As anyone around here might have noticed, I'm a bit of a Simpsons fan, so it concerns me that people seem to be turning against the later efforts. I feel some explanation is nescessary. When a show runs as long and as sucseefully as the Simpsons, it either stops at some high point,(or at least not a too low point) or it becomes a parody of itself. In order to avoid this, the creators of the Simpsons, have anticipted this, and are parodying themselves,parodying themselves. The creators have never shied away from characturing themselves, and it sort of becomes like a wall of mirrors. Confusing and dizzying at times, perhaps, but never less than interesting.


"........the answer to the question that no-one has asked".

Much a I love all things Simpsons, I'm inclined to think this might be one topic too many. You were headed this direction in the "What's the deal with the Simpsons Movie?" thread, bm. Why not continue the conversation there?

Oh, and "She was made of monkeys" is absolutely one of the great lines in the history of the show.

Now Playing: NPR's All Things Considered

quote:

---

Originally posted by LinnTate:
Much a I love all things Simpsons, I'm inclined to think this might be one topic too many. You were headed this direction in the http://forums.metacritic.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=354108&f=3601011&m=2291011 thread, bm. Why not continue the conversation there?

Oh, and "She was made of monkeys" is absolutely one of the great lines in the history of the show.

Now Playing: NPR's _All Things Considered_

---

I thought I might be pushing my luck, but hell, what's luck for.

Since no-one else is comin' here, I thought I'd use this as a place to talk to you,eL T.

Two of the moments that disturb me the most in the Simpsons are, when the assertion is made that the Monkees never played thier own instruments or wrote thier own songs( a point that I'm sure I'll be discussing sometime in the future somewhere within these walls), and the assertion made by Proffessor Frink about Zak.

Now, while I'm willing to defer to the Proffessor in most matters, what with the biting and the scratching, and the..."please don't hurt me,lady", I have to disagree with him here. So many,undeniable. So few worth reading? I don't think so. While I agree he has a massive body of work, not all of it the same standard, I still think you can get something out of anything you might care to pick up and scan, of his. When you compare Asimov to Asimov, what hope do you have?

I don't "turn against" the later efforts, but I've found the show to be less consistently EXCELLENT over the past few years. It's still consistently GOOD, and that makes it better than 90% of what's on TV, but some of the stories have been clunkers, or worse: repetitive. I think they do venture into deliberate self-mockery quite often, but I don't attribute this to some "master plan" of the writers to create a full-on parody of themselves. Occasionally, the shows just seem to be lazily or poorly written. BUT...they still always come up with a few laugh out loud bits for every show which make it one of the high points of my TV viewing week.

I've probably started to find King of the Hill to be, more often than not, my favorite of the FOX Sunday night cartoons. Sorry, burning man.

quote:

---

I've probably started to find King of the Hill to be, more often than not, my favorite of the FOX Sunday night cartoons. Sorry, burning man.

---

I plead with you good sir, apologise not for expressing your opinion. Thank you for caring. One question about "King...", however.

Why does this show nescessarily have to be animated? Just thought I'd ask.

quote:

---

Originally posted by burning man:

One question about "King...", however.

Why does this show nescessarily have to be animated? Just thought I'd ask.

---

True enough. You could do King of the Hill with real actors, although finding an actor with a large enough stick up his butt to play Hank would be tough.

And, much like the Simpsons, an animated show allows you to prevent the characters from aging at all. The great thing about King of the Hill has been the character development...those cartoons are rich enough characters to feel like real people.

Just when I slag off the Simpsons, I see a recent episode that reminds me how good they can be. The rerun, tonight, of the "It's the Fifteenth Season," last years Christmas episode with Homer and Ned competing for Christmas glory, had me rollin'.

And, much like the Simpsons, an animated show allows you to prevent the characters from aging at all. The great thing about King of the Hill has been the character development...those cartoons are rich enough characters to feel like real people.

.[/QUOTE]

You want charecters that develope, and don't age? A cartoon world indeed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by burning man:
And, much like the Simpsons, an animated show allows you to prevent the characters from aging at all. The great thing about King of the Hill has been the character development...those cartoons are rich enough characters to feel like real people.

.

---

You want charecters that develope, and don't age? A cartoon world indeed.[/QUOTE]

I don't mind if they age, actually. But they have not aged notably since the show started.

The Simpsons are dead. Long live the Simpsons.

They have had birthdays ect. and that signals them growing up and developing. I think it would be cool to see them grow up throughout the show but I also like the way it is. It is a cartoon, so really, it's not supposed to make perfect sense.

Sense, perfect or otherwise, is over-rated.

The day I stopped expecting a lot from Simpsons was the New York episode..

I'd say the primary thing that bothers me against new Simpsons is the type of humor they use. The early Simpsons humor is predominated by:

Parody
Social satire
Political satire
'Dysfunctional family' jokes with a 'This is our answer to the over-perfect families in sitcoms' edge

Late Simpsons humor is dominated by:

Homer falling down
Grossout jokes
Homer falling down
Homer getting hit by stuff
Homer falling down
Homer being stupid
Homer falling down
The occasional dabble in parody and satire
And of course, Homer falling down

They've dumbed down the humor they use, they've become predictable, and there's just been a general reduction in the quality of writing.

