs. some of the strangest i've come across are the mail-away 'song poems,' meco's somewhat authorized 'star wars'-themed 'christmas in the stars,' and (relevant to this episode's discussion of self-parodies/remakes) eartha kitt's "(this year's) santa baby," a 1954 sequel to her better-known hit from the previous year.
Eric Schuman
2024-12-19 18:12:20 +0000 UTCMagoo truly is dullsville. It’s odd, that we get some classic Magoo style jokes when he goes to the theater but then it’s played straight and he’s a gifted thespian? Truly bizarre.
Tyler M.
2024-12-19 17:58:36 +0000 UTCMy family loves the Mr Magoo Christmas Carol. They got the VHS as soon it was easily avaliable and have gotten the DVD and BD as they were released. Then again my family are obsessed with a Christmas Carol and watch many versions each year.
Patrick McClafferty
2024-12-19 14:14:38 +0000 UTCMy wife’s family is a Magoo Christmas family and it’s utterly bizarre. They all insist it has more cultural cachet than it actually does. I often mention how the What A Cartoon poll was so poorly received (which is funny to me for so many reasons).
Tyler M.
2024-12-19 13:51:17 +0000 UTCGenius at work moment - Apu drank a champagne squishee in “I’m With Cupid.” I’ve seen this episode a lot. About 10 years ago I had no cable but a DVD player and a very limited number of DVDs, which included disc 2 of season 15. Of the 4 episodes on there, I think this one is the best. I’ve watched this one so many times that now the prune version of “O Holy Night” is what my brain defaults to whenever I hear that song and I add “and just a little drunk” to the Grinch song.
Sabrina
2024-12-19 12:03:54 +0000 UTCI showed that one to Bob some months ago. Q episodes are always a fun non-chronological watch!
nina matsumoto
2024-12-19 06:35:42 +0000 UTCExcited to be the Trekkie to let you know that while the franchise hasn’t done a Christmas Carol riff, they did the next best thing with one of Bobs favourites: It’s a Wonderful Life. In the TNG episode ‘Tapestry’, Picards artificial heart fails and while on his deathbed the trickster god Q offers him a chance to change the events that led to him needing one and gets trapped in a future where he never became the measured diplomatic Captain we all know. The Enterprise firing on the Ghost of Xmas past is the exact kind of outlandish TOS was known for which I think makes it a great parody. They loved having the crew encounter anachronistic figures like Zeus, Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln. All your public domain favourites!
Joshua Marchant
2024-12-19 05:52:15 +0000 UTCCan confirm my parents have motion smoothing on and I also can't navigate their remotes and so I make dad do it.
littleterr0r
2024-12-19 04:00:24 +0000 UTCI genuinely laughed out loud for the first time in season 15 when Mr. McGrew stuck his head into the oven.
littleterr0r
2024-12-19 02:00:04 +0000 UTCMerry Christmas everyone 💝
Camille Walters
2024-12-18 23:04:30 +0000 UTCYou guys really changed my opinion on this, when it first aired I hated Homer so much for being such a selfish jerk ass. The supporting characters saved it
Lance Flexington
2024-12-18 21:47:08 +0000 UTCRegarding the Grove, the holiday decorations are really something, and they’re a quick hack for getting into the holiday spirit, but also a PSA: last year my husband and I didn’t have anything to do on Christmas Day so I checked to see if the Grove was open and it was! But by “open,” they meant the parking lot and the lone Coffee Bean. It’s maybe the one place where the message of “Beavis and Butt-Head Do Christmas” still rings true. So we, like everyone there, got into an hour-long line at the Coffee Bean stand so we could validate our parking, stared at the giant tree for a bit and left. All of the bathrooms were locked and after the coffees the 30 minute drive home to Santa Monica sounded unbearable, so we stopped at another Rick Caruso property (Westfield Century City I believe) to sneak into the AMC bathrooms. Ultimately, as someone who always has to work holidays (including that one) I’m just glad most mall employees had a day off, but don’t go to the Grove ON Christmas Day unless you really, really love the big tree and have a bladder of steel (or just live in Beverly Hills I guess).
