The Hello Mr Burns Podcast
The Hello Mr Burns Podcast
S2E8: Bart The Daredevil
Bart attempts to follow in the footsteps of his hero, a daredevil named Captain Lance Murdock. As part of becoming a daredevil, Bart does increasingly dangerous stunts leading to his final stunt: jumping the Springfield Gorge on his skateboard.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The long-lost Nazi episode clip that was cut from this episode
- The character Captain Lance Murdock, and Evel Knievel
- The top secret conversation between Kanye West and Evel Knievel over the music video for "Touch The Sky."
- The character of doctor Hibbert—from female doctor to "Cosby Show" rip-off
A deep-dive research podcast hosted by Perrie Kap examines the most fantastic TV show of our time: The Simpsons.
Pssst. We now have episode chapters! Jump ahead to hear your discussion!
#thesimpsons
#hellomrburns
#bartthedaredevil
Howdidly doodily, and welcome to another episode of Hello, Mr. Burns, a Simpsons research podcast, where we go in depth with The Simpsons to look at references, pop culture stuff, and other things that you probably didn't need to know. But it's nice to know about the world. Hey, men, you might have noticed that I changed the intro every single time and it's because every time I sit down to record, I tell myself I should probably write something more consistent and then I forget so yeah, that'll keep you on your toes. Huh? Who? So today's episode that we're going to be covering this is kind of like that episode that always gets put in clips shows and roundups and it's one of the Simpsons really early episode pillars. I am of course talking about season two, Episode Nine, but the Daredevil so in this episode, we see bot attempt to follow in the footsteps of his hero who is a daredevil named Captain Lance Murdock. So as part of becoming a daredevil himself, but does increasingly dangerous stunts, leading to his final stunt jumping the Springfield gorge on his skateboard. So this episode was written by Jay Cogan and Wallace wala dusky I've wala dusky. It was also directed by Wes Archer. If the name was Archer is ringing a bell. He has directed and storyboarded shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Bob's Burgers disenchantment and Rick and Morty episodes, A Wrinkle in Time get schwifty and the wedding scorches. So this episode was interesting, because when it was first written, and we'll get more into this later, it was way too short to air. So the Simpsons writers ended up writing like a short little clip show that was about Nazis. So we're not going to question that. But then of course Matt greening said no we can't do that. That's a bit too weird. So the music video for the very very famous 90 Song do the Batman was premiered straight after this episode was aired. How cool is that? Alright guys, let's get into an episode synopsis. And for those who have already watched the episode recently or just kind of want to skip over the synopsis and get to the learning bit I've just discovered that I can introduce chapters into my podcast so I don't know how this is gonna work from your end but have a look at your phone now and tell me if there's a chapter it'll Mark synopsis and then discussion one so jump ahead. If not you want to hear me retell the episode to you. Good Anya, more power to you. All right, let's go this is the episode synopsis for season two episode nine but the devil your new bird is the only adult here I feel I should say something what cool we'd be in the episode with Homer and Bart learning that trucker Soros has come to town trucker Soros is as the name suggests a giant mechanical dinosaur made out of trucks
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sweat swipe the content for stories of card crunching fire for eating prehistoric good Saturday whoa one night only one night only night only. Although tracker Soros happens on the same night as leases recital, the family come to an agreement where they'll go see Lisa play some music and then go see the truck or source in action. At the recital we see Lisa performing Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. Meanwhile, Homer and Bart are just sitting there just so anxious so excited to see the trucker source. In a rush to get to the show on time. Homer ends up driving through the show we say the wrong entrance to the stadium. They accidentally enter into the arena kind of like entering into a gladiator fight and truck a source picks up the Simpsons car and basically tears it apart. The Simpsons escaped safely and ended up watching the rest of the show. Sitting in their seats. Not much is said about the car after that which is a little bit sad, although we do see them driving away later down the highway with a radiator or something trailing behind I'm not sure kind of looks like the umbilical cord of a car engine. So during the show, but he's just absolutely enthralled and entranced by this fearless dead devil called Captain Lance Murdock. We're our last event of the evening we have a special surprise guest the world's greatest Daredevil the man who's no stranger to danger if he's not at action is interaction. Captain Lounge's Murdock.
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Murdock does this like motorcycle jump over a pool that's filled with ravenous sharks and angry lions. Lance Murdock does make the jump, but crashes and is then molded by line unperturbed but just knows that he's found his calling in life. He's going to be a daredevil. So back home, Bart decides to perform his very first stunt in front of the local kids. He flies off his skateboard and smashes straight into the pavement. So Dr. hibbott really gets stuck into by
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out about it and says, Look, I'm going to take you to the ward where we've got Lance Murdock, you're going to see how badly injured he is. And he's going to talk you out of a life of being a daredevil. So when the doctors and the family leave the room, Lance Murdock pulls back closer to him and says this good for you, son. It's always good to see young people taking an interest in danger. Now, a lot of people are going to be telling you you're crazy, and maybe they're right. But the fact of the matter is, bones heal chicks dig scars, and the United States of America has the best doctor to Daredevil ratio in the world.