Now, I'm going to go out and buy season 6 on DVD.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
The day I stopped expecting a lot from Simpsons was the New York episode..

I'd say the primary thing that bothers me against new Simpsons is the type of humor they use. The early Simpsons humor is predominated by:

Parody
Social satire
Political satire
'Dysfunctional family' jokes with a 'This is our answer to the over-perfect families in sitcoms' edge

Late Simpsons humor is dominated by:

Homer falling down
Grossout jokes
Homer falling down
Homer getting hit by stuff
Homer falling down
Homer being stupid
Homer falling down
The occasional dabble in parody and satire
And of course, Homer falling down

They've dumbed down the humor they use, they've become predictable, and there's just been a general reduction in the quality of writing.

Dude, that's exactly it. I really tried to hold on to the belief that this show was still great, but it's nowhere near as smart as it used to be, and it really... well... just isn't funny anymore.

I, too, am a beleiver in the theory that my beloved Simpsons is limping now, rather than striding. But my friend has a theory...see if you buy it:

You only THINK the show is worse now because you're so attached to its history. If you beamed into this universie and started watching the shows from, say, Season 12 forward, you would not find them repetitive or recycled. The shows now, he claims, are as good as any in the past, but since they've done SO much, they can't help but retread.

I disagree, but it's a theory.

Personally, I think the show has gone from being consistently and hysterically funny to having some funny bits among some repetitive and redundant storylines and jokes. It used to be a 'can't miss' for me...now I don't care if I miss it.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
I, too, am a beleiver in the theory that my beloved Simpsons is limping now, rather than striding. But my friend has a theory...see if you buy it:

You only THINK the show is worse now because you're so attached to its history. If you beamed into this universie and started watching the shows from, say, Season 12 forward, you would not find them repetitive or recycled. The shows now, he claims, are as good as any in the past, but since they've done SO much, they can't help but retread.

I disagree, but it's a theory.

Personally, I think the show has gone from being consistently and hysterically funny to having some funny bits among some repetitive and redundant storylines and jokes. It used to be a 'can't miss' for me...now I don't care if I miss it.

That's probably true of any show though. If you started watching the X-files after Mulder left, you'd probably still think it was a cool show, but for people that had watched it from the beginning it became a big disappointment.

The Simpsons suffers from the same problems as any long running show. After awhile you run out of directions to take the characters. It's especially true with sitcoms, animated or otherwise.

Most shows usually hit their stride in the second or third season then start to falter. The Simpsons had a very strong run, but I think it's time to proclaim that it has indeed jumped the shark.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
I, too, am a beleiver in the theory that my beloved Simpsons is limping now, rather than striding. But my friend has a theory...see if you buy it:

You only THINK the show is worse now because you're so attached to its history. If you beamed into this universie and started watching the shows from, say, Season 12 forward, you would not find them repetitive or recycled. The shows now, he claims, are as good as any in the past, but since they've done SO much, they can't help but retread.

I disagree, but it's a theory.

Personally, I think the show has gone from being consistently and hysterically funny to having some funny bits among some repetitive and redundant storylines and jokes. It used to be a 'can't miss' for me...now I don't care if I miss it.

I actually think it is kind of an interesting theory, that if we could bracket off our history, the essence of the show is the same. Could it be the beginning of a phenomenological discussion? I have been out of college for a while though, so I could be dead wrong!

I've been watching the season 6 DVDs and I have to say they tell a different story. Of, the Decline and Fall of the Simpson Empire.

It's like watching the franchise crumble before my eyes. One episode is every bit as good as early episodes, like 'Homer Badman', in which case Homer becomes a media scapegoat when he's falsely accused of sexual harassment. Then, the next episode is completely inane and has a mobster threatening to kill Homer if he doesn't ride a small bicycle through a loopdeloop.

You can see characters who were funny at first slowly becoming pale caricatures of themselves, and you can see completely stupid, inane plotlines creep in. One episode brilliantly lampoons the obsession over violence in our culture, then the next has Homer trying to sell unrefined sugar he found on the highway.

Early in the series Homer had some moderate amount of common sense, but the maturity and intelligence of a twelve year old. He was just a dumb working guy. And with his common sense, died the soul of the series.

I think there's a couple of other ways to look at what The Simpsons is about, and Homer in particular. The entire series has taken place during one year in the life of the family. Between booze and exposure to radiation, it makes sense to me that Homer would progressively lose his brain cells (eventually all of them.)

Some of the "inane" plots are merely the writers lampooning various older films, personalities, and TV shows. I realize that the show might be more cutting-edge if it only referred to current pop and political phenomena, but being an old fart, I find it comforting to remember that things happen in cycles and what's old becomes new again.

This doesn't mean that the show is as funny as it once was. It just means that I still laugh at it, and quite a lot, but maybe that's because I've been losing my brain cells rapidly lately.

Well, yeah, the new episodes are still sporatically hilarious.

The new episodes that manage to be funny are generally the ones that *aren't* just 'Homer's crazy obsession of the week'. Episodes like the Prisoner parody or the gay marraige episode were entertaining.

That's what they need to do, get back to parody and social satire, and *away* from just 'The Stupid Homer Show'.