December 17, 1989, was the debut of the first-ever episode of The Simpsons, and thanks to various production issues, the show debuted with its holiday episode: Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire aka The Simpsons Christmas Special. We're doing lots to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of that debut, starting with sharing our 2017 interview with the episode's writer, Mini Pond!
Mimi Pond is a very accomplished artist and writer, but her side of the story on writing this landmark episode is rarely heard. Mimi talked with us about her time working on the show in its earliest months and so much more, so please listen to this interview recorded in late 2017. And if you enjoy it, be sure to listen to our many other interviews with Simpsons veterans all available to Patreon subscribers!
Also, if you'd like to see more of Mimi Pond's work, check out her comics Over Easy and The Customer Is Always Wrong, as well as her other work including recent New Yorker comics and more on her website.
We welcome on one of our favorite YouTube creators, Pop Arena (creator of the Nickelodeon retrospective Nick Knacks) on to talk about a really unpredictable episode! After the town loses out on an Olympics, somehow Bart befriends a bunch of old people who then engage in a Cuckoo's Nest/Titanic parody, all while Homer tries to sell springs. Grab you favorite taquitos and listen now!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
This week we welcome back Cait Raft (This Podcast Is Self Care, JackAM on Twitch), not only to talk more about the Simpsons writers' room, but also the world of art! Homer accidentally becomes an artist after almost killing a few people, and Homer is very happy living out Marge's dream. But when Homer tries to learn more about the art world, he somehow floods the entire town. Listen to learn more PLUS what Al Jean sometimes has for lunch on this week's podcast!!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
This week we get biblical with special guest David Dedrick, the colorist on the comic Sparks and the cohost of Sneaky Dragon podcast! David assists us with some religious history as us heathens learn about the Old Testament Springfield style. That means dead unicorns, eating frogs, Jesus in small claims court, giant corn holders, and so much more! Bring the German potato salad and listen along!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
This week we welcome back Luke Savage, from the Michael And Us podcast and a writer for Jacobin, to talk all about Homer's new job as a trucker! After indirectly killing a man, Homer inherits his job, which leads him into learning a giant union scam. Even more exciting, Lisa and Marge buy a doorbell!! Listen this week before your test in Birds Suddenly Appear!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
A lifelong dream came true for us—no, not running onto the field during a baseball game, going to a Simpsons table read!! Hear all about our whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to see the actors and writers perform an upcoming script for the show, what it was like to meet some surprising folks, and tons more! Plus, our thoughts on the just-launched Disney Plus and what it means for The Simpsons!
We're able to do trips and podcasts like this thanks to the support of listeners at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons ! Become a patron today to hear countless early and exclusive podcasts!! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
This week we welcome back on Super Eyepatch Wolf (be sure to check out John's YouTube channel and Patreon), all to discuss Lisa's difficult relationship with Homer! After losing her room to a cell phone tower, Lisa is feeling ignored by Homer all as Homer ignores any problems to eat mayonnaise. Somehow that leads to an out of body experience and Homer being buried alive, all as we get to an ending that doesn't make a huge amount of sense. Whether or not you listen along in a sensory deprivation tank, please enjoy this week's podcast!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
We're once again joined by Stephen Sajdak, cohost of the great We Hate Movies podcast, and be sure to check out their awesome West Coast tour happening RIGHT NOW! Stephen helps us deal with our road rage as we watch Marge drive all over Springfield, which somehow leads us from singing teachers to a dangerous rhino stampede. Listen now to learn how to properly deal with your murderous rage!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!
It's Simpsons' second Valentine's Day episode, and we've got a great guest: Nick Prueher from Found Footage Festival/VCR Party Live! We talk about Nick's nostalgic tribute to VHS and his intriguing history with Simpsons, then chat about Apu's troublesome Valentine's adventure! We talk about love, chocolate, rope belts, Elton John, breakfast at Tiffany's, and so much more! Listen now for some lovable podcasts!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
Max Power invades the show this week, as we welcome on the great writer and podcaster Nathan Rabin (check out his upcoming Weird Al book)! We discuss mid-season TV, replaceable voice actors, network retooling, cactuses, and the parties of liberal elites all in one joke-packed podcast! So strap yourself in and hear the Gs!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
It's time for the Super Bowl, so we welcome back our football friend/USG Editor-In-Chief Kat Bailey to explain sports to us nerds! The show heads to Super Bowl XXXIII for drinking, arrests, egg magic, controversy, billionaire tyrants, tons of guest stars, and absolutely no football! So listen to this week's podcast now before we have our nephew Jody send it to you!!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
Here's a special surprise for Talking Simpsons listeners: Our newest episode of What A Cartoon! podcast where we review the most recent season of Matt Groening's other series!
The second season of Disenchantment has dropped on Netflix, so we are here to share our thoughts on it all! We return to Dreamland to review the newest batch of episodes, discuss what has improved since, and then delve into the eighth episode of the season! Can Bean find fulfillment as a writer? Can a pig act? And what's with all these beheadings? Grab your opera glasses and listen along to find out!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
We've reached a very important moment in Simpsons history: The premiere of Family Guy. The controversial series has been airing next to The Simpsons on-and-off for the last 20 years starting on Super Bowl Sunday in 1999. And so we take a little pause on our chronological breakdown to explore the creation of Family Guy, how the first episode debuted in such a major spot, and how the pilot episode looks with the eyes of 2019. Listen now with a Pawtucket Patriot Ale!
