Bart vs. Thanksgiving

Hey everyone. I'm Sarah and I'm Sean and we're the Simpson siblings. We are lifelong fans of the Simpsons,

joking about it and quoting it all the time so

that we thought we'd make a podcast. This is our very first episode. We're very happy to have you here. And we'll just jump right into it. Then the episode we're talking about today is Bart versus thanks. This is season two, episode seven, originally aired on November 22nd, 1990. It was directed by David Silverman written by George Mason. And John, you want to go with her chalkboard and couch

gags of today? Yeah. So the good old Bart chalkboard scene says I will not do that thing with my tongue for, I was just wondering like what he was doing. If it was like clicking his tongue or making weird expression.

Yeah. And Lisa going fire quit.

And then at the end of the opening, we go to the classic couch scene where grandpa is sleeping. The whole family runs in and he's scared, awake, and his voice sounded a bit different. He kind of mumbled something. Can quite sound like

general grandpa. No, like that probably sounded nothing like

it, but you know, it just didn't sound like the usual grandpa, but the

characters are still, there's a, still a little bit of frosty chocolate milkshakes going on here with Homer's voice and everyone's voice. Like they're kind of easing into their voices, but they're not quite where. They're at

now, which I always loved that description for it, because if you hadn't heard like the old Homer Homer from Cheryl frustrated, but then like once you hear that as a description for it. Yeah. Like perfect.

The perfect description. Yeah. So going into the actual episode, I'm really surprised how much the animals are cuddling in this. Like his little helper and snowball are like this, and I'm making the cross fingers symbol. Like

it's funny. Cause I almost wrote that down in my notes, but it still stands out that like they're like you see them several times. They're being, they're usually friendly with each other, but this time they were. Cuddled up in a ball.

I don't know. They were still like, this was season two. I think they're still trying to figure out what everyone's relation to ships with each other are going to be, and they're like, sure. Let's just, you know, they freaking love each other and that's really weird. And then of course, we've got Marge D grossing, the Turkey D interrupting the Turkey, whatever you may call that. And the kids are fighting over glue.

I thought it was funny that Maggie's just sitting there watching the guts go like Martin. Doesn't try to protect her from that or anything. She's just slopping fits on the table. And from that's how she

gets desensitized. That that's how she gets to the shoot. And Mr. Burns later on. It's just, she's seeing the guts and she's like, Hmm, I want to see more guts. And that's where she

turns. That's the story.

There you go. I feel like Lisa's reading that Cosby book on parenting from the soapbox Derby episode, because she, she turns the reverse psychology pretty well on Bart here with the Hey man, I don't want your stupid glue

and he

just plays right into it. Oh yeah. Yeah. You just falls right into this. It's just right there. He bees in

the trap. So I liked when Homer was watching the TV and the kind of banter back and forth with the newscast. I wrote, I wrote it down. It looks like a little Bullwinkle, got a taste of his own medicine. Did what I just say, make any sense? No, not really.

I just wrote down, what are you talking about?

I like, yeah, like they always take it that one step further after that, where it says, no, not really. Now I know how the pilgrims felt.

It kinda reminds me of the army pie in the sky banter a little bit later on in the show. Uh, and, uh, and we had just recently watched the video of the Barney flight. That actually deflated in 19. Was it 97? Yeah,

it was nine. It was funny. That was just that day. We were watching that video and then that night I sat down to watch the episode. And first thing that comes on is the floats going through hitting the light pole. It's just amazing how things line up

like that, that video is from 97. This episode from was from 90. So for the predicting the future, which is going to be. Future episode. I thought it was funny how Homer has to explain Bullwinkle to Bart. And now I'm explaining Bart to my child. Right. And it's like, it there's all these generational steps so that everyone has to explain their childhood characters to their own kids.

