Talking Simpsons - Simpsons Tall Tales With Mike Carlson

Woo ${insert_uni_here} Writing program! I minored in music and partied with CCS Lit kids, so the units I could spare for writing usually went into a Teddy Macker course. I return to the collections I bought for his "Axe Handles: Reading Poetry to Write Poetry" course a lot. Also, a lot of great memories sharing writing with friends in the art room or Old Little Theatre on Thursdays that eventually fade into a haze for inexplicable reasons. :p

Drew Waranis

The opening of the first hobo song is a favorite Simpsons joke of mine. Season 12 gave me a hope that, sure, it isn't going to ever be as good as 3-8 again, but if each episode has a moment like that, there's still enough of a spark to keep up with it. I think I made it two eps into season 13 and had to bail.

Bradford A Barker

This isn't a bad episode, especially by the standards of some of the duds of seasons 11 and 12, but I'm really lukewarm on it. Some of the jokes land (especially in the Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan stories), but I guess I just really feel the half-assed nature of it due to its placement at the end of a long season of work. I also think, if I may play "editor" on a 20 year old episode of TV, I would've placed the Tom Sawyer segment in the middle since IMO it's easily the weakest (even if that wouldn't let them have the homeless guy make a joke about how it's not a tall tale but he's out of tall tales).

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

I remembered the opening "The Simpsons are going to Delaware!" dialogue from Behind the Laughter and how Homer said it'd be the last season, so naive kid me thought this was their way of stealthily announcing this was the final episode ever

rubber cat

Growing up in rural North Carolina, we had cornbread at just about every major holiday meal. When I finally got to civilization, I realized that what they called "cornbread" (big, spongy, fluffy cakes, baked in an oven) wasn't what *I* called "cornbread" (thin, crispy, fried in a skillet). After the advent of the Internet, I was able to find out that what I'd always called cornbread was, in fact, corn pone. And lemme tell ya, that stuff is *delicious*. Mix up a slurry of corn meal, water, and a little salt, fry it in a pan with vegetable oil (you CAN use bacon drippins/lard if you're old-school and don't care about your circulatory system all that much), fry it 'til it starts crisping up on the edges, flip it over, pull it out when it's golden brown- just excellent.

Shaxbert

Maggie does appear in the Connie Appleseed segment, but you're right, she's weirdly absent from the rest of the show.

Nick Mould

I'm going to have to be pedantic about the 2 cents joke. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884 and takes place "40 to 50 years ago". America had half cents and they were minted until 1857. So one cent isn't the only cheaper price their bill could have been.

Alex Forsyth

Did they not explain why Maggie isn't in this episode at all, or did I just miss it?

There actually was a recent-ish episode of "Family Guy" where Quagmire is talking on some kind of interview show and his credit is something among the lines of "retired pervert due to rising of the Metoo movement." Now he's a weird cat guy which I prefer more.

nalem

Blaming the fire on Mrs. O'leary was just an excuse to beat up the Irish

This is a favorite of mine from the Scully era, because it is so packed with memorable jokes that I love to quote or they still make me laugh thinking about them. -OH BOY, BUFFALO TESTICLES -The buffalo killed with the apple -That woman's showing her privates -> All for Silas, All for Silas -This ain't 5 X whiskey, I can still see! -Dillinger Bullets are weak, POWERFUL weak. -Cornpone, tackback -Those are the last two buffalo! As the boys have broken down many episodes this season that are not great conceptually but have tons of jokes, I think Simpsons Tall Tales is the pinnacle of that.

SilkiePJ

I am posting this because I would have nowhere else to share this information, because college was a long time ago, but after having read Huck Finn in high school and not being impressed by it as being significantly different from Tom Sawyer, I had to read it again for a college class called The American Novel, which began with Huck Finn and ended with Blade Runner — which is to say, the movie and not the Philip K. Dick novel that inspired it. Not only did my professor find thematic linkages between Huck Finn and Blade Runner, but she taught Huck Finn so thoroughly that afterward I felt I had never read it before. It’s not a book for kids the way Tom Sawyer is; it’s a spinoff using a character from that book to tell stories about America that are really deep and also funny in a way I didn’t understand in high school. I wrote a paper about Huck Finn and The Simpsons as satire of specific American conventions (I don’t remember what exactly), and to this day I will sing its praises as a really good book — but you might not ever appreciate it in full if you don’t get Candace Waid to teach it to you. College was dumb, but that one professor is a good argument for why it’s worth it. With that out of my system, I will never speak kindly about college again.

Drew Mackie

Thanks so much for pointing out that audio flub of using Godzilla's roar on Rodan (I hope someone got fired for that one!) but I can't help thinking now that SUPER7 has licenses for both The Simpsons & TOHO's monsters (the announcement was just made on Twitter for a whole new line featuring Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra & others) wouldn't it be cool if they made a series of Godzilla figures based on their appearances on The Simpsons! They could do it! Except for Gamera which is owned by TOHO's rival studio DAEI. I'd buy 'em all!

James Babbo

They still most network will play a ad over the ending or the next show sometimes.

Cossover