Talking Simpsons - Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie With Nina Matsumoto
Added 2023-10-04 04:00:02 +0000 UTCAs we explore an episode all about animation history, we're joined once again by the award-winning artist Nina Matsumoto! Yes, it's time for the greatest animated film of the 1990s, Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie, and Bart is very excited to see it. But as we explore parenting and discipline, we also chat about how this episode reflects the animation industry at the time. All that plus MANY tangents about Star Trek, pet ownership, new apartments, and tons more, so if you like stories, listen now!
Comments
This is one of those episodes that really displays the age of this show. Today this episode wouldn’t work because Bart could easily torrent the movie or find another way to easily watch it online or on his smartphone.
RJVanSchaick
2023-10-21 20:01:52 +0000 UTCI think you misheard because Happy Day was the old-timey show I hated, but I LOVED Beverly Hillbillies. - Bob
Talking Simpsons
2023-10-14 17:00:49 +0000 UTCI was a little surprised Bob would choose Happy Days over the Beverly Hillbillies. Between the antics of Granny and Jethro Bodine it could easily be one of your April Fools live action cartoon eps. I still think it holds up today. As for this ep, it brought me back to last month's KotH. Homer was right to bring Bart the pizza. I do foster care and food related trauma is a huge issue with kids in the system. Denying kids basic necessities is every bit as inhumane as paddling. Anyway, great ep and always nice to get a Nina appearance.
Ron Sterling
2023-10-14 03:22:20 +0000 UTCHey guys just wanted to say in these tough times, your podcast is a safe haven to me. I’m sure other feel the same. Love and appreciate you and all you do.
Carlos Hernandez
2023-10-13 09:55:01 +0000 UTCEvetime I see Nina is a guest I always make that episode my first listen on my podcast list. She always adds a great different perspective.
frysjackett
2023-10-12 16:19:10 +0000 UTCWhen Madonna's Sex came out I was 10 and I saved up my allowance to the $50 and begged my mom to get it for me, as I was too young to buy it. I told her she could put it in a closet until I was 18, because I knew it was a limited edition, but I had to have it. She refused. And this conversation happened (among other times) during the commercial breaks of this episode!
Davidandwaffles
2023-10-12 05:32:04 +0000 UTCOh, speaking of being a school librarian, Nina your Sparks series is one of the top ten most borrowed graphic novel series in my district!
Stephen C. Nedell
2023-10-11 17:37:49 +0000 UTCMy former library work place was twice used as filming locations while I was there. One was for the law library scene in Ted 2. In fact if you look carefully you'll see my desk and Ted pops out of my filing cabinet I didn't get to meet any of the cast or crew but was allowed to watch filming for half hour or so and sadly it was even more boring then church. The second was for the paranormal "reality" series The Dead Files for which I was offered a short on screen role as "local genealogist". The idea behind the show is that you have a retired NYC cop who does the library research and then a psychic medium who walks around to "feel an evil presence". It was an amazing experience and the cast were absolutely amazing people. To be honest though, I didn't do any of the research that I shared with the cop and instead I was given a script to memorize. The library wasn't even in the same town as the topic of the episode. Once in a while I will have people recognize me, including one of my students (I'm now a school librarian in the same district).
Stephen C. Nedell
2023-10-11 17:31:08 +0000 UTCThough it's not gonna happen, I appreciate the sentiment!
nina matsumoto
2023-10-11 16:21:51 +0000 UTCThank you, I am tired of people putting the beginning of "Up" and "Princess Mononoke" on such high pedestals (the former more than the latter)
nina matsumoto
2023-10-11 16:19:54 +0000 UTCThis is a much better way of wording it than "I can't believe you guys missed..." Thank you for this, sincerely
nina matsumoto
2023-10-11 16:15:08 +0000 UTCA fun fact about the Bang Bang Bart Segment, you can see an adult, sherry or terry in the background in the upper right corner booing Bart the Stripper.
Fei wong fong
2023-10-11 14:47:11 +0000 UTCNina needs to be a permanent host
Bryce Hope
2023-10-10 13:16:05 +0000 UTCHearing Nina talk about reading the junior novelization of Jurassic Park brought back a memory for me. As I was nine years old when the film was released, my mother made a bargain with me that if I read the novelization, I could see the movie when it came to our small-town "last of first run" movie theater. I loved it as a kid and still do as an adult; it holds up really well. For the 20th anniversary, I saw it at an Alamo Drafthouse when they had an orchestra performing the music live along with the movie. Thanks for another entertaining episode.
