Talking Simpsons - Little Girl in the Big Ten With Brendan James
Added 2023-03-22 04:00:02 +0000 UTCWe're once more joined again by great journalist/podcaster Brendan James, cohost of the brilliant Blowback series as we dig into a tale of college and germs! We talk a lot about Lisa finding a new lease on life posing as a college student, while Bart learns to love a normal life inside a bubble. We explain all the references and context like a class of Passive Analysis of Visual Iconography, all in one podcast!
Comments
Simpsons predicted it https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/25/florida-principal-resigns-michelangelo-david
Seth
2023-03-27 14:23:11 +0000 UTCLove Brendan as a guest, always funny and great voice. Also, going off his references to shakma and shooting the rodeo, I can tell he's a fellow red letter media enjoyer
trasparenti
2023-03-25 16:35:40 +0000 UTCI mainly know Kennedy's involvement with the President's Council on Physical Fitness through a (non-Camelot) musical theater connection: His administration brought in Meredith Willson, composer and lyricist for The Music Man, to create a song titled "Chicken Fat" that would play in a school's gym class. Robert Preston recorded the song during production of the 1962 film version of The Music Man. It's VERY catchy, and was even used in, of all things, an iPhone commercial a while ago.
Harry Thornton
2023-03-24 03:26:31 +0000 UTCI believe Elsie was a somewhat regional mascot so I hope that wasn't lost on anyone
Bob Mackey
2023-03-23 20:33:35 +0000 UTCRegarding the throwaway comment of "Elmer the Bull should hook up with Elsie the Cow." Bizarrely, you stumbled upon ~advertising mascot lore~. Elmer was CREATED as Elsie's spouse back in 1940. Over the years they gained children, who also showed up in the ads. Borden used to make glue using the casein from dairy milk and it became "Elmer's Glue" sometime in the early 1950s.
Chorocojo
2023-03-23 18:45:43 +0000 UTCBrendan is right, Shakma is a fun and silly film. I bought a vhs copy at a flea market years ago because the dude selling it said it had “real, legit, ape rage.” Had to buy it.
Tyler M.
2023-03-23 18:20:31 +0000 UTCAs I've listened to the podcast, it's become clearer I dropped off as a regular viewer much later than I remembered, since this sea of Al Jean blandness runs together and it gets hard to distinguish which year each shitty episode came out. I'm placing it now as Season 15 when I officially checked out, with occasional rubbernecking afterwards; going by plot descriptions, I don't recognize almost anything from that point on. (My late father was a lifetime weekly viewer so it was unavoidable to *not* see at least one new episode or two.) This was one I distinctly remember being awful upon its premiere, thinking, "this can't go on for much longer." Who'd think 20+ years later we'd still be thinking the same exact thing every week... Ralph pissing his pants is one of those defining moments of the show crossing into irrelevancy - it's pure Family Guy, and if people want that, they'll watch it, not a show that was formerly in a class above that.
Thad Komorowski
2023-03-23 16:53:45 +0000 UTCSo good to hear Brendan again, I keep forgetting to circle back to the third season of blowback. I saw Noah on some Hulu documentary on Victoria Secret, he was talking about the connection between les and Epstein. I was in the other room when he first appeared and I was like “how do I know that voice??” Lol.
Jessica S
2023-03-23 06:51:55 +0000 UTC30:55 is Brendan.....coming out?
Max Headroom
2023-03-23 01:56:37 +0000 UTCThe only Al Jean Hitler-joke that worked for me was the one in The Critic about the Frenchman being nostalgic for the occupation. Otherwise I think Matt Groening has the right idea about abandoning that well.
Bradford A Barker
2023-03-22 16:50:45 +0000 UTCGravity’s Rainbow is good because its about how capitalism is an unholy abomination thats set to destroy all the world, and the world is run by weird old perverts, all while using the hyperreferrential humor of the simpsons in 1973. Theres a reason Pynchon was a get for the simpsons. It’s kind of a shame it has a weird reputation, because its actually an important work that I think the talking simpsons fold would enjoy
marathedemon
2023-03-22 16:19:25 +0000 UTCGreat guest, I really like Blowback. It’s amazing how so much of modern history is “you thought it was one way but in reality it was America doing a little imperialism”.
Lockerus
2023-03-22 14:42:45 +0000 UTCBubble Boy will forever hold a (weird) place in my heart as the last movie I saw in a theater before 9/11. I think the very weekend before. I was 8, so maybe not the most child friendly movie, but the trailers on tv were so kookoo nutty that I begged my mom to take me and she relented. Pretty sure she fell asleep and there were only two other people in our Sunday matinee screening. Perhaps an unsung relic in the 'road movie' genre. I do still get the 'Bright and Shiny' cult song stuck in my head every now and then some 22 years later.
Blake R.
2023-03-22 14:04:32 +0000 UTC
