"After O’Brien heard [Robert] Preston’s showstopping song 'Ya Got Trouble' for the first time, it wormed its way into his brain. 'I always wanted to play the Robert Preston part and do the "Trouble" song,' he says. 'I just love the "Trouble" song.' O’Brien’s other fixation was the work of filmmaker Irwin Allen, who produced disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. They all stuck to a specific formula, and they were all entertaining as hell. 'The beginning is always great promise,' O’Brien says. '"We built this wonderful skyscraper!" There’s a lot of talk about the skyscraper, and then there’s always a dire warning: "You should worry about the electrical system and the smoke alarms." Don’t you worry about that! Then, there always comes the moment where all the celebrities are being brought in for the big grand opening.' Then, it all goes to shit. 'Somehow, all those things are swimming around in my head,' O’Brien says. It just took a space-age train to bring them together. 'It unfolds really naturally because once you have the idea of a Music Man selling you a monorail, you know Homer’s for it, the town’s for it. … Well, who’s going to be against it? It’s either Marge or Lisa, because they’re sensible. For me, it was Marge. She’ll be the voice of reason who senses this isn’t wise. The first part is Music Man. The second act is an Irwin Allen disaster movie.'"
I got there via Metafilter, where DigDoug comments to point to this:Posting for the Metafilter thread about the Simpsons Monorail episode. I’m kind of a fan. pic.twitter.com/HOcaeuZyrl
— DigDoug (@DigDoug) January 19, 2023
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Now NYC, DC, and other cities are heading into the second part of that story with their subway systems. COVID and remote work made them obsolete white elephants.
Brutal data on subway usage and looming budgetary disaster: https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/nyc-subway-turnstiles/
"Monorail, Monorail, Monorail!"
Democrat pied pipers almost sold a high speed rail to liberals in Wisconsin. Like we need a billion dollar train to cover the hour and fifteen minute rid west on I-94 from Milwaukee to Madison.
Luckily Scott Walker was sensible like Lisa Simpson. So were his supporters.
But despite that, here in WI we've still got trouble. Hopefully we don't turn into IL or MN, but we're close. They're buying the marching band and the monorail and it's all going up in flames like a towering inferno.
The Omaha mayor and The Powers That Be want a $360m street car system. Warren Buffett weighed in against it. "Mistakes cast in concrete."
Writing the script for that single Simpson's episode retroactively absolves Conan for all the years of garbage celebrity-worship and un-funny material that he pumped out through his show. Not only does that episode contain all the great tidbits mentioned above, but it contains the single best line in Simpsons history "Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?"
California is North Haverbrook.
We....ll, I sure liked Robert Preston's singing too.
But Shelly Winters swimming in Posieden Adventure, long past her prime.
Ya got trouble my friends.
Not just subway systems, the Minneapolis light rail is a dumpster fire on wheels.
So they decided to build still more, the cost more than doubled and it's a decade overdue. So far.
��What about us brain-dead slobs?��
��You’ll be given cushy jobs!��
Also from Brookline, I wonder how much Mike Dukakis' vaunted riding of the "T" while governor influenced Conan's inspiration?
The best Simpsons Episode is Season 1 Episode 1. The monorail is a top one though…
"Insane earworms for $1000, Alex"
One day I'll be beaten to death with pool cues in a biker bar for singing...
With a capitol T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!
TIL Conan is from Boston.
The great Phil Hartman nails this episode: "Sorry Ma'am, the moon has spoken!"
I also have a great idea for a hybrid tv show. Mine is a combo Love Boat and Titanic. It's tentatively titled Lusitania. Here's the hook: every week a different guest star drowns in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. I suppose every so often you have to let someone get to the lifeboat to maintain suspense, but most of them drown. Who wouldn't want to watch Madonna or Jane Fonda going under. I'm thinking of a scene where Fonda tries to wrestle some annoying Disney star out of the lifeboat but instead she slips and drowns. Or maybe Alec Baldwin gives up his seat for Meryl Streep, but she declines the offer because she just too noble. All sorts of plot lines are available.... There's so many people in Hollywood that so many people want to see drown that the the show would sure to be a big hit.