Kat Heagberg
2024-12-18 19:46:27 +0000 UTCThe “Darkest Joke” that came off the top of my head after the Moe one was the letter from Lisa’s penpal Anya in “Cape Feare”. ALL HAIL KRULL AND HIS GLORIOUS NEW REGIME! Sincerely, Patreon Supporter
notsmohqe
2024-12-18 19:31:11 +0000 UTC"X-Entertainment….Now, that's a name l haven't heard in a long time... A long time." (aka Dinosaur Dracula) My Certs memory was when I was in 5th grade at summer bible camp. In the snack shack where you could buy candy, gum, etc my friend and I purchased Certs because we wanted to run in to a girl like in the commercials and have a “Certs Encounter“. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. Chiodo brothers also did the stop motion Alien Xmas on Netflix. It was recently covered on the Advent Calendar House podcast and is a really cool Christmas special. I love the Cheap Trick Christmas song too! For another terrible Christmas version of a song check out Christmas Dirtbag by Wheatus.
Jeff Allred
2024-12-18 18:27:09 +0000 UTCBrief pedantic note but it is a pet peeve of mine: Buddha as he is portrayed on this episode actually isn’t Buddha, the “laughing fat buddha” is a closely related deity named Budai or Hotei who became assosciated with buddhism at some point and westerners can never tell the difference. Of course it isn’t just The Simpsons that gets it wrong but it especially bugs me for some reason. Maybe its the intent of the joke here as its supposed to juxtapose the dour serious nature of Buddha with his criminal activity but Hotei is a jolly figure who would totally be into a sick sports car. Pro-tip: the guy assosciated with moderation in all things generally isn’t going to be portrayed as a fat laughing guy!
marathedemon
2024-12-18 16:35:11 +0000 UTCGreat episode of the pod, great guest, and a pretty okay Christmas episode of The Simpsons. This one is just a fun, stupid, joke fest of an episode with some solid Christmas parodies. A lot of the episode does feel a bit familiar. They did Grinch way back in Last Exit to Springfield and we already got the bit of Homer stealing Christmas in Grift of the Magi plus numerous Charlie Brown references over the years. This one just goes all the way with the parody where Grinch is concerned, and when they did it, it was still pretty novel. Now? Not so much, but as an unapologetic lover of that cartoon I can't ever hate a parody. Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol was mostly relegated to late night Cartoon Network in the 90s, from what I can remember. It was about a dozen years ago that I personally just went off one Christmas in buying a bunch of DVDs of specials I either liked already or hadn't seen. I was going to get Magoo because of its significance as the first, but I think it was the CW that actually aired it that year in prime time. It makes sense because this was probably 2012 when the special was turning 50. I watched it, was incredibly bored, and then decided not to buy it. I was definitely among the listeners that voted against it getting an episode a few years back. They also kind of did Burns as A Christmas Carol in the ending to Grift of the Magi which hopefully means we'll never see an honest adaptation in the show. That would be a "the show must end" moment for me, for sure. The chloroform gag is definitely a bad look for Homer. Interestingly, in a few Christmas episodes from now Martha Stewart will use the tactic against Homer. It has to be one of the strangest runners in a series of Christmas episodes. Well, Moe's annual suicide attempt is also pretty strange and also quite grim. And a final thanks for moving this one up. I agree, listening in early January would have just felt off.
Joe Hodgson
2024-12-18 16:11:43 +0000 UTCThe Grove is more akin to Stanford shopping center.
Frank Grimes
2024-12-18 15:23:39 +0000 UTCWow you can get the entire Blu-ray series of Magnum PI for $25 at Walmart right now …… ….. …. I can’t, I just can’t lol Maybe if it had commentary on every episode by the main actor
Tyler the Destroyer
2024-12-18 15:09:52 +0000 UTC
