When did The Simpsons jump the shark?

[checkoutgirl]

Not long until season 30 folks!

The digital purchase image features Troy McClure.. you don't think..  nah, prob just them cycling through the secondary cast for promo images.. still kind of odd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_(season_30)

That is odd, they retired the character when Hartman died 20 years ago.

[checkoutgirl]

Hang on if you hadn't seen it before, how could you watch it again?

Before we move on could we iron out this model of time travel please.

Are you trying to suggest time travel isn't true? Can't wait to hear the explanation for this.

[Replies From View]

Well no, but I would like you to resolve this before any more chat of this "The Simpsons" (sic) continues apace.

In your model of time travel, you seem to be inhabiting the body of your past self when you do it.  Are you retaining your memories from adulthood when you travel back?  If not you'd surely be oblivious to any notion of experiencing your youth "again".  But if you are retaining your adult knowledge and memories, how can you be experiencing your youth as if for the first time?  And what's happening to your past self while all this is going on?  Are you supplanting him/her?


Yours askingly,
Vestibule Cornice

[Carpool Dragon]

I like the episode where Homer is a food critic

Why? Homer is a complete cunt in that episode, and (from what I remember) the jokes are obnoxious zombie-Simpsons shit. I actually think of that episode as one of the ones were the rot really started to set in. Not attacking you here, I'm genuinely curious as to why you like it.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

What still bugs me is the farm supply critic Homer meets whose sole reason for being in the episode is to deliver the pretty shit line "I think it's time we sent John Deere a Deere John." that someone clearly had in their back pocket waiting for even the flimsiest reason to shoehorn it into the show.

[yesitsme]

Is it just me or could you never get Simpsons clips on the Youtubes?

Now you can, you don't even have to search for them and they're in your suggestions.

That's telling I think.

[colacentral]

It's just you.

[Ferris]

What still bugs me is the farm supply critic Homer meets whose sole reason for being in the episode is to deliver the pretty shit line "I think it's time we sent John Deere a Deere John." that someone clearly had in their back pocket waiting for even the flimsiest reason to shoehorn it into the show.

I don't get that joke, and never have. Any help?

[marquis_de_sad]

I don't get that joke, and never have. Any help?

Don't remember the context in the Simpsons, but a Dear John letter is a letter from the receiver's partner telling them that the sender has found someone else.

A mix-up between John Deere and Dear John had already been done in Dumb and Dumber.

[Ferris]

Oh right, thanks!

[Replies From View]

It is, of course, a lot less effective when it's not written down and you've never heard of John Deere, so you assume they are saying "John Dear".

It's just not a good joke.

[madhair60]

The one where Homer's a food critic is hilarious.

[darby o chill]

Yeah great episode.

Homer: The food was..... not undelicious.
Lisa: The food is delicious
Homer: That's brilliant!

And his decoy to skive off work



♬ I work hard for the money.. so hard for the money ♪♫

Couple of terrible eps in season 11 though. Saddlesore Galactica is worse than PATP for me.

[Clownbaby]

I fucking hate the weird nonsensical backstories they've given to secondary/minor characters over the years, like Carl being Icelandic. I bet they just wanted an excuse to have Sigur Ros cameo and do the Simpsons theme so they picked the least damaging character to make Icelandic for one episode

[greenman]

Why? Homer is a complete cunt in that episode, and (from what I remember) the jokes are obnoxious zombie-Simpsons shit. I actually think of that episode as one of the ones were the rot really started to set in. Not attacking you here, I'm genuinely curious as to why you like it.

Yep that clearly stood out at the time as the first episode where I really thought the magic had totally gone and it had just become unlikeble and obnoxious, the start of the season like Blunderdome had the signs I spose but just about clung on if only via the concept.

[Ferris]

It is, of course, a lot less effective when it's not written down and you've never heard of John Deere, so you assume they are saying "John Dear".

It's just not a good joke.

I actually got the joke from context and thought "oh 'Dear John' must be a thing like a goodby letter or something", but I thought there must be more to it. That's a crappy joke.

[Carpool Dragon]

I fucking hate the weird nonsensical backstories they've given to secondary/minor characters over the years, like Carl being Icelandic. I bet they just wanted an excuse to have Sigur Ros cameo and do the Simpsons theme so they picked the least damaging character to make Icelandic for one episode

I'm not being funny but, given their tiny population and famously small gene pool, picking one of the few black characters to make Icelandic is a ... weird choice.

[Captain Z]

Yeah great episode.

Homer: The food was..... not undelicious.
Lisa: The food is delicious
Homer: That's brilliant!

And his decoy to skive off work

♬ I work hard for the money.. so hard for the money ♪♫

"If he was so smart how come he's dead"

"Ooh look, newspaper headlines from the day you were born!"



Homer: "Rough? You've been saying that all day."
Santa's Little Helper: "Chewy"?

[Clownbaby]

I'm not being funny but, given their tiny population and famously small gene pool, picking one of the few black characters to make Icelandic is a ... weird choice.