I don't know. Did you catch that little, Simpson's making fun of itself when they're watching the TV with

the flow, the Bart flow. Yeah, I loved it. It was, it was fourth wall breaking, too, having that on there. Just like they were kind of looking at you saying, Hey,

you know about this. Yeah was, um, Homer says there's a balloon for every flesh pan, cartoon character out there. And then Bart's on there for like half a second. And I had honestly never noticed that before

I noticed it like once or twice before, but it does happen pretty often. And it was kind of funny then referring to themselves as a flash in the pan cartoon. Cause they were in season two. They had no idea how long they were going to

go. They had no idea, no idea. We are 30 years later making a podcast about them and they're still running.

Yup. There was a sweet moment between Lisa and Maggie. That was a little unexpected it's it's whole scene to where it's just her kind of letting her help her. The centerpiece and there's not really any gag there. It's just kind of a nice little moment between the two of them. You don't really see a ton of Lisa Maggie dynamic. I thought it was a little cute.

Yeah. I liked how she had spent so long working on that, making it so perfect. And Maggie comes up and scribbles on it and she adores it. Yeah.

I thought that was really, she have gotten really mad, but I think it shows a lot about Lisa's character. It's not just being perfect. It's also, you know, she has that love in her, right? Yeah. And just Bart being an overall past with that cranberry sauce scene. Just,

I laughed at that. I took it just that he is so helpless in the kitchen. He he's causing more work than help. Like his mom it's broken mom, it's broken.

Okay. And in the fact that in the end, he means well, but he's also not trying very hard. And isn't that just Bart right there is meaning well, but not trying very hard and messing it up in the end.

Well, that's, um, I'll come back to this point at the end, but yeah, that he, at this point he thinks he's helping and he has no idea that he's causing trouble, but the family is there for him. Like Martin is playing along and making him feel like he's doing a good job.

Yeah. I find it interesting that Homer's favorite team is the Dallas Cowboys, because isn't that the same team he wanted to own. And he told Frank Scorpio about, is it yeah, like many, because he says, well, it's your dream? And he says, I always wanted to own the Dallas Cowboys. And then he ends up getting the Denver Broncos.

Now that you say that, that sounds familiar. That's

good continuity though. Cause I don't, I, I, I'm not a sports person, so I don't, I just remember his, that quote specifically that, oh, I always wanted to own the. Dallas Cowboys and that they had this back in season. Two's pretty cool. I

love continuity

like that. Oh yeah. I always say that's continuity. You can take to the bank. Jesus Christ, Patty and someone being legit jerks to March to her face.

Well, I like how early off season two, they kind of show the source of where that comes from with their mom. That she's. Basically disappointed already walking in the door.

Yeah, you're right. Um, it definitely shows like March's mom is kind of the source of all this just. Always in a sour mood

and how upbeat marches to see her, even though she knows that's how she is and that's how she's going to be.

And now we get to what I think is the highlight of the episode. My favorite part is her Ray for everything. And my quote of the episode, the Western hemisphere, the most dancing is hemisphere of them all. It's true. I mean, it's it, I guess the dancing is, and I, I kind of see this also as a precursor. Do you remember the halftime where it's like a salute to halftime itself? Yes. It kind of reminds me of that a little bit. And it's actually a bit of the ear worm in that that we're dancing.

But you know, they had to like write out that melody, have someone sing it, like everything that goes into prepping for something just so short like that. Oh yeah. That one thing I took away from that scene. That, again, it's weird looking through these shows analytically, cause I'm catching things that I always glossed over in the past.

Yep. You know that, that or someone else too on the production, right. Um, okay. I'm going to turn my page,

turn

over, turn over. We've giving it a quote for that. That might stay in. I don't know. Oh

no.

Oh no. Oh. Oh, and now we're going to go to the, um, the old folks home with grandpa, the Turkey puree. I think I legit gave that to my cat last night in the use of a fax machine on ironically, we'll

also walking in. The scene itself is so sad, but just from the setup, there's the sign on the door that says thank you for not discussing the outside world. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that comes back in a later episode too. I think it's kind of a permanent fixture there,

but yeah, just how everyone's so happy to get a fax that said we wish we were

there. Yeah. That's yeah, that scene, honestly, it played for laughs, but it's also kind of sad. Laughs. And it's interesting because for an episode called Bart versus Thanksgiving, Bart really isn't in it very much this far.

