“As you know, there’s been a lot of talk about divorce lately, and I think your mom might not be happy with me.” – Homer Simpson
“You’ve done a lot of crazy stuff over the years, and she stood by you.  Why would she leave you now?” – Lisa Simpson
“Cause there’s lots of stuff she doesn’t know about.” – Homer Simpson
“You mean like your poker shack out in the swamp?” – Lisa Simpson
“Mmm-Hmm.” – Homer Simpson
“She knows.” – Lisa Simpson

I’ve been listening to a few of these older commentaries and, though I’m sure I’ll be saying this a lot as I do more of these posts, the difference between these and the commentaries on the Season 12 and 13 DVDs is almost as stark as the difference between the episodes themselves.  On Zombie Simpsons there are frequently long silences that are only broken when someone launches into another completely off topic discussion.  They never come close to anything like that for this commentary.  Oh, there are some silences here and there, but they’re broken by laughter and trivia, not rambling digressions. 

Five guys here: Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Steve Tompkins, Steven Dean Moore, and a very quiet Matt Groening.

1:15 – Praise from (I think) Oakley and Weinstein for Steve Tompkins, who wrote this episode and who started dating his wife when both of them were working on The Critic.

3:00 – Talking about how they wanted to build episodes around single ideas in Seasons 7 & 8, here it’s divorce.

3:40 – Wanted to defy the old sit-com convention where they pretend that the main characters are going to get divorced even though you know they aren’t. They “very consciously” wanted to avoid that, so they had the van Houtens be the divorcing couple so they could leave them divorced. In other words, back in Season 8 they didn’t bother with crap like Ned and Marge nervously eyeing one another because they knew it was cheap bullshit and they knew the audience knew it too.

5:30 – There were several designs for Kirk’s terrible drawing of dignity. They wanted it to be completely incomprehensible, which makes it funnier when he underlines it in frustration.

6:30 – They’re really enjoying this episode, recounting Gudger College, cracker companies and other things they made up. It’s such a contrast compared to later commentaries when the conversation frequently wanders off topic and they often feel the need to defend things that clearly suck.

8:00 – They’re having a hard time getting through whole comments because they keep cracking up at stuff in the episode.

9:00 – A lot of stuff about Milhouse dealing with the divorce and Bart’s reaction to it got cut.

9:50 – The glowing fire when Luann sets Kirk’s shirts on fire is a camera effect not an animation.

10:15 – Noting how, when we get to Kirk’s uber-pathetic apartment, there are some great sound effects of a bus going by, a car alarm, and a jackhammer so you know how sad this place is.

11:10 – Laughing about “I don’t recall saying good luck.” and how they quote that all the time.

12:05 – They thought about doing something else in place of the American Gladiators hamster ball, but were glad they left it in. Just as they’re laughing and trying to discuss the animation of the ball, Bart breaks the chair over Homer’s back and they all lose it again. I probably don’t need to keep repeating this, but this is the third or fourth time they’ve had to stop talking because everyone is laughing at something on screen. I can’t recall a single instance of something like that happening in the Season 12 or Season 13 commentaries. On those they often seem bored with the episode, here they couldn’t be more enthusiastic.

13:10 – Starla, KZUG, Kirk’s demo tape, they just can’t stop cracking up.

13:40 – Trivia tidbit: there really was an album called “Can I Borrow a Feelin’?” by a guy named Cody Matherson.  Google image search turns up this:

Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user xadrian.

There’s even a debate on the Snopes message board about whether or not the image and the album are fakes, but according to the commentary it was a real album that they discovered in Nick DiFonzo’s book about the worst album covers ever. The song they wrote is original, but they stole the title.

14:30 – Long discussion about whether they prefer this third act or if they should’ve done more with the kids. Ultimately they like that they were able to include the Simpsons without falling into the previously mentioned sitcom convention of pretending that the main characters are actually going to split.

16:10 – Short mention of the fact that the flashback to Marge and Homer’s wedding used a clip from “I Married Marge” and then built on it by then having Homer buy their wedding cake at a truck stop.

17:05 – Cracking up at Homer’s stupidity in thinking that divorce is inevitable while Marge thinks nothing is wrong.

17:55 – Part of the story that got cut was Bart trying to get Marge and Homer divorced because he was envious of all the toys Milhouse was getting. The original outline was super long, so that never got very far.

19:45 – The original vows were a lot longer as well.

21:00 – Mentioning how in any other show this is where Kirk and Luann would get back together, instead they all crack up at Kirk’s continued patheticness.

22:05 – They were thinking about getting someone to sing “Can I Borrow A Feeling?” over the end credits, Sheryl Crow’s name came up, but they never got around to it. As a finale, they jokingly vow to get her to sing it and end quoting Kirk’s tepid “prob-probably”.