Simpsons suck now!

[AndyC]

Agreed, I liked the Playdude episode. Lots of good gags in that one, and having read a few old 70s skin books as an adolescent, it was bang on. The James Caan cameo was great too. But then the episode that followed, with Nelson's dad, looked as if it was hastily cobbled together out of spare parts.

As for the Halloween episode, those haven't been good for years. In the early seasons, you could usually count on the Halloween episode to be one of the year's best, because there were even fewer limits on the story than usual, and they could do some really crazy stuff (for the Simpsons, that's saying a lot). But probably the last half dozen Halloween episodes have ranged from mediocre to crap. Really disappointing.



Post Edited (11-23-04 07:38)

[Ddubya]

The reason the show has taken such a nose dive is the writing. Have you ever heard of Dana Gould? Take a look at some of his work. And now they're letting Dan Castellaneta write? Why? Why?

I'm pretty sure that there are good young writers in Hollywood who just can't get work because they're not Harvard grads. Otherwise, there's just no talent out there. And I'm not naive enough to believe that.

What they've done to the show is criminal and I've lost a ton of respect for Groening and his staff. The way they've tanked these characters is just unreal. The only thing I can think to do is to start writing episodes and mailing them in. They won't get read, but it's the only hope we have of getting the first decent season in 10 years.

[Dave Munger]

That is a good idea man, let's do it! I mean all of us badmovies people, collaboratively.

[Gecko Brothers]

They are  going to cancel Grounded for Life. Since Simpsons jumped the shark it is now a bad show.

[Gecko Brothers]

Yes it was

[saintmort]

I always loved the one Halloween episode with the random angry Lepricun(sp?) at the end that just yelled random irish gibberish, but that one was of the only recent ones I really liked.

[Gecko Brothers]

That one was okay. I liked the 2001 spoof.

[JohnL]

>There is a much more serious problem that's not getting enough attention: Funny
>parts are being edited out of the re-runs!!!!!!!

They do that with quite a few shows, so that they can cram in an extra 5 seconds of commercial time.

[George]

I have two Treehouse of Horror that I love....

1.  Homer and the Time Travelliing Toaster....NO DOUGHNUTS!!!

2.  All of the kids are being made into food at the school....."please to have more of the sloppy Jimbo.....tomorrow we are serving Uder-bratten.

Ha, ha, ha......gotta love em.

[AndyC]

Those were from the same year, which also had The Shinning. That was one of the best Halloween specials they've done. I especially enjoyed the running gag of Willy getting axed every time he comes to the rescue, a la Scatman Crothers.

I also liked the Night Gallery episode, with Flanders as the devil, the gremlin on the bus, and Bart Simpson's Dracula. The one with King Homer and the talking Krusty doll was pretty good too. The second special, with the nightmares about the monkey's paw, omnipotent Bart, and Burns' robot, was another outstanding one.

Interesting that all the best Halloween specials were from the first five they did. The next few were hit and miss, with maybe one good segment out of three, or even one or two really good gags. I got a kick out of Citizen Kang (Clin-ton and Bobdole), which must have been eight years ago, and the Y2K bit was funny even if it didn't take advantage of the wealth of Maximum Overdrive references that were possible. The last few have been disappointing all around. Funny, when you actually look back on all of them, it's been about ten years since the Simpsons have done a great Halloween episode.

One of the problems, besides the poor writing in general, is that they've largely gotten away from the horror, and are making Halloween episodes of three off-the-wall stories that don't always have much to do with Halloween.



Post Edited (11-23-04 12:52)

[odinn7]

The Halloween episode with Mr. Burns as Dracula was hilarious. My favorite part of that was when they first met him in the house and the shadow that he cast on the wall was doing various things, including playing with a yo-yo. They certainly have gone down hill. I haven't watched that show on a regular basis for about 3 years now.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I think the Simpsons used to be great but it's been in decline for a while now. I mean now when I hear the phrase "The Simpsons are going to..." I just change the channel. Really, I think the problem is that the original spirit of the show - a playful undermining and mockery of society.