He's kind of the, like the pivot point, but everything is around him.

Yeah. Yeah. I found that really interesting. Lisa brings down her centerpiece as everyone sits to the table. I loved Homer's line. That's the biggest one of those I ever saw. And you can kind of see where Bart gets it from because Homer really wants to be supportive, but he just doesn't quite do it.

He has an overenthusiastic voice where he's. He's genuinely trying to show interest.

Oh yeah. He just does not know how and that's, and that's very sweet surprise, surprise. Bart ruins the centerpiece. I really liked that shot on Lisa, as it burns. Her face is kind of like in the light of it. And there's like a pretty, pretty expressive shot there.

I was focused on her scream that she has. Cause I've, I've heard that scream from her before, but they don't overuse it. That's it's such a. Raw passionate scream that they save it for those scenes where she really means it. And just how much power was behind it. And oh

yeah. Yeah. If you can like hear it, you could feel

it in your heart. Like she just lets loose. Like she's not sweetly saying anymore. She's yeah. She's not sure if you're crying

and mad. Yeah. So embark gets sent to his room and Lisa plays a sad song on her socks. I feel like that's a situation that happens quite a bit, but this is the early season. So it's kind of.

Setting that, and the awkward desolate everyone's sitting there trying to eat while she's playing

upstairs and they make it really obvious. Those two seats being empty too. Right. It's like a lopsided uneven table bar. It sneaks out his window. And I don't know if this is, I don't think this is the first time that's happened.

No, I think he's been out before and there's the planks are there, like he's, he's, he's set up for it. Yeah.

And I think it's interesting, San as a little helper gets kicked out at the same time and comes with him, but he doesn't really do much in like he didn't, I have to come with it. Yeah.

I, when I saw that scene, I was trying to remember how does, how does things a little holder play into this, but he's just kind of along for the ride and then. Gone like, does he make his way home

again? I kind of think the writers were just sort of juggling ideas and they decided to have them come with and not really do much, uh, and then burns his feast where he just says, dispose of all this. And there's like so much food everywhere

to take a step back a bit. I noticed something that, you know, I saw it and thought, oh, I should research this. When he's walking up to Mr. Burns manner, I looked at the streets. Um, of where he's at and he is at the intersection. I'm probably going to miss mispronounced this first one, uh, Christmas in mammon. Uh, was the king of Lydia said to UPenn, one of the richest men on earth and mammon is, I mean, it was used a lot in the Bible and lots of different older texts.

I wonder how many people have looked that up and you just, I know I would have never thought to look that up and

I had to rewind pause. Rewind was on for just a split second and just that they throw those little things. I wonder how many hundreds of things I get

to see to think too. This was aired in 1998. You know, if you even had a VCR, then you would have had to record it and then pause it during that scene. And

it does that weird bit of static, and it's hard to see like,

like so many Easter eggs that we think of now, but back then it was hard to record and replay things like that. So it's really something, they put those things in. Also is this the first release of the house?

Cause I may be, cause we don't really see burns matter much until later

in the summer. Yeah. I thought that was kind of interesting and no robotic Richard Simmons, unfortunately. Oh man. Um, I love the whole scene transition of Barton, literally wandering to the wrong side of the tracks. And that was something I'd never noticed before you see literally crosses the train tracks and it goes from burns manner to the wrong side

of time. And then he even says, oh, we were on the wrong side of the tracks. And just some of the things that are there, like I noticed there was a shop that said massage parlor and massage is in quotes. Like just the, the very obvious would it really is. Oh yeah, that's awesome.

I kind of reminds me. That's should've gotten off at cracked and at the, oh yeah. So this was what I was thinking of before, um, with Marge's mother having laryngitis and saying that the risk of losing my voice. Let me say one more thing. I'm sorry. I came

such an emotional

gut punch and it's like, you can barely speak. This is the most important thing I have to say. I'm sorry. I came that it's just so depressing on so many levels. Bart donates his blood to make money and passes out. Yes. That's the thing that happens. And it's a surprisingly short scene, you know, even though it's like a turning Portant, pointless, the

episode, the stereotypical passed out on the street. Oh yeah. One thing I did find on that blood donation scene, because it did seem a bit odd. Like he walks in, there's a still shot on it and there's a bit of talking back and forth, I guess originally there was supposed to be a scene indoors. With the blood donation where they go through like a minute or two of it.

