Talking Simpsons - New Kids On The Blecch With Brendan James

I'm late to the game but a quick thing on BTS and sales, but BTS aren't really that popular, their fans are just more hardcore.

James Eldred

If you thought the Iraq WWE show was bad you gotta look up the Smackdown that came from 9/13 the "first" public gathering after 9/11. The whole show was very rah-rah America especially look up the JBL Promo where he talks about turning a country into a parking lot.

Matt Fish

Brendan was a GREAT guest and, as someone particularly interested in how awful the whole End of History period was, this podcast episode was an incredibly fun listen and much better than the mostly mediocre Simpsons episode it was about. -- Also, fuck Justin Timberlake. I believe him and Jessica Biel are anti-vaxxers, and he took absolutely 0% responsibility for the Janet Jackson thing (even making fun of it) while she was crucified), and in general has just been kind of a back-handed douche to anyone he doesn't get along with at one point or another.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

My 20th birthday

Cossover

Can second all of this. I trained for the LA Marathon, got to 20 miles, then COVID happened, and also I overtrained so I never actually got past 20 miles/ran the full 26.2, but I'm okay with sticking to halfs from now on, and also can proudly say I have never pooped myself. Anyway, hello, fellow distance runner! I also enjoy listening to the long podcasts during long runs.

Kat Heagberg

This episode might have beena bit of a mess but the Superliminal joke makes up for every bad bit in the episode

Lobster

Great podcast of a terrible episode, thought I would share some marathon insight from a non-gifted runner who has run a marathon. In all honesty, they aren’t hard IF you prepare for them properly, which most people don’t do. The main issue is before most people run a marathon, they run a half-marathon which really doesn’t require much training, like a month or so, to not kill you. So after completing a half marathon, people think a full marathon will be a cinch, only to find that it destroys them 3/4 of the way through. If you train properly, extending your runs over a five-six month period with your last training run being about 20 miles before reducing the distance over the final three-four weeks, you should be able to finish without pooping yourself. The best thing about long distance running is they’re great opportunities for podcast listening. I’ve listened to a lot of Retronauts and TS this way.

Mikey Cox

I had no idea that Libby Watson was Brendan's guide into becoming a Simpsons obsessive. She's an expert and you should definitely have her on the show!

Mike Mariano

I understand why you guys think the songs suck, but if you were 10 years old at the time and really into boy bands, they were legitimately catchy. I had cds with nothing but whatever Simpsons mp3 files I could find and the songs in this episode were on one of them. I still knew all the lyrics to this day and had to restrain myself from singing along and upsetting my uber driver.

glowstickjuice

I suppose it’s pointless to nitpick an episode as brazenly pointless as this one, but it bothers me that the group’s songs having subliminal messages is dropped in so randomly. Like, first they’re singing about falling in love with no ulterior motive. And then, they’re making full-on propaganda. My “charitable” interpretation is that the initial songs were made to lull the audience (on the show) into a false sense of familiarity and then drop in the subliminal aspect. But I think it would be a lot better if they just introduced it much earlier. I like how it resolves (or doesn’t), though

This episode makes me think of the one random fact I know about JC Chasez: he was raised Mennonite. I read that in an interview years ago, he mentioned that he personally wouldn’t join the military because he’s Mennonite and they are pacifists. It always stuck with me because of the ending of this episode where he’s dragged away screaming after being enlisted. It seems odd to me that they would have him be the one put in the military.

Sabrina