Special Family Guy retro cover is by 8-Bit Universe!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
This mash-up of baseball and musicals is cause for the return of Will Sloan, the cohost of podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael And Us! After celebrating the local sports team, Homer gets the kids a harsh curfew, and that somehow leads to lengthy parodies of Village of the Damned AND Bye Bye Birdie! Listen now for the lesson that kids never learn!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
We welcome back our pal Dan Ryckert (from Giant Bomb and the podcast Panning The Stream) for a trip to Sin City! After Dan details his unique Vegas wedding and his Simpsons table read experience, we dig into Ned Flanders' age, the importance of roof cooking, the neon nuttiness of Las Vegas casinos, and the dangers of drunken weddings! Listen now to learn all our gaming secrets (it means gambling)!!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
Professional cartoonist KC Green (check out his new Kickstarter!) returns to talk comic conventions, Star Wars, The Mafia, and more for Mayored to the Mob! After a dangerous comic-con for Mark Hamill, Homer becomes Quimby's new bodyguard, which somehow leads to rat milk in the streets! Luke, be a Jedi tonight and listen to this week's podcast!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
A special treat this week, as the podcast went up to Seattle, WA for the PAX West convention over Labor Day weekend! We were joined by professional comedian/writer Mike Drucker, as he helped us deconstruct The Cromulent World of Fictional Simpsons Video Games! From Slugfest to Dash Dingo, we deconstruct the first decade of games created within the show, so enjoy this podcast recorded LIVE at PAX West 2019!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
Back again is our pal Matthew Jay (The Deep End, Cartoons 101) for a fun chat about one of Homer's most shameful episodes of the series. Let's see, he nearly kills his father on at least three occasions and is too disgusting even to the strangest people on earth. All that, plus the filthy history of the old west in this week's podcast!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
This week we have a mix of dingos and lobsters as we're joined again by Imran Khan! After some blissful sick days playing video games, Lisa is thrust back into school unprepared for a test, leading her to cheat and make things more and more complicated. In a totally unrelated story, Homer befriends a lobster named Pinchy and, well, things don't turn out so well for one of them... Listen now, mate!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
If you missed the chance to see one of our many live shows in San Francisco and Portland, the good news is we'll soon be headed to Seattle to do a panel at PAX West 2019 with special guest, the great comedian and professional comedy writer, Mike Drucker!
When: Saturday, August 31st at 12:30pm
Where: PAX West, The Sasquatch Theatre
And here's the panel description, straight from the PAX website:
Anyone who grew up in the ‘90s knows about the (mostly terrible) legacy of Simpsons video games, but what about the fictional games within the show itself? On this panel, join Talking Simpsons Podcast hosts Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert, and comedy writer Mike Drucker (Nintendo, Marvel, Adam Ruins Everything, The Tonight Show, The Onion, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee), as they give you a guided tour of the various ways The Simpsons has parodied the medium of video games. From Bonestorm to Escape from Grandma’s House to Robert Goulet Destroyer, we’ll walk our captive audience through the many, many games available exclusively in Springfield!
That's not all—if you attend, you'll also have a chance to buy one of our amazing show posters drawn by the amazing Nina Matsumoto! BE THERE!
We've gone granola this week as we welcome back Giant Bomb's Alex Navarro to discuss Homer's hippie conversion! We talk about The Summer of Love, bare feet, NARCs, Beatles covers, Billy Joel, and so much more as Homer becomes the hippie his mother wanted him to be. Try not to freak out as you listen along to this week's far out podcast!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
Talking Simpsons headed to Hollywood for this star-studded episode, and we got the help of the hosts of the podcast How Did This Get Played?, Nick Wiger, Heather Anne Campbell, and Matt Apodaca! They give us the star scoop on muffin baskets, The Gersh Agency, writing for Ed Begley Jr., going parasailing, and so much more in this glamorous podcast! Listen now to bask in their reflected glory!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
It's Halloween again, and that means it's time for one of the most violent Treehouse trio of stories yet, all with animation writer Alan Denton as our guest! We chat all about killer hair, splashing Regis' eyes, and the scandalous history of Jerry Springer in American pop culture! So get ready because this podcast is going to SUCK............... your blood!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
It's Phil Hartman's final appearance on Simpsons, and joining us for this exploration of his career is Scott Gairdner, writer/actor/creator of Moonbeam City/discoverer of Tiny Fuppets/cohost of Podcast: The Ride! We chat about our childhood memories of Hartman, our last Troy McClure video, and also a story about Bart accidentally killing a bird then caring for its eggs. Plus some healthy divergences about Splash Mountain and digital actors, all on this week's podcast!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!
This week we're facing Homer's midlife crisis and Chris Cabin of the podcast We Hate Movies joins us for the occasion! Homer learns he's actually 39 and he searches for meaning in what years he has left, finding inspiration in the life of Thomas Edison. But when that fails, things really fall off the rails with scary inventions, running over ghosts, and toilet chairs! Listen now to learn all about Homer's search for meaning!
Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron!
This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!