Oh, that's interesting. I was wondering if they would have had some sort of. Troubles showing that showing a minor donating blood. Okay.

That's what I thought when I first watched it too. Like, it seemed, it stood out as odd how it was presented in those 20 seconds. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Huh. That's interesting. All right. And then you have these strangers that come out to them and they take them to a soup kitchen. And this is like the very. Very obvious moral center of the episode, where it was like a turning point. And it's very, I don't know how else to put it. Non-transparent will help here. It's

the less and how Kent Brockman is talking about, well, here we are on Thanksgiving. Of course.

Well, yeah, it kind of makes itself overtly obvious what the core moral of this episode is where Bart's going to get his turning point. And then of course, Lisa gets up and tries to say her poem, that she's been heartfelt writing upstairs while crying and playing her sacks. And of course, It's barred on TV. It's like, oh man, you just cannot catch a break this episode. And of course that thing, this, the famous, famous quote operator, get me the number for 9 1

1. I didn't even have to write that one down. I remember that one.

I didn't realize that it was in this episode. I always thought that was maybe a seasoned six to eight sort of quote, but I was a little surprised knowing that. Finding out that that was in a second season episode.

We have all these hundreds of quilts in our head, but we they're all floating. We can't associate them with specific episodes. They have no

anchor. To keep them things still. So a Bart sees how the homeless people live and gets a change of heart. Oh, here we have. Did you notice anything weird about the police officers? Yes. We were actually talking, we didn't want to talk about the episode before we started talking and recording. So I was like, um, there's something I noticed about this episode, but I can't tell

you until we're recording. It's it's funny on our way driving in cars, we drove together. We started talking about the episodes. We had both watched how I just had to say, you know what, we need to stop because we're going to talk everything through on this ride and we're not going to have anything left. You need natural reactions to each other.

So we're Lewin, Eddie's voices swapped or were, I know that Lou sounded like.

I feel like Lou was just someone completely different.

Yeah. And one of them was the other, I can't remember which one was who, but one of them had a new voice and then the other one had the other person's normal voice. And it's, if you go back and watch that scene there, there was some con I wouldn't say confusion, but some experimenting going on with, who's going to voice who and. Obviously Lou and Eddie they're pretty minor characters. I actually had to look up what Eddie's name was. Cause I knew who

Lou was, but I was the other way. I, I actually knew Lou and Eddie, but I forgot who

was who. Okay. Yeah. So that's interesting. If you go back, it's almost like, uh, you know, uh, Mr. Smithers being black sort of thing, like this blue hair. Yeah. Like they, they were just like, well, well let's just switch this. And it's like,

okay, well, it's interesting. Cause you get that in a lot of shows where, you know, continuity. Fluid and season one things like, you know, star Trek. There's some things that don't quite fit into the rest of the seasons, but this is well into season two. We still have some of those. Gaps in continuity. Yeah.

So I think this is about when, oh yeah. This is about when the extended family leaves and my wife actually mentioned, wow, I forgot how much of a, B word Marge's Moffitt. And she really is, which is, she's such a minor character. She doesn't show up a whole lot. And when she does, she's just always grumpy and mad at everything.

We never see her smile that I can remember. No,

I can't remember either. And yeah, she's, she's a very odd ball character. I'd love to do an episode on her sometime because she does have sort of a fleeting presence where she shows up and she leaves and. Is it kind of just all over the place and she's, she's a little interesting there. And I actually, I watched a YouTube episode from it's called the Simpsons theory. I believe they had an episode about the scariest moments in Simpsons episodes that weren't Treehouse of horror. I think.

Like everyone's looking down on him

and I can see how that could be frightening.

