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Earth Day Special 2025: Simpsonrama! Trash of the Titans and A Big Piece of Garbage

Happy earth day all you happy people! It's a day to remember our fragile our planet is, how much we need to fight for it and for me it's a now yearly occasion to review media with an environmental message.

Last year we did a big ole special where I looked at how you shouldn't pollute the water land or sea or else Ted Turner will fucking kill you, that OK KO still does crossovers like no one else, that even a large effort to do a small thing is worth it and that while children should be aware of the environment we should be careful to not terrify them into nearly killing themselves into it. I also tried finding someone to ship with this dog. WHy I did this here I do not know but look at her

She can deadlift a grown man, come on people. This shouldn't be this hard.

Anyways for this year as you can tell by the title i'm looking at two classic episodes from two classic shows. I forgot to see if Disenchantment had any to complete the trinity.

Still we've got a stacked lineup with a theme: Garbage. I certainly let it pile up and with enviromental regulations getting worse in a lot of places, makind's callous dumping of it's refuse is not going away. What these episodes spotlight well is that most enviormental disaster is throughly due to human lazieness, callousness and short sighteness. That not thinking about tommorow.. screws us sooner than we'd admit. They also have tenure, homer getting beat up to U2, Cage Rattling, crossovers and a doodle of the professor dressed as a cowboy. So without further delay let's look at these two fine episodes to learn some more about the sorry state of humanity in a fun way.

Trash of the Titans (The Simpsons, Season 9, Episode 22)

Trash of the Titans is an episode I fondly rememebered from my childhood for the gag above and for homer cloroforiming people randomly and jamming with the who. But with the episodes shoddy reputation I was curious if it held up.

Turns out.. it did. Also turns out my brain mushed it together with later episode a Tale of Two Springfields, the actual episode with the bad rep and rampant chloroformings. May talk about that one someday, don't know.

For today though we're talking about this underated gem. I was blown away with how wonderfully joke dense this episode is, even more when looking up the episode's writer. Ian Maxtone-Grahm has written some fantastic episodes: The Seemingly Never Ending Story and the Blunder Years.. and some of the series most infamous episodes. The Maude Killing Alone Again Natura-Diddly, plastic surgery romp "Large Marge' and the utterly baffling a Scorpions Tale which can be best summed up visually

So it's a suprise that this episode... is amazing. Every joke lands, and the episode runs smoothly. It also pulls off something few episodes of it's era could do: a fantastic Jerkass Homer Story.

For those less familiar with this discourse: While homer simpson was always a bit of an asshole

But episodes in the teen years had him forcing his children to cut lemons for him, leaving his father to die after making his kidney's explode, being ultimately responsible for the death of Maude Flanders, renting out Lisa's room without her consent and the only classic of the bunch

The thing his homer being an ass, as shown by all of these, macing included, is to either have homer learn a lesson or make it funny, which most jerkass homer material failed to do.

Trash of the Titans does homer as a hilarious spiteful dumbass perfectly. He's a stupid rageful idiot whose too out of touch with reality to be reasoned with and is destroying a working institution out of petty spite. A promising start for a politican. I mean then he was just running for sanitation comissioner but now he could be president, governor or outsmarted by an 8 year old at the democractic convention. The possiblities are truly endless.

Homer here isn't SUPPOSED to be likeable: the conflict starts because he refuses to take the trash out, as last one to fill it does it and he lets it build till he accidently knocks it over. I don't like taking out the trash either and can relate to his attitude while doing so

But I get it's just something you have to do and i'ts entirely his fault. Well his and the corprate overlords who created new holiday love day. I love all the love day jokes: homer's petty petulance at not getting the right bear, the execs dragging out the one guy who says they have enough money and the name being a placeholder they just.. went with, cutting rom an exec saying 'Something like love day but better" to Marge loudly proclaiming happy love day.

Homer further compounds thing when the trash truck drives away..and he insults them. And while they DO beat him up rathe than explaning things he just tried to meekly backpedal instead of apologizing.

That's what keeps fucking homer up here and in a time when america's only doubling down more, it's made the episode age perfectly. Homer just WILL not accept responsiblity for his actions and instead lets the trash pile up refusing to think about anyone else. Flanders suffers with the trash flood, though we at least get Rod's most iconic moment out of it so it's not all bad teddy

I'm not one for a grossout gag.. but damn if this isn't funny. I forgot that was this episode. just.. perfect every part of it.