Yeah that's one of the many problems with the idea. By "least damaging" I meant least significant and therefore least harmful to the show's canon

[Billy]

They'd already given his surname as 'Carlson' years earlier, so presumably someone just noted that and thought "Lol Iceland" and went with it.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I wrote a review of the new episode for my site and ended up writing 1400 words, so yeah, probably a case of TL;DR for most people!

There's no doubt that a trillion words have been written about The Simpsons (I checked, just to be sure), from the love letters of the early years to the anger and dismay as after season 10 the standard began to decline, leading to some episodes which are truly appalling and indeed upsetting as to how much they piss on the legacy of this once outstanding show. But less is written about how about three or four times a season there's a decent episode, perhaps understandably as so many have given up on it, yet it proves there are still writers who care about the characters and try their best to create something enjoyable.

I almost gave up on the show last year after the episode which tackled the Apu issue which had come to light after Hari Kondabolu's insightful documentary The Problem With Apu. The show's lack of respect when tackling such a problematic situation upset me greatly, and it showed that they were not only out of touch but also quite insulting to those who realise that it is something that needs to be dealt with after all these years. I mean, when the man who provides Apu's voice, Hank Azaria, says he knows that something needs to change you'd have thought the producers would have taken this on board. But no, that wasn't the case at all.

Still, I've had a long long love affair with The Simpsons, it's the show which changed the way I viewed comedy completely. I'd always been extremely fond of the genre but it was when it began airing that I realised just what could be done with the medium. At the time I was the only one of my friends who had Sky so many friends / vague associates would come over on a Sunday evening to watch it, and quite often we'd put it on again the moment it finished as it was so good. I'd video every episode and soon built up an enormous collection, and I truly couldn't say how many hours I've spent watching the show over the years but I've no doubt it's a ridiculous amount. So I thought I should at least give "Bart's Not Dead", the first episode of the thirtieth season, a shot. If only to see if they were at least trying to make a decent series any more, or whether it would be lazy gags and tired plot lines once again.

It starts off playing a dangerous game by showing a brief clip from each year of the series, counting down from season 29 to the first, and you really can tell how much better it once was even from a two second segment. But fortunately what comes after this is better than a lot of recent episodes, as it begins with Bart turning down a dare by Curly and co to pull the fire alarm at Lisa's talent show as for once he doesn't want to ruin the night for her. It's a rare sweet moment in a show which often tries to be far too silly and surreal these days, as is Marge's pride when she learns that Bart did such a thing, though inevitably Nelson, Curly and the other bullies make him regret his decision. As does Homer, and soon enough Bart's on top of the Springfield Dam being dared to jump off it. One misjudged leap later and Bart's in hospital, with his worried family around him.

Here's where the main plot of the episode kicks in, as Marge is angry with him and wants to understand why he did such a thing. But rather than tell her that it was due to Homer claiming he always had to go through with dares, no matter how dangerous they are, he lies and pretends that he actually briefly died and went to heaven. Homer's response – "Good work boy, you got us off the hook in the short term which is all that ever matters" provides a decent laugh, as does Bart's description of Heaven, which includes the fact that "Jesus rides a rainbow horse...rainbow's come out of his butt...And saying you brushed your truth makes it true".

Of course Lisa confronts him about his lies, but at this point he fails to care, and doesn't even when a group of Christian movie producers turn up to meet him, wanting to make a film out of his experience of the afterlife. Cue Homer ending up writing the movie with Ned Flanders, casting a selection of famous types in it (including guest stars Gal Gadot, Pete Holmes and Emily Deschanel), and before you know it it's released in to cinemas and becomes a big hit. But this is finally too much for Bart, especially after Lisa goads him about his fabrications once more, and so he confesses to Marge, who then tells the world the actual truth. Naturally they're outraged, but Homer gives a big speech and says to blame him and not Bart, and provides the biggest laugh of the episode when he says "And let me just add this, is it possible any other religious beliefs are founded on myths?" only for Reverend Lovejoy to declare the meeting must end with "This interview is over, God created the world in seven days, see you later".

Unfortunately there are missteps along the way. During the casting of the movie because Bones' star Emily Deschanel briefly sounds like Marge Homer thinks she is her, even after asking her to do a variety of silly movements whilst talking to prove she isn't. Everyone knows Homer's never been the brightest but making him this idiotic is something I've never liked and they take it too far here. Also when Lisa continues to doubt Bart's story she taunts him until Bart starts to feel guilty which leads to a dream where Bart's in Heaven and confronted by Marge's dead father, and then beaten up by Jesus. It's all a bit naff and sadly not that funny, the idea of Jesus being annoyed with Bart could have been a great one, but they waste the premise here by going down the lazy slapstick route.