Matt Zinkil
2023-10-09 18:12:16 +0000 UTCI’m Pretty sure is was David Thorpe taking the lead on the smash mouth egg thing. But I could be confusing that for the time he went to Kodiak Alaska with pit Bull
Brandon Rebidue
2023-10-09 11:34:49 +0000 UTCLike this classic episode, some of the best parts of this podcast are complete tangents that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. Not much left to say - just a classic time capsule that still packs the same biting punch. I have to say Nina's thoughts on so many movies match my own (HATE the opening of UP, *HATE* PRINCESS MONOKE). Have HER on a WAC Movie some time. Re: The "compilation" Looney Tunes movies... got to remember, these were done in the era when "home video" and "cable TV" were brand new concepts, and these cartoons were just starting to be taken seriously. They were also means of those directors to showcase their best work (BUGS BUNNY SUPERSTAR was Bob Clampett's weird attempt to spin himself as the center of the Looney Tunes universe; buy the Warner Archive DVD and listen to director Larry Jackson's commentary). I have to say that I have a soft-spot for THE BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER MOVIE because that was my introduction to the cartoons (and the slight at Clampett was in specific response to SUPERSTAR), and LOONEY X3 because that is a lot of 'mature' Friz Freleng's best stuff at least framed 'fun'; it's essentially just three episodes of the '61 Bugs Bunny Show. By the time of 1001 RABBIT TALES (which criminally cuts the ending of ONE FROGGY EVENING) or DAFFY DUCK'S FANTASTIC ISLAND... Leonard Maltin's comment, "they're not even using the GOOD Warner cartoons", sums 'em up. QUACKBUSTERS was actually theatrical (have had a 35mm print), and the [generic] video box did actually use "60 percent new animation" and was almost assuredly what Swartzwelder was referencing. They had their place up to this point. (Actually, the worst were the Warner primetime TV specials that tried to make something coherent out of clips from like 11 cartoons in 24 minutes. Be thankful if you never experienced them.) "That Happy Cat" is almost assuredly summing up silent American animation. As someone who restores a lot of it, I think there are gems that have their place (the Fleischers and Otto Messmer stand the test, and Paul Terry really is the cartoon equivalent of all those comedians that never transitioned their popularity to sound successfully) but it's a little too on the nose for what most of it feels like... Animation's forefather's student films, and that emphatically includes Walt Disney's work in the period. And, yes, the WWII Tom & Jerry parody is probably the best the animation ever looked on the show in its entire run.
Thad Komorowski
2023-10-08 16:18:20 +0000 UTCi love documentary now! the ‘stop making sense’ one is so good and bob might enjoy the one that’s a goof on the cast recording of ‘company’ since richard kind is in it. nina might be relieved to know that mickey mouse’s birthday has only been celebrated on november 18th since his 50th in the ‘70s. the late disney historian jim korkis wrote about it for the walt disney family museum years ago https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/mickeys-moveable-birthday
Eric Schuman
2023-10-08 11:41:39 +0000 UTCwas thinking either this or check out some of the genre charts (rather than only the hot 100).
Eric Schuman
2023-10-08 11:40:05 +0000 UTCI also don't think it's as hot a take as Henry thinks it is. There are many others like us
nina matsumoto
2023-10-07 00:35:29 +0000 UTCI read the resident evil games novelization. All of them.
Levi
2023-10-06 21:41:58 +0000 UTCLike Bob, I also read the novelization for The Mask. Also, Nina is totally right for preferring the first Terminator and Alien films.
Tyler M.
2023-10-06 20:45:52 +0000 UTCHenry - don’t feel bad, most of my shirts are t-shirts I picked up when I went places (or venture brothers shirts). I was so bummed when we went to Japan and from what I could tell, shirts like that really are not that popular there. We had to go to touristy Don Quijote stores to find a couple from Osaka and Tokyo. I really wanted a Japanese Super Nintendo Land shirt from Universal Japan and they had nothing like that. I live in Orlando and they plaster theme park names on pretty much anything, so I was surprised I couldn’t find anything like that there.