Marge get's attacked by the lady who lives in their garbage ("That's not the way SHE tells it") and Bart gets black plauge ("It's like the measles, good to get it out of the way"), forcing marge to forge Homer's signature, only revealing such when Homer gloats about winning. And since it isn't something frivolous like a will, Homer goes to confront the comissioner

The Comissioner is Ray Patterson, played by comedy legend Steve Martin. Martin is the master of the deadpan so pairing him up with homer as Patterson gets further exasperated with homer's weird shit and belief that patterson is some crusty nemisis when the man is calmly giving the letter back and entirely cordial. A specially stupid, arrogant and hate filled homer needs a nice calm counter and when marge can't do it, Ray is a perfect foil, leading to the fantastic bird cage scene. Martin and Castelneta have great chemistry and every scene with the two, which is sadly only three, is fantastic.

So homer decides to run for Sanitation commissioner. Problem is he has no platform and ray actually does his job well so he can't convince his co workers. So he decides to rock the vote!

This leads to a wonderful set piece and one of the best uses of a real life guest star i've seen, the band U2. Now i'm not a U2 fan. Just can't quite get into their music, nothing personal, don't seem like bad guys.. but damn do they bring it here. Their used just enough and the concert set piece leads to a ton of great gags. Homer getting backstage by just carrying a sack of potatoes and saying "potato man" in an irish accent ("Finally where've you been?"), hyjacking the monitors, then only not getting carried away because Bono finds Sanitation Comission elections vital, taking a nice bit of piss out of himself for his enviromentalist nature. We also get this bit when Edge and.. uh another guy plan to go out for drinks

And of course Homer beefing it by trying to sound hip, dancing awkwardly and getting carried off leading to comedy gold. The actual song plays over it, it's awesome

Homer's Campaign is pretty much fucked until he goes to , oh let's say moe.. because it is Moe. Moe is exactly as good at campaign staregy as he looks

Taknig Homer's offhand "Can't someone else do it" as a useful slogan and pointing out all homer has to do is just.. be a jackass to his opponent. It's not a guarnateed win but as we've seen in politics petty insults DO work.

So Homer goes on the offensive, claming ray drinks, cutting his breaks so he gets to the debate late, claming he's too old despite only being two years older.. which let's be fair, steve martin , who patterson is modeled off has always had silver hair that makes his age pretty much impossible to determine. He's always looked like he's on the later side of middle age even as a 20 something or currently at (googles) 79?! god damn.

So Patterson asks what voters want: actual comptience or impossible to maintain promises and jackassery. Yeah this episode has aged INCREDIBLY well: it was slightly farcial back then.. nomw ti's just.. the world we live in and entirely on point for how fucked it is. Patterson works even better as a character because he just wants to know what everyone's huffing. How is homer fucking simpson the better option to everyone?

Homer shockingly DOES keep his promises of full service, shiny uniforms and a full on musical number, a parody of the candyman, cleaning everyone's trash, cleaning up after them and generally being the best. It's a good idea.. but finacially a disaster as homer runs through FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in a month.

So to avoid being horsewhipped out of office, Homer does the homer thing: get lazy and shady real fast. Which given we started with him yelling at garbage men and shaking a bird, isn about a two second brisk walk to get a suitcase full of money in exchange for pumping other cities garbage into town. I know a lot of this review is just pointing out good gags.. and that's because this episode is pure excuse plot. The whole comission race and homer's stupidity is just an excuse for jokes.

There have been MANY a good simpsons episodes from past to present with detailed character journeys and great plots, some that twist the entire show on ti's head like the recent Bart's Birthday. And some like this one.. are just an excuse to make as many gags as possible. This is on the same page as say "Last Exit to Springfield". It's not as good as that one, but few episodes of television are. The fact this one approaches that level of quality says a lot. It dosen't have quite as many standout jokes, but it has more than enough, like everyone speculating on how homer got the money

It's just so wonderfully dense with good humor.