And it's all like Bart's perception and just how his brain is wired. Like it's these things aren't actually happening to him. It's, it's how he's imagining people were react to them. And. Just how he thinks through his life kind of gives you some perspective into his

character. It is a pretty good perspective, especially. I mean, like both of us were pretty good kids. We're pretty like I was Hey, but like, I, I, I feel like. I don't, I feel like Bart's one of the people, I would probably relate with the least in the show, but I can kind of just understand where his brain is trying to process this and just thinking this isn't him doing something bad and getting blamed for it. It's him getting blamed for everything and his head. Right.

I thought that. The way even Lisa jumped up there was so practiced. Like it had been done before that if I saw my kid on the roof, I'd be freaking out. Even if she was just standing up there a little bit more. Throwing a football back and forth.

And your kids older than Barton Lisa. So

you running on the roof. I can

be freaking like, eh, she's doing it again. And it's, I feel like nineties shows had a thing. Did 90 shows everything about going on the roof or is it just Simpsons and third rock from

the sun? That's funny. Cause that's the first thing I thought it was third rock from the sun,

uh, to me going on the roof, like you gotta put it half. And to that,

I feel like there's another show where they did that several times and I'm escaping me. What, what show that

if you think about it too, they have a two story house. That's pretty high. Yeah. I mean, I get a little nervous going on top of my one story house and to be a kid going up there. But I mean, obviously this is a cartoon. They can bend the rules, but it's really interesting. And then they have this whole heartfelt conversation on the roof and I like how Bart doesn't get it right away. He doesn't turn on a dime. It's very natural. How Lisa sort of gives him this aha moment.

Which I mean, they're eternally the same age, but what eight, seven, like

I think Lisa seven and Bart's

eight. Yeah. That's a very big move for her to kind of let Bart make that realization on his own. Yeah. I'm

very mature of her because she's got every right to be pissed off at him, but she's also, she's being worried about him as well.

And I'll bring it back to what I mentioned, like in the kitchen with the cranberry sauce, he was truly trying to do his thing and he didn't get that he was being more trouble than help. And coming back here, he felt really justified in that everyone's against him. He wasn't at fault. And then at this moment on the roof, he just has that realization and it clicks. And then once he realizes it, he doesn't drag his feet. He doesn't try to justify it. He

confronts it. Head-on and that's, I like that about the Bart and Lisa dynamic that, that there's this sort of ebb and flow that they both sort of, they're like a little bit like rubber bands that can stretch to accommodate. Each others, very different personalities, but yet can still get along a lot of this. And no matter

how much bark may torture Lisa, or either through direct action or in voluntarily hurt her, he does care about her. Yeah. Yeah. So he's always going to watch

out for her. Yeah. And then you've got that really sweet ending where they're all, it's sort of late night and they're all eating their Thanksgiving dinner late at night together. And it's, it's, it's kind of a good symbolism just for the family as a whole that they might do. They might not do things the way everyone does, but they do do them in a loving way and they might mess up in the middle, but they eventually come back together. Right. And, you know, have a nice dinner.

Yeah. And they, I think w what was it like almost midnight or something. And they were all eating, sitting around eating leftovers. And even though they didn't have a conventional way, they still had their Thanksgiving

together. And ain't that just the Simpsons. Yup. Yeah. Uh, is, is that about it

for you? That's all my notes. I feel happy. We hit all my notes that I wrote down. So, you know

what I, at least I was thinking about 30 more minutes purpose. So this is our first episode. So, you know, uh, we just now exactly made 30 minutes. Hey, right on. Yep. So maybe a little bit different for you after we do our edits, but yeah, this is I'm, I'm having a good time with this. We're going to do two of these episodes back to back there. They'll probably really. At different times though. Um, this is expected to be our first episode and I feel pretty good

about it. I had fun. I was a bit nervous going in, but once we get to three minutes in, it was

just us talking and I hope you all enjoy as well. And, um, yeah, we're the Simpson siblings, and we hope you, uh, come join us again soon. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again soon. Bye

bye.