But there are great jokes present too, including a decent gag where Nelson teases Bart for having a dad (to which he petulantly replies "I do not"), along with a funny moment where he mocks Marge by uttering "Ha ha Bart's mom wears a seatbelt". There's also a amusing segment concerning how much padding the actor playing Homer needs ("And I'm fat to begin with"), a cute joke where all of the christian film producers talk akin to Ned, and when Bart asks them "So you give all your profits back to the church?" their panicked reaction made me laugh hard. Also fun is the premier of the film where Marge is with Gal Gadot, who tells the press "In real life we don't get along", with Marge's disgruntled reaction makes it an amusing bit. The parts of the film we see are also pretty whimsical, which includes a song "One More Chance" which is all rather sweet and lovely. As is Grandpa's reaction to the film at the end – "Eh, not enough Bart". Then right at the end of the episode there's some nice satire from Kent Brockman which works really well.

No one will in the entire universe will be surprised to hear that it's not up to the standard of the very best of The Simpsons, but it's definitely one of the better episodes of recent years and writer Stephanie Gillis has created an episode which the show should be proud of. None of the characters are actively horrible, there's some really strong jokes, and the plot is pretty decent – with any episode which doesn't revolve around Homer and Marge's marriage falling apart being something of a relief.

I'm not sure the series could ever return to the form of seasons 1 – 9 (or 2 – 8, or whatever your personal favourites are), almost every plot line imaginable has been done countless times over the years, the essential sweetness of the early years has been missing for a long long time now, and given the standard in general I wouldn't be surprised if next week's episode is a disappointment. But when they create one like this it shows that The Simpsons is still definitely worth checking out from time to time.

[wub1234]

Hang on if you hadn't seen it before, how could you watch it again?

Before we move on could we iron out this model of time travel please.

Well, in the time machine that I invented...when you travel back in time you cease to exist in the future, and you lose all of your memory of everything that happened to you, up until the date that you arrive at.

It makes as much sense as travelling back in time and there being two of you knocking around at the same time (Back to the Future, I'm looking at you). If that is the case then there are a near infinite number of potential versions of you that exist at all of the various nanosecond intervals over the period of your lifecycle.

I mean, if you went back in time, then you no longer exist in the present, you now exist in the past. But the version of you that existed in the past, also exists in the past that now appears to you as the present. So imagine if you build another time machine (in the past that is now the present), and travel to another time, the version of you that built the time machine has to remain in that timeframe, or the timeline makes no sense, but then the other version of you that existed in the past has to continue existing as well.

So now there is the version of you that travelled back to the past, the version of you that existed in the past, in order for this time machine to be built, and a third version of you that has now time travelled again. It doesn't really bear thinking about, that's why I would claim that if you can time travel then the version of you in the present ceases to exist; indeed, that time ceases to exist.

The memory thing is contentious, but I'd just like to be able to watch the early Simpsons again without being able to remember any of it.

[Chriddof]

Cue Homer ending up writing the movie with Ned Flanders, casting a selection of famous types in it (including guest stars Gal Gadot, Pete Holmes and Emily Deschanel)

This may seem sort of nit-picky but that one detail irritates me - Christian movies are a whole separate thing to Hollywood movies for the most part, and you wouldn't get those three in any of them. (You would most likely get Kirk Cameron - star of 80s sitcom Growing Pains - in Bart's movie, though.) That does seem to me the standard Simpsons thing of "let's shove these big name guest stars in somewhere, regardless of whether they fit".

[Small Man Big Horse]

This may seem sort of nit-picky but that one detail irritates me - Christian movies are a whole separate thing to Hollywood movies for the most part, and you wouldn't get those three in any of them. (You would most likely get Kirk Cameron - star of 80s sitcom Growing Pains - in Bart's movie, though.) That does seem to me the standard Simpsons thing of "let's shove these big name guest stars in somewhere, regardless of whether they fit".

Well Nicholas Cage did one once, though I guess he'll do any old shit these days for the pay cheque and I do agree with you in general.

[ajsmith2]

I cross posted this in the South Park thread, but I thought was worth sharing here too: I thought it was interesting that South Park seem to finally have taken the gloves off with the Simpsons at the end of the latest episode after years of (for them) respectful deference:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/south-park-simpsons-apu-mr-hankey-brett-kavanaugh-episode-season-22-a8578501.html

https://uproxx.com/tv/south-park-the-simpsons-kavanaugh-episode/3/

Some people are saying it's just a knowing parody of the Apu controversy rather than The Simpsons itself, but I dunno: seems a bit more pointed to me. Maybe it's a genuine expression of fatique that The Simpsons is still on the air?

[Replies From View]

Imagine though after all these years merely feeling fatigued with the Simpsons.  It'd be like saying you're fatigued with solitary confinement or being waterboarded.

[Clownbaby]

Tell you what's a fucking shit Simpsons episode, the one where Moe's washcloth is sentient. Fucking shit

[bgmnts]

I don't even know that one.

[Clownbaby]

I don't even know that one.

Lucky you

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

a week before we move out, I just found the freeview/recorder box has had Sky 1 HD the whole time. Recorded a couple of season 29 repeats to give them a go, but can't say i'm expecting much.

Also, saw an HD version of an old Halloween episode last night and bloody hell the cropped 16:9 is infuriating.