I also have a great idea for a hybrid tv show. Mine is a combo Love Boat and Titanic. It's tentatively titled Lusitania. Here's the hook: every week a different guest star drowns in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. I suppose every so often you have to let someone get to the lifeboat to maintain suspense, but most of them drown. Who wouldn't want to watch Madonna or Jane Fonda going under. I'm thinking of a scene where Fonda tries to wrestle some annoying Disney star out of the lifeboat but instead she slips and drowns. Or maybe Alec Baldwin gives up his seat for Meryl Streep, but she declines the offer because she just too noble. All sorts of plot lines are available.... There's so many people in Hollywood that so many people want to see drown that the the show would sure to be a big hit.
In the 9th grade, I was appointed to the statewide Model Congress as a conservative senator -- randomly assigned, I was told. In that role, I was locked in conflict with a randomly assigned female liberal senator whose pet porkbarrel was a monorail linking Washington and New York.
Being in character, both real and fictitious, combatively conservative, Senator Quaestor was agin' it, the national treasure ought not to be spent for the benefit of the few, and on technical grounds. Too bad for my losing cause both The Simpsons and Conan O'Brien were undreamt of then. I learned at an early age that profligacy is an alien concept to the liberal mind, along with mechanical engineering, the economics of scarcity, and the laws of physics.
Whether "Marge vs. the Monorail" is one of the best sitcom episodes of all time, I'm doubtful. It starts out as a perfect homage to O'Brien's favorite piece of musical theatre, though the climax degrades into the typical Simpson family crisis entirely blamable on Homer. Homer costumed in a sci-fi train driver's outfit complete with cape and gauntlets in a nice touch, along with the dramatic nonsequitur of Leonard Nemoy's appearance, but the smooth-talking Harold Hill huckster just moves on to Parts Unknown, Indiana without an opportunity to further cajole and inveigle the Springfield rubery, not to mention the absurdity of a runaway monorail, which is about as creditable as a runaway dung cart pulled by a team of Russian serfs.
Blogger Patrick said...
The great Phil Hartman nails this episode: "Sorry Ma'am, the moon has spoken!"
1/19/23, 3:29 PM
I hope this was autocorrect.
After O’Brien heard [Robert] Preston’s showstopping song 'Ya Got Trouble' for the first time, it wormed its way into his brain. 'I always wanted to play the Robert Preston part and do the "Trouble" song,' he says. 'I just love the "Trouble" song
Hear it again for yourself -- there's no substitute for talent. And if you like that here's The Sadder But Wiser Girl For Me -- I hope, and I pray, for Hester to win just one more "A"
"Sorry Ma'am, the moon has spoken!"
Huh?
I think that's "mob" and Yeardley Smith doing the nailing.
The tragically cut short Phil Hartman did Lyle Langley, he of the Shelbyville Idea.
However, "the Moon has spoken" does have a certain oracular finality to it. All things considered, we'd do better with a college of priests inspecting the entrails of sacrificial victims than Gavin Newsom (or any Democrat) with a mountain of bonds to spend.
I have lost count of the number of times I have used the moniker "Lyle Lanley" to mock various progressive infrastructure projects. That episode is absolute classic.
And I also was a childhood fan of Irwin Allen movies- I will still, when I come across it channel surfing, stop to watch "The Poseidon Adventure". My parents took me with them when they went to see in a theater, and it is one of the earlier movie memories I have- I thought it was awesome.
Mono-D'oh!
Yeah, it was the mob, not the moon. And if it wasn't Phil Hartman who had that line, he still made that and every Simpsons episode he was in better.
The earliest childhood memory I have of seeing a movie is of seeing that great children's classic: "What's the Matter with Helen?" More like, what the hell were my parents thinking?
"Alec Baldwin gives up his seat for Meryl Streep"
C'mon, the plot needs to be somewhat believable.
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