Chris B
2023-10-06 20:10:39 +0000 UTCI always thought Homer said "I like stories" because he DID suffer brain damage from hitting his head off the coffee table, rather than it being a random/stupid Homer line as suggested in the podcast. Does anyone else have a take on this, or did I misunderstand? 😁 Also, I loved the length and nerdiness of this one. Never change. 🙂
To Boldly Joe... Moore - he,him
2023-10-06 17:25:14 +0000 UTCFun fact: my uncle actually got out of jury duty in the 90s by pretending to be racist. The rest of my family was kind of annoyed at him for it, but it worked!
Samwise
2023-10-06 15:46:54 +0000 UTCWasn't the 2016 Ratchet and Clank movie almost entirely cutscenes from the game that came out in the same year?
Andrew Fedje, Conduit of Corn
2023-10-06 13:41:41 +0000 UTCOne novelization that I can think of as interesting is the Dark Knight Rises. If I recall correctly, there's a part in the novel that features the Joker or at least, explains what happened to him after Bane takes over Gotham.
james what the fuck read tod gordon's book he's a fuckin legend
2023-10-06 07:31:10 +0000 UTCThe ice cream/popsicle talk reminded me that there used to be Disney popsicles where that were the heads of various characters but unlike the flat Sonic one, they were fully three dimensional. I think I only ever got them from the ice cream man who drove by my grandparents' house and I have never seen them outside of that one or two years of my childhood. They were incredible.
Jonathon
2023-10-06 01:18:35 +0000 UTCAs someone who developed an egg allergy, all the egg talk made me sad. Pretty much every breakfast food is kryptonite to my digestive track.
Andrew O.
2023-10-06 01:15:43 +0000 UTCHahahaha I also loved reading the tv guide as an odd child.
Jim MacPherson
2023-10-05 23:06:07 +0000 UTCThis episode combines parent teacher conferences and Back to School night. Just had parent teacher conferences last week and every time I go I always think of the "poison pizza" line. But things are a lot different now with schools much more easily communicating with parents though apps like ParentSquare and all the academic stuff being handled through the Aeries system so any parent that is concerned can easily check up on how their kid is doing so there shouldn't ever been any surprises when its report card time
Phillip
2023-10-05 22:18:41 +0000 UTCThe wiki says it's real, but records are spotty at best: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Bart_Simpson_Popsicle
littleterr0r
2023-10-05 21:48:12 +0000 UTCHi, guys. Henry mentioned that "I Will Always Love You" will dominate the charts for the next several months so, just as a suggestion, how about covering the highest new release instead? There are plenty of great songs that don't top the charts but are still notable. Anyway, love the pod. Keep up the awesome work. 🙂
To Boldly Joe... Moore - he,him
2023-10-05 21:33:38 +0000 UTCYes! I’m glad Henry is being a good sport about Bob and Nina’s good natured ribbing. It’s clear that they’re all are friends, and reminds me of my friend group, where you can rip on someone, but they can rip you right back and everybody laughs about it.
Chris B
2023-10-05 19:22:16 +0000 UTCOh, another thing working in TV has given me too much insight on. BETA! Yes, Beta as a home video format was on its last legs by the time this episode premiered, but as a professional production format it was around much longer. Sony didn't stop manufacturing Betacam tapes and decks until 2016! There really were several years of overlap between Beta and the PS4! In local news, big markets started moving away from it in the early 2000s, but smaller markets couldn't afford to make the switch until prices on more modern digital production gear came way down. I never had to work with it for anything but pulling old file stories from our archive, but a coworker said that when he left his previous station in late 2010, the news department had just switched to non-linear editing. The sports team was still shooting and editing tape to tape. One of my professors my last year in college was on a bunch of media production mailing lists and somehow ended up getting the Shrek Forever After press kit, which included a Beta tape with the trailer and other assets. I'm still kicking myself that I didn't ask if I could have it.
Echo Cimarron
2023-10-05 18:02:01 +0000 UTCI've worked in TV at the local affiliate level for several years now, so I got to experience the dying days of Sweeps Week first hand. A big part of the reason Nielsen singled out one week per quarter was their ratings data used to rely heavily on little paper journals they mailed out to people, promising a few bucks to whoever would take notes on everything they watched for that week and mail it back. It got to the point where 90% of the journals they sent out weren't returned, so they gave up, turning more to cable/satellite providers and "Nielsen box" households for data. Yes, shows from the biggest prime time hits all the way down to the local news would pull all kinds of stunts those weeks (guest stars! 2-part special events! "Something in your kitchen may kill you! Tonight at 11!") Everyone (well, except wrestling fans) knows the Nielsen numbers are kind of BS, but it's the same BS system for everyone. It's really just to see how you compare against your direct competition. There's no hard rule that a 10.5 rating equals $X or whatever. It's just a data point your ad sales team can use when negotiating with clients. TV still lives and dies on advertising revenue, and the majority of TV advertising is bought by the quarter (3 month block of the year). That's also why so many TV shows have either 13 or 26 episode seasons/production orders (or syndicated stuff getting 65). Everything boils down to advertising. P.S. - Sweeps data also explains why so many weird, one season and done shows premiere during the summer. TV viewing is very routine based. With kids out of school, vacations, little league games, etc, people's routines get messed up. Of course people still watch TV in July, but the ratings numbers are all over the place. Networks would rather save their big hit shows for the fall, so they burn off weirder stuff they're taking a chance on (or already gave up on) during the summer months.
