The Simpsons – Marge Be Not Proud (with Guest Xzyliac – Spin-Offs Classic
Holiday season 1995 couldn’t have been hotter for fighting games with Mortal Kombat 3 being the highest selling home console game of the year in the United States (not to mention the achieving diamond status in the arcade according to the American Amusement Machine Association), which made the interest in the series a high enough profile target to be sent up by the Simpsons. Sort of.
In the classic episode “Marge Be Not Proud,” Bart reacts to the combination of aggressive advertising and lack of income by becoming an outright thief, bending the character dynamics of the show in interesting ways that cause his mother to react in a totally new way for the series, finding a new gear for these characters to hit well into their 7th season. While not a direct spin-off of Mortal Kombat, the episode gets into the psychology of being a kid and the desperation that can be caused by extreme FOMO. We’re assisted in the analysis of this episode from game enthusiast and former Destructoid commenter Xzyliac who provides a poignant real world counterpoint to the episode.
This episode originally released July 27th of 2023.
Daniel Sanford
Daniel is a podcast producer and musician who spends way too much time in the edit to make audio sound as good as possible. He’s cutting the “umms” and “uhhhs” and replacing them with cartoon sound effects. His taste in video games is often extremely specific, and he’s recently learned that a lot of his opinions about video games are bad and wrong, but that won’t stop him from having them. His music was featured in Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons. He's been producing podcasts since 2021.
