If, like me, you grew up watching The Simpsons, have valuable space in your brain taken up by memorising all the episodes, and absent-mindedly quote them on a daily basis, then this is the podcast for you.
Hosted by Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert, each episode of Talking Simpsons talks about an episode of The Simpsons (pretty self explanatory I guess!). Each episode goes into great detail about the plot of the episode, the jokes, and also what was going on in the world at the time. The guys also talk about the voice actors, writers, showrunners, and what influence they had during their time on the show. So, if you're interested in TV and comedy writing, you will find this really interesting, especially the episodes where they interview some of the people that worked on the show. If you're a big animation fan like the hosts, you'll also enjoy their discussion about that side of things, as they talk about the weird and wonderful moments of animation.
Bob and Henry talk about how they remember the first time they saw the episodes when they came out, and their reaction at the time. For me, The Simpsons has been such a constant part of my life, and I've seen every episode so many times, that I can't remember the first time I saw them, and if the first time that I saw them was when they were actually released. I was about four years old when The Simpsons starting airing in Australia, so it's unlikely that I saw any of the early episodes when they first aired here, and I don't know when me and my brother got really into it, it seems like it was just always there.
It's interesting watching episodes now, as an adult, I feel like you pick up on so many jokes that went over your head as a kid. Not just the inappropriate stuff, but just from knowing more about the world. Yet still, some of the jokes either reference something way before my time, or are very America specific, so while the context is understood, they just don't have the same meaning for me.
That's a reason why Talking Simpsons is so great, they take time to explain the jokes, going into depth about the context and background of the jokes and guest appearances. I only recently learned that The Critic was actually a TV series, that the episode 'A Star is Burns' is a crossover episode, and it's things like this, while they don't necessarily change how I view the show, do add an extra layer of understanding. A lot of the jokes that I thought were just random and funny, often have actual meaning or references behind them, making you realise just how brilliant the writing is.
These guys really know what they're talking about. While they are obviously huge Simpsons fans, they have also done the research into the episodes, not just 'oh, here's why this is funny', but they will explain that a drink that they mentioned was actually a real product that only lasted for a year, or that certain things in the episode are typical of that particular director or showrunner.
They started the podcast from the beginning of the series and are chronologically making their way through the episodes. You can either listen like this or, like I have, listen to your favourite episodes at random. The episodes go for about 1-2 hours each, depending on the episode and whether they have a guest host. I would recommend listing to the whole episode in one go, even though they are quite long, just so you stay immersed in the episode and don't dip back in when the guys are off on a bit of a tangent, because you might feel a bit lost.
You can listen to this and get a lot out of it, even if you haven't seen every episode so often that it's burned into your brain. If you're worried that you don't know the episodes so well, even just watch the episode before listening to the podcast, so you'll have it fresh in your mind. But I think you could probably just dive right in too.
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