Echo Cimarron
2023-10-05 17:37:54 +0000 UTCThe Itchy and Scratchy Movie trailer is a perfect parody of trailers for 70s-80s American animated movies. Trailers from this era had that same cadence of “we don’t know how to market this movie but we have to release it so I guess here it is”. This is still a sentiment that rings true today but I don’t think Hollywood studios know how to advertise a cartoon movie. Especially ones not released by Disney. I only knew Rudy Gillman Teenage Kraken came out thanks to Twitter. But the trailers for the Looney Tunes compilation films are EXACTLY like what I&S are parodying: the overactive narrator trying to be whimsical about very milquetoast material. I’m convinced someone on the writing team might’ve seen this specific trailer and used it for fuel for the trailer https://youtu.be/67rXrioVVmM?feature=shared
tiny crow
2023-10-05 16:14:48 +0000 UTCI've watched all of Documentary Now! without having seen any of the docs other than Grey Gardens (which was after the fact). Its still funny to me because I am a nut for format parodies, and I enjoy the comedians they have on. As for movie novelizations, I read the novelization of the first Pokémon movie when I was 8 or so. I don't remember if there were any differences from the movie, but its funny that such a visual franchise had a novel.
glowstickjuice
2023-10-05 12:41:28 +0000 UTCThe most famous RECENT film novelization was Tarantino’s novelization of his own film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood which he wrote two years after the movie came out in 2019. It’s pretty damn good and QT’s interviews were pretty fun too. The actual novel gives a ton of backstory to the characters, especially Cliff Booth and even explains what happens to them later… the novel also has some ads for movies supposedly coming out soon like Orca, implying the novel came out in the 70s. My other favs include novelizations of the OG Halloween, Escape from New York and Alien and the king of all those authors was Allan Dean Foster. I almost wish they would bring this old format back and not just as a gimmick (albeit for what)
Carlos Ramirez
2023-10-05 12:28:41 +0000 UTCThe depiction of the Itchy and Scratchy Movie hype in this episode really reflected how the hype for The Simpsons Movie felt as an 8 year old kid. Back in 2007 that felt like the biggest film event in history, I kept visiting those websites and rewatching the trailers over and over, even attended the unveiling of a donut statue put up in the small town of Springfield, New Zealand. I know the film's kinda divisive among fans, and while I also wish it could've been better, funnier, not as hampered by test screenings and all that, I do think the experience around it "made" it for me as a kid, even if the film itself was just "good enough". Btw that donut statue is still there to this day, even survived a fire!
Harry Thornton
2023-10-05 03:29:13 +0000 UTCHenry dropping “The” from titles will always be funny to me.
Angel
2023-10-05 01:33:13 +0000 UTCWe're talking about BART! ...oh ...THAT guy... I always felt like Willie groans because the Simpsons are approaching him & he immediately associates them with Bart; the worst kid who often creates the kind of havoc Willie has to mop up. In the grand tradition of TALES OF THE TAPES, this one for me, was taped by my Ma while I was away on school camp and the first five or ten minutes were missing, so for a very long time I was mystified by why we cut to Grandpa with teeth stuck to his forehead. It would be more along the lines of 'Kll bll' in NZ. They cut the middle out of words. In Aus words are stretched out; 'Kyill Beilll'. I actually had the occasion to work on set with Zoe last year and she was very kewl to be around. My first watch of Howard the Duck, was while on family vaycay, on Betamax. The cassette loaded into the top rather than the front. It was weird.
Rob MacBride
2023-10-05 01:18:23 +0000 UTCNina, Make sure to include Sense8 in your JCVD watch through for completeness.
