Talking Simpsons - Homer The Vigilante With Neil Campbell
Added 2025-03-12 04:00:02 +0000 UTC"Lisa, never EVER stop in the middle of a hoedown!" - Homer Simpson
We explore the darker side of heavy sack beatings and taking the law into your own hands as we discuss an episode that reveals the cognitive benefits of rhythmic jug-hooting.
Our guest: Neil Campbell (Comedy Bang! Bang!, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Digman!)
Comments
Another great episode, thank you. It's interesting how you brought up Peter Sellers's skill with multiple roles in a single production which outside of voice acting is very rare in cinema but very common on stage. As a stage actor, my current record is 15 different characters in a single show (Puffs, the Harry Potter parody that focuses on the losers of that particular school of magic). It was a challenge certainly to make each separate character truly distinctive and to constantly switch between them, but it's an amazing experience. A quick aside about It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, my first exposure was not this episode (which came out when I was in college) nor the original film, but a few months before when I saw the Russian knockoff, The Unbelievable Adventures of Italians in Russia ( Neveroyatnye Priklyucheniya Italyantsev v Rossii). It's gag was that the treasure was hidden under a lion in Leningrad, which is lousy with lion statues. It turned out the treasure was hidden under a real lion at the zoo. Hilarity of course ensued!
Stephen C. Nedell
2025-03-23 23:16:19 +0000 UTCPrior to Jurassic Park, Sam Neill was offered the role of James Bond in 1987. His screen test is easily found on YouTube. But while the producers wanted Pierce Brosnan & couldn't get him due to his TV commitments, Neill might've gotten the role if he actively campaigned for it. He was not interested & the role went to Timothy Dalton & rightfully so IMO.
James Babbo
2025-03-16 21:35:31 +0000 UTCIt’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World premiered at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, a theatre specifically built for the film. For decades the film played there at least a few times a year until the Cinerama Dome and the Arclight Theatre complex built around it closed during the pandemic. Supposedly the Dome will reopen this year. Until then, please remember the Cinerama Dome as it should be remembered, painted green with added horns for the premiere of Shrek 2.
Mike Mariano
2025-03-15 05:32:42 +0000 UTCtodd-ao!
Eric Schuman
2025-03-14 01:49:39 +0000 UTCNo joke, Around the World in 80 Days is how we got the term "cameo" in the first place: Producer Michael Todd wanted to have big stars in small roles, but most were reluctant to just star in one scene. He sweet-talked them by making up the term "cameo" as this special honor, and it's stuck as a term for these kinds of brief appearances by notable stars ever since.
Harry Thornton
2025-03-14 01:36:40 +0000 UTCI took a look around my house and was unable to find any balls of things, so I may be the outlier to your Bouvier theory.
Andrew Bouvier
2025-03-13 21:04:31 +0000 UTCAs someone who grew up outside city limits, I am just now learning that “sent you into town” is old-timey and fairy tale-esque.
Drew Mackie
2025-03-13 17:16:48 +0000 UTCone of the trademarks of stanley kramer, the director of 'it's a mad mad mad mad mad world,' was casting actors in roles that were completely unlike the ones the actor was known for playing. this is how we got gene kelly as a non-dancing court reporter in 'inherit the wind' and fred astaire as a non-dancing nuclear scientist in 'on the beach.' the gag of the three stooges’ non-speaking appearance in 'mad mad world' is completely in line with this. for another cameo-stuffed epic, check out 'around the world in 80 days' (1956), also starring david niven!
Eric Schuman
2025-03-13 16:48:18 +0000 UTCi made my wife watch my Criterion copy of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World years ago and she still holds it against me. when I got her into the classic seasons of The Simpsons and we got to the end of this episode, she looked at me and said "this is that movie you made me watch." I asked if it was worth it now that it opened up a whole world of understanding references and the answer was "no"
Blake R.
2025-03-13 15:41:49 +0000 UTCMAD WORLD needs to be seen on as large a screen possible with a live audience. Otherwise it emphatically doesn't work. Bob, you live in one of the most active scenes for classic movies at the theater, if it screens, go see it. (I have my own reservations about it regardless, but seeing it any other way for a first viewing is a disservice.)
Thad Komorowski
2025-03-13 14:46:23 +0000 UTCI will sheepishly defend 'Mad Mad World' as a big dumb excessive comedy which is exactly what it aimed to be. Though I believe I had the best possible viewing experience with my boomer parents during lockdown. We all needed as much time soaked up as possible (though still screened it over two nights), my folks loved catching the cameos from the stars of their youth and the escapism of racing across the country in all the forms travel we couldn't enjoy at the time was cathartic. And how's this for a new rule: If your movie is going to be over 90 minutes, it must be AT LEAST as watchable as 'Mad Mad World'.
Joshua Marchant
2025-03-13 13:59:02 +0000 UTCHoly cow! I’ve lived in Santa Monica for six years and have run, biked, and walked on the bike/walk path of the incline hundred of times, and I just rewatched this episode last week and still the reference flew right over my head until Henry mentioned it. Now I have to rewatch again. Also PSA to anyone visiting: GO SLOWLY ON YOUR ELECTRIC SCOOTERS. I’m sure the California incline is famous for many things, but I mostly know it as the place where tourists and teens wipe out on scooters (my husband calls it “the incline of death,” but I’m pretty sure that originated on Reddit and not his own brain).
Kat Heagberg
2025-03-12 21:30:28 +0000 UTCRe: blind Jasper ... he did recognize that every channel was nothing but cats
Steve R
2025-03-12 04:39:47 +0000 UTC