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Randhir welcome, little partner. Thanks to Murdoch's encouragement bar decides to do even more greatest stunts, and he does get better and better. But eventually he decides that his PSR is his stance he's big finale is going to be jumping Springfield gorge on a skateboard, Homer does find out that this is Bart's plan, and come to the conclusion that the only way he can stop up from doing the stunt is from doing the stunt himself to show Bart how dangerous it is. He does jump on the skateboard. He does make it halfway through. Yeah, it's a pretty funny scene. He ends up falling halfway down the canyon. He's like bonking and bouncing all the way down
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go
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and crush the bottom of the gorge, a rescue helicopter does come pick him up. So home is kind of like suspended. As he's being suspended up the canyon. He keeps bonking his head, which is even more fantastic. They put him in the ambulance, the ambulance races away and drives directly into a tree. Homer rolls out the back of the ambulance on a gurney and falls back down into the canyon again. It's a really fantastic scene. Definitely, you can watch the clip on Twitter and Instagram, but I'd love it. And yeah, that's the end of Bob the Daredevil. Little quotables of notables and moments in this episode that you will fall in love with are of course number one falling down the canyon bit. I know it's audio only but it's fantastic. Secondly, is this bit when they're driving from Lisa's recital to track a source? I just love home. I like weaving in traffic and singing. Did you
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reach them? drive defensively? James a bit deep friendships are good
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ways. I also love this. So after Bart's first attempt at a stunt where he gets really badly injured, you hear the kids of the neighborhoods say this. Oh no, we heard bad. Let's get out of here. It's great, right? Alright, let's get into the first discussion. And that's kind of the cultural impact this episode had on The Simpsons as a whole and
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why it keeps popping up in all of our clips show episodes. So Matt graining has said in an interview that this episode was his favorite Simpsons episode, which is why the footage of this episode is most used in series clip shows. So it was featured in the 1993 episode, so it's come to this a Simpsons clip show was referenced in Treehouse of Horror 13th. And it's referenced so much in The Simpsons that there's actually an episode in a later season that I can't remember off the top of my head. But Homer begins to have like a flashback about it. And Lisa interrupts him saying dad ever gotten sick of that memory. The episode was once again referenced in The Simpsons Movie. So there's a scene of course, in The Simpsons Movie where Homer and Bart jumped over Springfield gorge on a motorcycle, they do land on the other side. And you can see the ambulance from this very episode still stuck against the tree. So originally, when they wrote this episode Homas second plunged down the gorge after the ambulance hit the train, he rolled out the back had additional footage of Homer falling down and getting hit in the head with a gurney he was on. Unfortunately, this little clip was considered too violent to show when the episode first aired. So it was replaced with a frozen shot of the kids looking down and the audio of Homer falling.
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Down this missing footage, however, does pop up again in that episode that I was talking about. So it's come to this a Simpsons clips show if you didn't know so clip shows are usually used by long running series as a way to give like the writers a bit of a break. It's kind of considered to be a filler episode and can borderline or a little bit lazy, right. So it's kind of like if you watch those YouTube clips, which is just like, you know, the best of moments. So when this episode was originally written, it was too short to air. So our gene and Mike Reese wrote a filler piece. So this is really interesting, right? This was like a little filler piece that was going to come at the end of the episode, and it was a parody of cartoon shorts from the 1940s
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and it was called Nazis on tap. This is true. Okay. So, in the short amongst other things, you'd have Mr. Burns making plans for the war at his aircraft plant, but spiky hair would be replaced by a Jughead cap, and most is like would be a dog. Hmm. So, yeah, apparently the riders really proud of Nazis on top, and it became like a little passion project behind the scenes. Matt grinning ultimately, who does have the final decision on all episodes, thought that the piece was way too weird and to like niche to be released so early in the series. He did say that he thought that something so offbeat would just confuse the audience. So it was cut audio from Nazis on tap was released online by Samsung storyboard artist John Mayer thought what a name I just realized that mapped out. That was released in 2006. So I did pull up the plot from this little short because I wanted to know what happened in it. So an announcer who's played by Harry Shearer says a now a classic short from The Simpsons archive, first released on October 16 1943. And then kind of like ye old timey music starts playing homer in a 1940s version is in a bar talking to the bartender who is a dog. This is Mo Adolf Hitler sits next to Homer and starts you know, pumping in for information. Then Bob comes along spots Hitler and chases him out of the bar. The final scene is of Franklin Roosevelt, giving Barton homeroom a medal for capturing Hitler. Homer starts chasing another man and FDR says no, no, that's Joseph Stalin, America's best friend. The shot ends with Bart saying catching Hitler was Neato. Next up, Hirohito. I'm Bart Simpson, the wisecracking kid. The end.