This leads to our climax.. the town starts explodign with garbage and after homer is both removed from his position and horsewhipped, Ray is returned and enters to the sanford and son theme, tells the town fuck you you brought this on yourselves and leaves to the sandford and sun theme. it's a fantastic gag, and delightfully random. It' spart of it's charm. And findign out it's a refrence.. dosen't make it any less uniquely weird; Red Foxx, star of Sanford and Son entered a show to his theme music, found almost no one is there and just.. booked it to the same music. It's such a gloriously shitty thing to do and such an oddly specific pull that still works without that context.

So we get our ending which is the only part of the episode I don't like. They just.. move the town five yards. THere's a few good jokes, Homer deciding to go to moes which is right behind them thanks to the move and a play on the crying native american on the side of the road.. whose friend tells him not to look behind him at the ruins of springfield.

Trash of the Titans.. is truly excellent. It has fun satire about how horrible politics is tha'ts more true than ever, but it's mostly dedicated to just cramming a ton of great jokes in, using Steve martin well but not overdoing it, and making a shocking good use of it's musical guests. Celebrites who aren't already comedians or actors can be a crapshoot on the simpsons: some don't really know what to do, but U2 did and Bono clearly knew how to play into this world well. I highly recommend this one if you haven't seen it before, criminally underrated.

A Big Piece of Garbage (Futurama, Season 1, Episode 8)

Unlike Trash of the Titans , A Big Piece of Garbage is a foundational episode of futurama. It's the first apperance of

Along with my good friend Morbo, his co host linda, and Mayor Poopenmeyer. It's also the first of many plots that affect the whole of the earth. It's still centered on New New York, but big plots with consequences for the whole planet became more and more the norm as the series went on. They aren't every episode , as it'd loose effect, but their still more common than the delivery of the week episodes that make up the bulk of season 1 and this episode is the blueprint.

This episode comes to us from Lewis Morton, who has some true classics in his credits: Fry and the Slurm Factory, the Late Phillip J Fry, the human bender segment for Anthology of Interest and Raging Bender. The first two in paticular are easy candiates for a best of episode list.

A Big Piece of Garbage was suprising on this rewatch in that while I still LIKE the episode, it was one of my faviorites of the season and one I always loved when it came on Adult Swim as a tween and teen, it's a lot more sluggish than I remember.

See I forget a lot that season one of Futurama, like most season 1's feels diffrent. Simpsons had a bunch of characters we'd never see again and a vastly diffrent homer voice, The Great North tried pushing Allison more, and Bobs Burgers was a bit meaner. It's all on the road to building a better show and even ones who know what they are still have room to grow and change.

In this case Futurama was a bit smaller in scale. It was still a planet hopping sci fi, but it mostly focused on the delivery aspect. Half of the broadcast order season 1 (Production order is complicated for this series), are delivery stories. They do go off in thier own directoins, but all start with planet express and the delivery still plays a major plot role. The four episodes at the end of the first production season (and the only time I disagree on using the production seasons as flight to remember really feels like the season 2 premire more than I second that emotion), on the other hand, are just fun sci fi shenanigans. Mars University uses a delivery for the setup and Flight to Remember has the gang back from a horrible delivery they almost quit over.. but with both you could remove the delivery aspect easily without changing the plot. It becomes what the show really is: an excuse to do fun sci fi concepts, worldbuilding and character jokes.

The character is also a large reason why this season feels slightly off: Professor Farnsworth is largely there, with him not having the crew go to ebola 9 as he "wants them all alive", but he's more restrained: he dosen't have his later anger aside from WERNSTROM, and thus his plans for a science symposim he takes the crew to are just to "put those young whippersnapers in their place". His absentmindneess is played up way more with him forgetting he already used his new invetnion the death clock last year... twice. I admit while parts of this episode weren't as funny as I remember, the professor thinkin g"Maybe some sort of death clock" still gets me every time.

This opening set piece.. just dosen't work for me and i'm not sure it ever did. Later future set pieces pack in plenty of great little gags on the sides, from sight gags to quick one off jokes

The gala here just... hammers on the same jokes: those in attendence are all old, yet the ones besides farnsworth are treated as old whippersnappers. GET IT, GET IT, GET IT... it's just.. boring especially given Futurama does do better age jokes as the series goes on.