Alex Forsyth
2023-10-05 01:15:28 +0000 UTCthatsthejoke.gif - Bob
Talking Simpsons
2023-10-04 22:27:45 +0000 UTCI just looked up the Bart popsicle. It’s not real it’s a sticker
Mario Molina
2023-10-04 21:44:07 +0000 UTCI am shocked and disappointed in Bob. “Asteroid Shitty” was right there.
Guy Incognito
2023-10-04 21:29:18 +0000 UTCHoly hell, almost half a gigabyte? That's a lotta content!
Andrew Fedje, Conduit of Corn
2023-10-04 20:34:25 +0000 UTCWhen the topic of film novelizations came up my mind immediately when to the Jurassic Park one so when Nina then brought it up it turned into quite the surreal moment. When that movie came out, both my cousin and I really wanted to see it, but his parents thought it would be too scary, violent, or something else and basically forbid it. To try to satisfy his desire, my cousin read that novelization over and over. My parents weren't nearly as troubled by movies so they did let me see it. I'll never forget the night I was out heading into a Radio Shack and saw my cousin and his grandfather (we briefly lived in the same town) leaving the video store in the same plaza. He saw me, got excited and said "Hey Joey! They have Turtles 3 in there!" I could only blurt out, "I saw Jurassic Park!" That poor kid went from being excited about a bad ninja turtles movie on VHS to totally deflated, crushed even. His grandfather even appeared to wince a bit probably because he knew how painful that was going to be for his grandson. I immediately felt remorse and followed it up with a lie, "It was wicked scary!" but the damage was done. There is a happy ending though as my parents letting me see it convinced his parents to finally do the same and I even went with him and saw it for a second time. In the end, I played that one right.
Joe Hodgson
2023-10-04 20:14:14 +0000 UTCI’m a sucker for good merch too 👍🏽😂
Michael Recon
2023-10-04 18:02:49 +0000 UTCThe Season 29 episode that parodies the ending to Six Feet Under shows an aged Bart in an judge’s outfit as well. Is bringing up MST3K on the Bingo card?
Dan Karlin
2023-10-04 17:35:11 +0000 UTCBumblebee Man is my favorite Mexican-American representation across all media, even more than Speedy Gonzalez. Chespirito (Little Shakespeare) is so beloved worldwide that his character El Chapulín Colorado is now a Fortnite skin and referenced heavily in the new Blue Beetle flick
Rico Casanova
2023-10-04 17:34:38 +0000 UTCIf you want to claim racism to get out of jury duty you have to completely commit to the bit, the judge won't just accept your assertion and will make you detail, under oath, your prejudices. There is a funny scene in an episode of Jury Duty that deals with this a little
I.C. Weiner
2023-10-04 17:22:32 +0000 UTC"I like stories" is my favorite homer line. I read the same novelization of jurassic Park. It was called the junior novelization. In the middle of the book they had pictures
Frank Grimes
2023-10-04 17:19:21 +0000 UTCThe talk of ice cream men being shot reminded me of some grim real life events from Glasgow in the 80s, the Ice Cream Wars. Gangs in the city used ice cream vans as fronts for drug dealing and fencing and so employed violent methods to protect their patches from rival van operators, including shooting at each other’s vans with sawn-off shotguns. The violence reached its peak in 1984, when ice cream van operator Andrew “Fat Boy” Doyle was brutally murdered along with 4 members of his family after his home was set on fire. The trial, conviction, and ultimate successful appeal of his alleged murderers would play out as one of the most sensational episodes in the history of the British justice system, including prison escapes, protests, hunger strikes and so much more. All related to ice cream men.
Miles Galaska
2023-10-04 17:01:25 +0000 UTCmy parent teacher conferences were mandatory but my elementary school always kept me guessing as some would have you, the child, sitting in the meeting during the school day and some were just the parent and the teacher. I always greatly preferred the one where I was supposed to be there as it gave me a chance to mediate the situation and weigh in on the defensive with an "objection! my grades in math are only bad because math is hard!". in terms of movie hype, I still think the most i've ever been excited for a movie that felt like a genuine worldwide event was The Simpsons Movie itself. But unlike this episode, when I came back home going "it wasn't that great", i meant it.
Blake R.
2023-10-04 14:43:40 +0000 UTCWhen you guys say “Jurassic Park,” do you mean “Billy and The Clonasaurus?”
Lenny
2023-10-04 14:14:01 +0000 UTC