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Dad want to be a dad again
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at such stupid things.
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So of course, the character of Lance Murdock was based on Evil Knievel, the American motorcycle Daredevil and entertainer who was really famous in the US and I guess globally, between the late 1960s and early 1980s. A lot of The Simpsons staff had said that they were like absolute fans of Knievel's, so they wanted to create a character as a tribute to him. So homers attempt of jumping over Springfield gorge on a skateboard, of course, is based on evil Knievel's attempted sky cycle X to jump over the Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho, in 1974. So Evil Knievel, of course, was a daredevil who basically got injured in all these exotic ways but continued to be a showman.
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His son has actually spoken to him and said that you can say whatever you want about his father, but his father always stuck to his word. And I found that quite, quite inspiring. He said he would never say that he's going to do something and then not do it. He said that that was the mark of like a strong personality.
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And even though a lot of his stunts, he knew he was going into them, and he was gonna get injured really badly. He still did them because he wanted to stick to his word. I always really loved evil Knievel's name, so his name of birth was actually Robert Craig Knievel. But anyway, we'll go back to his jump of the Snake River Canyon. So this was up until this point, Evel Knievel was having trouble getting paid for what he did. It's very hard to be a showman, especially someone who constantly gets injured because there's a lot of insurance. There's a lot of this, there's a lot of that, for the jump of Snake River Gorge. Rather than using a motorcycle, they decided to build like a, like a little spaceship that would kind of slingshot him over the gorge. So the day of the launch, it was September 8 1974. And the steam that powered the engine was super heated to a temperature of like 500 degrees Fahrenheit, which for normal people is about 260 degrees Celsius, so very hot.
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So the launch went perfectly fine. So he was lifted up. Unfortunately, the parachute kind of like deployed as soon as he left the launchpad and that really slowed it down. So even though Evel Knievel managed to make the jump across the canyon to the North Rim, the parachute and the northwest winds caused it to kind of drift back into the canyon. By the time it hit the bottom of the canyon, it had landed only a few feet away from the water. And it was noted that Knievel has said that if he landed in the water he would have drowned because he was strapped into this little rocket with no way of getting out. So this particular jump he like survived with only minor physical injuries. However, who Evil Knievel is actually in the Guinness World Record books for the most bone fractures. So get this he suffered 433 bone fractures by the end of 1975. And in
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In the winter of 1976, he was seriously injured during a televised attempt to jump a tank full of sharks at the Chicago amphitheater. So for the first time ever this was where the stunt went wrong. And a bystander was also injured and a cameraman lost an eye. So can evil at this jump suffered a brain concussion and two broken arms and decided to retire as a result. The jump of Snake River Canyon actually increased his lifetime earnings by about $6 million. Not bad. Lastly, any Kanye West fans in the house will know that touch the sky The music video was a reference to Evel Knievel.
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So, touch the sky is basically Kanye West dressed up like Evel Knievel making the jump and then failing. So West financed the music video for touch the sky himself after he didn't quite like the first version that Def Jam had paid for. So the production cost for this video was around $1 million. And it is the 25th most expensive music video of all time. In the music video. It's great he's got Pamela Anderson is his girlfriend. She's fantastic lover in this apparently Evel Knievel tried to sue Kanye West saying that he didn't agree to the music video. So Kanye went and met with Evil Knievel just one on one for chat. And it said that the two came to an agreement and no one knows if there was money exchanged or what happened in that discussion. All we know is that Evel Knievel said that Kanye West was an absolute gentleman and one of the most polite people he'd ever met. All right, lastly in this episode, so this is the first episode where we get to meet Dr. hibbott. In the original script for this episode hibbott was going to be a woman named Julia Hubot, who they named after the comedic actress Julia Sweeney here but was actually her last name through marriage at the time. So when the Fox network moved the Simpsons to primetime on Thursdays, they were doing it in an attempt to compete against NBC sees the Cosby Show, The Simpsons staff decided to change the character of Julia Sweeney. They decided to make hibbott a parody of Bill Cosby's character Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Mrs. Simpson Bart tells me he injured himself training for a career in death defying and all that fantastic know we come to the end of another episode of The Simpsons, and our rundown of BART the Daredevil Season Two, episode nine. The next episode we got on the chopping block is a really fun one. This is the one that goes really into like all the legal fun stuff, and gets a little bit Russia money at times, which is exciting. So the next one up is season two episode 10. Bob gets hit by a car and this is where Homer is convinced to file a $1 million lawsuit by a dodgy lawyer after Mr. Burns hits Bart with a car thank you so much for listening guys. I hope you're having a fantastic day, week, month, year whatever it is, I don't know millennia decade, all of it. I hope it's fantastic. My name is Perry and with that concludes our tale. Goodnight and keep watching the skis. Skies, guys
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
