Talking Simpsons - Fraudcast News
Added 2025-10-15 04:00:03 +0000 UTC"I can't be held responsible for what my goons were ordered to do!" - Charles Montgomery Burns
After yet another brush with death, Mr. Burns realizes the people of Springfield would rather dance on his grave than celebrate his legacy. But instead of committing various good deeds to restore his reputation, he buys every media outlet in town, except for one holdout: Lisa Simpson's Red Dress Press. As his grip on the fourth estate grows even tighter, we find out if ponies, power outages, and even Milhouse-based misinformation will get Lisa to fold.
Comments
Henry, wasn’t there a grey goo bomb in the Xmen issue that was the big debut of Maggot? Remember perennial fan favorite Maggot?! Please regale Bob with an explanation of Maggot and his powers!
Ben
2025-10-19 19:56:03 +0000 UTCInteresting that this season finale and Natural Born Kissers the finale of Season 8 both took place during Homer and Marge's anniversary. But funnily enough, my Life Partner, the Queen of the Harpies herself and I got a sneak peak of this episode back in March of 2004. My boss at the time treated the two of to a special live Simpsons roundtable event that included Al Jean, Yeardly Smith and shockingly, Mr grumpy pants himself, Harry Shearer. Near the end Yeardly and Harry did a live reading of the scene in Burns' office. Seeing Yeardly act out Lisa's reaction to the blood ponies was just epic. To show how thankfull I was to my boss, who was really nice in so many ways, I quit a month later. I felt really really guilty about that, especially since the job I left her for turned out to be soul crushing mixed with a crappy commute.
Stephen C. Nedell
2025-10-17 23:06:03 +0000 UTCIts funny that if the Simpsons ended right here, the last shot would be of a sweet sleepy Mr Burns being carried by Smithers. A little beautiful.
Dylan Sludge
2025-10-15 20:38:44 +0000 UTCTo break up a long comment, I also wanted to share that during this period in time I was the program director for my campus radio station. I was very aware of the consolidation that was taking place as a result which was like a feather in the cap for our brand. We had a very small reach, but were nonprofit and completely independent. DJs weren't allowed to editorialize on the air when reading the news which all came from the Associated Press newswire. All of the expenses for the station were essentially tied to the broadcast license and subscriptions to things like the Associated Press as well as equipment maintenance. We used the short-lived mini disc format to record and playback public service announcements and promos and I don't know how many players we cycled through, but those damn things were costly. By the time I was leaving, we were transitioning to more digital assets. We added a livestream and instituted automation for when no one was around. Previously, we literally shut down for gaps in the schedule and overnight and pivoting to automation to fill such gaps was somewhat controversial among those involved with the station. I visited that station maybe 8 years ago and it's basically now all digital and the massive collection of CDs and vinyl has been curated. They still have student and community member DJs which is cool and proof that the automation implemented while I was there wasn't part of some massive plan to do away with live DJs.
Joe Hodgson
2025-10-15 19:07:07 +0000 UTCAs someone who grew up in New Hampshire, I can recall the day the old man on the mountain came down. I was in college and was surprised to see many "Away" messages on AOL Instant Messenger from my peers reflect upon it with sadness. I was pretty shocked by the response as I personally could not care less about the thing and had no idea it resonated with my age group. I had driven by it many times and never saw the appeal. The thing had been held together by cables and such and was barely hanging on as-is. Today, if you pass through Franconia Notch you will still find signs for the "Old Man Viewing Area" even though there isn't much to look at. It's funny that the Super7 figures came up during this podcast because I found it weird that their Burns figure came with the issue of Burns Weekly from this episode as one of the accessories. It feels like an obscure pull or someone at the company was determined to take something from a later season. Personally, I would have gone with Will There Ever Be a Rainbow? The quality of that line was certainly dubious as the Devil Flanders figure literally falls apart when handled. Super7 is basically a punching bag in the toy collector world these days and even other companies clown on them for their poor quality, frequent delays, and high prices. Though I'm in agreement with Henry that those Troy McClure figures were pretty damn fun and are probably the highlight of Super7's time with the license.
Joe Hodgson
2025-10-15 18:59:12 +0000 UTC
