Talking Simpsons - The Crepes Of Wrath (Revisited) With Kat Bailey

I took two and a half years of Spanish in high school and learned nothing It was just a bunch of work sheets I learned way more Spanish delivering pizza to Hispanic neighborhoods (btw they where usually the most consistent tippers) Im far from fluent but I can get the gist of most conversations

Kris

Just you wait for the Babysitter Bandit episode...

Bob Mackey

just wanted to mention you absolutely should not feel bad for the grape-stomping lady, she forced the winery people to move the safety railing (against their concerns) to get a better shot and there are a ton of people who say she was a nightmare to work for

Sean Riley

I know it's just a plot device, but I gotta say, REALLY BAD JOB by that gendarme. He may not know a word of English (although he knows enough to know that it's English specifically?) but how do you, as an officer of the law, encounter a disheveled, unescorted child who doesn't speak French in the middle of your French town, he's CLEARLY trying to get your assistance with something, and your only response is "Sorry kid, I don't speak English. Have a piece of candy!" Fuck that guy. I hope he didn't get any sort of promotion for cracking the antifreeze case thanks to Bart.

Robert Flaxman

Argh, my fault for not finishing the episode first

PurpleComet

I think I remember reading a comment years ago from a native French speaker that the accents sound awful and weird. He also said that when this was shown in France the villains were changed to Germans or something else.

I hate to be that guy (though I will be); Hoxha is pronounced Ho-sha. This revisit has been excellent so far, and it would be great to see other early seasons reexamined with the current format (the originals are still good, but they feel like appetizers by comparison).

Vulpes

Did you miss the part of the podcast where we described that article in detail? We recorded it a month ago but it should be towards the end.

Bob Mackey

TV Guide declared this the best episode of the Simpsons and the 17th best episode (out of 100) of any TV series. As I recall the main reason for placing it so high was the scene where Bart rides past several paintings. This article was written in 1997 at the height of Season 8 so there were plenty of better candidates. The only other Simpsons episode to make the list is "Krusty Gets Kancelled" at 66, which they mistakenly list as "Gabbo is Fabbo"

PurpleComet

Clausen's definitely the better composer, but I've never minded the season 1 score and until this podcast I didn't even know it was scored by a different guy (just figured it took a bit for Clausen to find a good tone for the show). It's slightly cheesy at times, sure, but so is the writing, so it works.

nina matsumoto

I've never been to France, but I have story about people I know who went. Like Bob and Henry, I went to high school in the late 90's and graduated in 2000. My senior year, there were two international trips that students from different language classes went on. I was in the Latin class and went to Italy, and several of my friends were in the French class and went to France. The trips were at the same time in the spring, and a week or so before we all left, a bunch of friends and I went to the movies and saw, of all things, Final Destination. In case you don't remember which movie in that series is which, the first one opens with a plane full of teenagers going to France HORRIFICALLY EXPLODING. As if that wasn't bad enough, the name of the high school in the movie was actuality the same as our high school. A lot of kids were freaked out, though not enough to cancel an expensive trip to France, but it was certainly one of the strangest coincidences in my life. Thankfully, their plane did not explode and the trip was uneventful, so I'm told.

Andrew Bouvier

You're both invited to my "Leave Richard Gibbs Alone" club

nina matsumoto

He's not that bad.

Thad Komorowski

You are not! I think Clausen is better, but I don't mind the score for season one. Maybe it's because I've seen these episodes a million times, or it could be I usually don't have strong opinions on the subject in general for most shows I watch. It just feels like it's scored a bit more like a traditional sitcom, but not as corny as something like Full House.

Joe Hodgson

You’re right, that really was interesting

Hi guys, long time listener firtst time commenter. Great episode as always. I’m loving your season one revisit. Now time to geek out about Albanian history because it’s weird. The reason why there are bunkers all over Albania is because their longest serving leader, Enver Hoxha was super paranoid and thought Albania would be invaded by their enemies. The logic was that the bunkers would even out the odds in case of an invasion. Bunker construction was dangerous and many workers died while constructing them(70-100 a year). (ok I forgot who said it, it might have been Bob) Albania was not really part of the Eastern Bloc. They were in the Warsaw Pact but they withdrew in 1968 after the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia(they were the only country to ever formally withdraw from the Warsaw Pact). Enver Hoxha was a huge Stalin fanboy. He soured on the “revisionist turn” of the Soviet Union when Khrushchev got into power. They broke relations with the Soviet Union soon after. Interestingly enough the only other big country Albania had relations with was China. Hoxha flirted with Maoism until Nixon’s visit to China, he threw a fit, and broke relations with China soon after. Hoxha died in 1985 and the communist government of Albania fell in 1991. It was more of an internal collapse because the Party of Labour(the Albanian communist party) tried and failed to keep the country together after Hoxha died. Crazy to think that the only other famous Albanian American besides Jim Belushi is Martin Shkreli.

GloomyCleric

I really don’t get all the hate for this composer. Tell me I’m not the only one!

nina matsumoto

I agree with Kat that the episode isn't terrible or even boring, but ultimately I don't find it funny almost at all, and to me that's it's biggest sticking point. The stuff that happens to Bart is mostly just distressing (as you guys discussed) and everything else is a clever idea that isn't played well (at best). This episode isn't the worst of the season, certainly, especially as it has competent animation, but it's easily on the lower end of things. I'd revisited it so infrequently that when TalkingSimpsons first did it back in 2015 I actually did not remember what the hell this episode even was. -- Also Kat was a great guest, as always, and I heartily endorse her appearing in whatever episodes she would like.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

Doctor checking in! Antifreeze(ethylene glycol) is frequently consumed by alcoholics and sometimes dogs as it’s sweet and it gets you drunk, but you can die from a metabolic acidosis. Methanol is the alcohol adulterant that makes you blind, typically found in home brew moonshine.

Kevin OReilly

I have fond memories of this episode because when I was a teen I went to France on a class trip, so whenever it was on in syndication I watched it. The most memorable thing about the trip was going to a fondue restraunt for dinner where served drinks out of glass baby bottles, nipple and all. It was, as the French say, fucking weird.

DrKarate