Name: Learn English with THE SIMPSONS
Uploaded: 2026-03-17T17:06:22.000Z
Duration: 24 min 15 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Do you want me to sing your birthday song, or do you want me to shoot Sideshow Bob out of a cannon?

I know we haven't had much luck shooting you out of this cannon, but

maybe that's because we haven't used enough gunpowder.

Today we're learning English with the Simpsons.

Now, if you're a fan of the show, then you might know that Bart has a nemesis named Sideshow Bob.

Now, to know why Sideshow Bob is Bart's enemy, we have to go all the way back to season one of the show, which we're gonna do today.

And this is also going to be a great opportunity for you to pick up a bunch of advanced legal and police vocabulary in English.

And if you're new here, every single week we make fun lessons with your favorite series, movies and more to help you finally understand fast speaking natives without getting lost, without missing the jokes and without subtitles.

So join over 10 million English learners from around the world who are doing exactly that by hitting the subscribe button and the bell down below.

And that way you won't miss a single new lesson.

Now let's jump into this hilarious lesson with the world's favorite yellow family.

The reason I look unhappy is that tonight I have to see a slideshow starring my wife's sisters.

I do work in a convenience store, you know.

The opportunity to prove yourself a hero is long gone.

So, as we can see in this first scene, Krusty the Clown, a children's TV personality, apparently robbed this supermarket.

And Homer is a crucial witness to the crime.

A witness is someone who observes a crime and helps in the prosecution of the criminal or the formal legal process of determining whether they are guilty of the crime.

Later in the lesson, we'll see what happens to Krusty.

But first, let's learn the most valuable vocabulary and pronunciation.

So, first off, what does this character's name mean?

On his TV show In a Circus, a sideshow is a smaller act next to the main event.

Someone Krusty could literally shoot out of a cannon to make the audience laugh.

A cannon is this big tube shaped weapon that shoots out heavy objects.

So Krusty stuck Bob inside and fired him into the air.

By the way, can you catch the connected speech in this phrase?

Connected speech is how natives reduce, cut and link their words together in fast speech.

Or do you want me to shoot Sideshow Bob out of a cannon?

The T sound stands between two vowels and so it turns into an American T or soft D D.

Then the A reduces to a schwa sound and links to.

So when we put it all together, we get out of a.

The children seem pleased and we hear Bart's reaction.

To be doomed means that something bad is definitely going to happen and there's no way to escape it.

Gunpowder is a material that creates explosions.

To do the honors is a fancy way of asking someone to take action or start something.

In this case, Krusty is telling Britney to light the cannon and launch Bob into the air.

Now let's move on to the next part of the episode with the robbery at the Kwik E Mart.

So Homer does not seem to have a very healthy relationship with his sisters in law, does he?

Which is a funny but insulting way to say that two people a twosome are unpleasant or scary gruesome.

The reason I look unhappy is that tonight I have to see a slideshow.

In the phrase I have to see, we have the H sound drop and to is reduced to a T.

Here the r sound from or links to as ors and then the z sound connects to the following vowel ez.

We often drop the first sound in pronouns like him, im, her, and them.

Then the l sound connects to the rest of the word call em or as I call em.

Now practice your speaking by listening and repeating.