Talking Simpsons - Tales From The Public Domain With Conor Lastowka

I've always found the American and Anglo staple of bashing the French for cowardice to be more than a little unfair. The bravest person I ever met was my father's college French teacher Madeleine Michaud (pronounced Me-Showed) who fought for the French Resistance during WWII at the tender age of 20. She worked as a spy and saboteur for 2 years before she was arrested and spent the remainder of the war in Mauthenhasen and Ravensbruck concentration camps. I won't go into the horrors she faced there other than to say that despite loving dogs, the sight or sound of German shepherds traumatized her to her last days. For her valor she was awarded the Médaille de la Résistance. I'm sure a lot of the cowardice jokes originated with the Vichy government, but there were thousands of brave souls in occupied France like Madeleine who risked everything to free their country. Also it was Denmark that was quickest to surrender to the Nazis, fighting them for only 6 hours. But if there's a nationality that deserves a reputation for cravenness, it's my paternal homeland Italy. Not only did they surrender quickly in two World Wars, the switched sides in the first one. Mama mia! She's a shameful meatball!

Ron Sterling

I really don't like this episode much at all outside of the Hamlet segment, and even then I don't LOVE it. BUT much like many other Simpsons episodes (going back to Treehouse of Horror's The Raven), it would colour the way I approached things we studied or read in school, as I can't NOT think about Lisa's Ophelia backflipping out the window, Wiggum getting stabbed behind the curtain, or Ralph killing himself with the sword whenever the topic of Hamlet comes up. So, kudos to them for that at least. As for that Ghostbusters ending, I will admit I forgot it was coming up and LAUGHED AT LOUD when it happened this time. It's extremely emblematic of their "fuck you" endings of the past few seasons, but just how out of nowhere it is, mixed with the awesome dancing animation, means I can't hate it.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

I know it's pathetically misogynistic in the context of the episode, but I LOVE the Patty and Selma sirens scene, so much so that I have a custom made poster of the two of them above my desk in my home office. It makes me chuckle and also gives me something to aspire to - can't wait to be a hairy chubby babe lying in a beach instead of working. Not what the writers were going for I suppose, but that was always my reading of the two of them in this episode and I hope I've given this moment in the Simpsons a new feminist life.

One bizarre rendition of the Jeanne d'Arc story is the late aughts PSP Tactical RPG version. This one gives the English army an alliance with demons, and has Jeanne and her companions fighting Goblins and the like along with English soldiers, and with their own magic powers as well. It's a pretty good Tactics RPG from a gameplay perspective and the storyline is pleasantly campy.

I like this episode but I noticed that you guys went hard gender equality battling on classic literature, you do understand that these literary works were written for their time?

Fei wong fong

You guys are totally on the money that the Hamlet short is the only one of these that's actually funny and I say that as someone who also took TWO Shakespere courses in college (what can I say I like the Bard.) But if you permit me to play more "KBs Music Corner", I got more info on Nick Gilder’s “Hot Child In The City." The song is pretty important in pop music history for only being a #1 hit, but is also considered to be the first "new wave" song to be a hit on the charts. Gilder was a member of England's glam rock scene at the time and was pursuing a solo career after the break-up of his band, the Vancouver-based Sweeney Todd. To produce his solo album and his only, he called on producer Mike Chapman. Chapman would later be instrumental in launching the careers of bands like Blondie and the Knack and thus kick starting the entire sound of the 80s. It's just funny to think how the pop music sound of a decade would be defined by a song about underage hookers. As for Gilder, when his solo career fizzled out he moved on to songwriting for outfits like Bette Midler, Pat Benetar and, most famously, the seminal 1984 classic Scandal and Patty Smyth's "The Warrior."

KaiserBeamz

She’s also French, and there’s a streak of proto-nationalism in those history plays that’s attempting to divert attention away from just how French the English aristocracy was at the time, although it’s more pronounced in the (written later) Henry V what with the whole “Oh, Henry V was so English he didn’t even *speak* French. Trust me. Don’t look that up.” thing.

SomeBloke

Glad to have a fellow young kiwi here, I remember watching the Simpsons on TV3 as well! In particular I remember this episode from that time, the Ghostbusters dance always sticking in my mind.

Harry Thornton

Strangely, this episode is one of my earliest specific memories of The Simpsons. I grew up in New Zealand at a house without cable, so the only way to see The Simpsons was TV2, one of our free-to-air channels. I vividly remember seeing a promo featuring the Patty and Selma sirens. I didn't end up watching the episode when it aired because TV2 put Simpsons in a timeslot after my bedtime and I never recall any reruns on the channel. This finally changed when I was in middle school and spotted a giant billboard on the motorway featuring 742 Evergreen Terrace with a 'SOLD' sign and the byline 'The Simpsons are moving to TV3' who smartly aired reruns every day at 5pm, finally allowing me to absorb the classics. Wednesdays were a blessed night because you'd get classic Simpsons, classic Malcolm in the Middle, followed by new episodes of both. I'm excited that you are getting closer to episodes that I actually watched as new. My condolences for being younger than you!

Joshua Marchant

Funny coincidence that the Hamlet segment follows the Joan of Arc one. In William Shakespeare’s lesser known play “Henry VI Part One” Joan of Arc is portrayed as a manipulative, villainous fraud who goes so far as lying about being pregnant to avoid execution. The play was written after Protestantism had officially surpassed Catholicism as the dominant religion of England. So slandering a Catholic icon as an evil heretic was perfect pro-Protestant propaganda for the English government.

Ian Stratton

We actually used this in one of my high school English classes, not as point of reference on these stories (although possibly chosen because it's the most "English class friendly" episode), but because we were doing work on allusions and references. The goal was to find as many such references as possible and write them all down, with a bit of a contest to see who could notice the most. I won (I even had to explain to my teacher that the Ghostbusters song was foreshadowed by the Homer ectoplasm), but at the cost of having most of this episode burned into my brain. Not worth it.

SomeBloke

I also took a Shakespeare class IN COLLEGE and a Tolkien class IN COLLEGE but luckily, never a J.K. Rowling class in college.

littleterr0r

Turning giant space entities into anomalous clouds were something comic movies were big into back then. Green Lantern also did that with Parallax. It’s like really, that’s where we’re drawing the line on realism?

Lockerus

Hey long-time listener, and I think halfway through this exact episode is where I stopped watching The Simpsons and never picked it up again. I don't know Hamlet, I didn't know who Paul Bunyan was, I didn't like the celebrity episodes and I don't connect with these rich Hollywood writers. I was a tween living in England and I recognized the simple character dynamics with Ned or Millhouse or Mr Burns, but the whole cabaret with Yakov Smirnov didn't register with me and this is the episode where I just pulled the plug. Not hating! I'm sure we all stopped watching at some point, but I've been trying to pinpoint exactly where I got off and I think we've found it!

Tom Brien