The professor's actual presentation, which I used as to represent this episode, is gold. The coffe ground, the bumbling delivery and of course "a doodle of me dressed as a cowboy. "

The plot just kidna. .meanders. The professor buitl the smell o scope already. We do get a great joke with Uranus being renamed to end that joke.. to Urectum. A joker I never got as a kid but as an adult.. another gag that just never fails to get a smile out of me. Billy West's delivery of "Urectum" is just so perfectly deadpan.

Our heroes soon smell a smelly smell that smells smelly, a giant garbage meteor. The concept is inspried: New York sent all it's trash off on a barge in the early 21st century, couldn't get any other country to take it so they shot it up into space. It's fun as hell, nicely high concept.. but also good satire without beating people over the head. The episode has a nice theme about how humanity often solves problems.. by quickly taping over them and hoping they won't live to see the consequences of their actions. Instead of finding an efficent way to recycle or anything else Old New York just shot trash into space and given how things are going, I woudlnn't be shocked if some smarmy billionare tried it today.

To save the earth though our heroes have to get past the foe of all selfless endevours: petty spite. Specifically wernstrom is the mayor's science advisor... and h'es easily passed by as they get a message from neptune. This episodes pacing is just.. not great? There's not a lot of time to build up the urgency and most of the jokes , with a few great exceptions are loaded into the back half of act 2 here and act 3. My fond impression in hindsight mostly comes from that second half of the episode.

It is a good half thougH: our heroes are sent to blow up the garbage ball and we get the god tier simpsons refrence we opened with. IT's also a bit of a continuity gafe nowawayds as bender.. is fully simpsons canon. He lived with them for an episode and currently sits in their basement, for the third time in his life (not counting all the paradox clones), taking the slow path to the future. I also love that they did that, that's a runner in simpsons that Bender's just.. in the simpson basement now, and that in futurama bender just.. constantly gets stranded in the past and takes the easy way home.

They DO get a good "the professor's slipping with age" gag as while most of his "he's senile get it gags' dont' work (not helped that senility isnt all that funny to me after knowing someone who had alhimzers), him accidently making the timer way too short because he read the directions upside down kills me. As does fry nearly choking on a six pack ring.

With the armageddon plan failed the Mayor turns to wernstrom for the best bit of the episode, requesting tenure and grad students.. then leaving because "i'm set for life". As for why he's not arrested..

The solution is clever though, true classic futurama. While the earlier episodes have a different feel they still have the series ingenuity, In this case fry of all people has a valid plan. I mean he wasn't at his dumbest yet.

But still isn't bright enough that this isn't a suprise. It' ssomething Il ike about fry: even when he becomes really dumb as the series goes on. .he can still be clever on his feet.

His solution: make another garbage ball, something more difficult than it sounds as it's established everything's recycled in the future. Him just casually makign everything garbage including "this photo of your wife" I also love bender's face when after he smashes a bottle the Mayor demands his assitant to "Get this robot more beer!

Perfect facial animation here. John DiMaggio sadly dosen't get a ton to do but the animators give bender a LOT this episode.

The final scene is , like the U2 scene in the other episode this special just.. one great gag after another after another. From wernstrom hoping he's right only to realize if he is then he's gonna die, to the professor counting the same numbers over again, to fry missing the button, cumilating in a great heartbeat gag i'd replicate if I could you just gotta see it. If you have you know and the earth being saved. And I love the ending: Leela questions won't the new garbage ball just come back.. but Fry brushes it off as the future's problem. Once again humanity saves itself.. only to dick itself down the line.

A Big Piece of Garbage is okay. Not as good as I remember but it not only has a lot of important setup for the series, Farnsworth's rivarly with WERNSTROM, the debut of Morbo (Which isn't super funny but it gives us morbo and that's enough), and the first disaster plot. It's a step towards what the show would be. It's not as strong as other season 1 episodes as it lacks the emotional components of "A Fish Full of Dollars" and "My Three Suns" , isn't as consiently jokey as say loves labours lost in space and dosen't combine the two like "The Series has Landed. " Granted that episode casts a large shadow as despite being the second it not only helps with more setup, but is character rich and joke dense. I mean an episode that has this

Is hard to beat. All in all a solid duo. So give a larbage, thorow out your garbage and thanks for reading.

#earth day #the simpsons #futurama #homer simpson #marge simpson #phillip j fry #professor farnsworth #bender bending rodriguez #wernstrom #animation #fox #steve martin #a big piece of garbage #trash of the titans