Now it's just more episodes for the sake of more money - the show is almost painful to watch though, it's so dull and listless. It's a shame really but it's just difficult to maintain a high quality indefinitely. I mean, yes there aren't a finite number of good shows but even the best TV shows have to finish sometime and as innumerable (Buffy, Frasier, Simpsons, X-Files, Angel (although that got better), ER, Cheers) different programmes demonstrate, sure you can run 5-6+ seasons but eventually, you're going to run out of ideas - which I suppose in and of itself surprising really. The show Sliders literally had infinite potential, the X-files did too. Buffy and Angel certainly had a lot of scope but got too caught up in their own incessant soap opera. Yet they all fail eventually.

I remember when I first saw Family Guy, I thouhgt that it was good but that it was perhaps too deriative of the Simpsons (I mean, there are some things that seem to be copied directly, example Homer the Moe and "Doin' Toad" both involve the protagonist smashing a jukebox while imitating the Fonz and then bleeding a lot) but now I realise that Family Guy in fact does the Simpsons better than the Simpsons.

[AndyC]

Right now, the Simpsons is coasting on the momentum it built up in its early seasons, when it was fresh, new, clever and still had an edge. Back when each episode seemed to be carefully crafted with layer upon layer of humour. The first season is hard to watch, but the show hit its stride fairly quickly and got steadily better for the first few years, as Springfield and its residents became a more complex community.

Looking back, the decline probably started long before anybody noticed it. I'd say the show probably peaked around the fifth or sixth season, and the quality and number of really outstanding episodes started to drop off. The Halloween specials are probably a good indicator. There was still some way to go before it started to get noticeably bad a few years ago. The Simpsons might still be funny to the less discriminating viewer, but the great satire and intelligent humour that made us fans is long gone.

It's lasted as long as it has on sheer momentum and fan loyalty. Like Happy Days and other shows that lasted years longer than they should have, it got too popular, too big to die quickly. It has other advantages. The fact that the characters never age, and voice work is less of a commitment for the actors than live action, has kept the cast intact. The constant rerunning of the good early episodes has probably done much to keep fans hungry for new Simpsons, although it also makes the lowered standards more apparent. It could even be generating new fans. I imagine there is a steady stream of kids who weren't even born when the show started, who are discovering the superior reruns, or at least becoming old enough to appreciate them. Of course, you can only watch them so many times.

The way things are going, the last of the die-hard Simpsons fans are going to get sick of it pretty soon. Hard to say what kind of a future it will have after its cancelled. Classic shows of the past have lasted decades in reruns, but the Simpsons have been largely burnt out while the show is still in production.



Post Edited (11-24-04 07:56)

[Vermin Boy]

I think it jumped the shark around when South Park came out. Suddenly, the writers got it into their heads that people wanted outrageousness, and started writing wackier and wackier plots. The problem, which has become more obvious since the shock of South Park wore off, is that that show couched its wackiness in sharp satire, like the Simpsons used to before it went off the deep end. I hated South Park when it first came out, but now I realize it's really closer to what the Simpsons used to be, while the Simpsons have become what I thought South Park was.

[AndyC]

Vermin Boy wrote:
> I hated South Park when it first came
> out, but now I realize it's really closer to what the Simpsons
> used to be, while the Simpsons have become what I thought South
> Park was.

Interesting thought. I agree, the Simpsons has gone from satire to craziness for its own sake. And it's almost as if the writers think it's more clever when something doesn't make any sense at all. They still try to satirize once in a while, but it just seems like they pick an easy target (not necessarily even a timely one) and take not-too-subtle potshots at it. While the humour used to be swift and carefully targeted, it's now equivalent to staggering over and shooting the side of a barn with a sawed-off shotgun from five feet away.

There used to be more to the Simpsons than just a bunch of gags and references thrown into a blender. It's like comparing Airplane! or Naked Gun to any of the other spoofs that imitated them. To somebody who doesn't understand it, it's just a matter of heaping on a bunch of zaniness, celebrity cameos and pop culture references. Look at the results, and you can appreciate how difficult it really is to do a good spoof. Most of them suck. Comparing early Simpsons to recent Simpsons is much the same.



Post Edited (11-24-04 09:41)