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When did The Simpsons jump the shark?

Started by ThisIsHardcore, June 23, 2013, 05:59:45 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

kitsofan34

Quote from: DeadBishop on June 24, 2013, 10:42:13 PM
The only thing that annoys me is that the point has long gone where they had the writing talent to make a satisfying finale, which would have been nice, all things considered.

I'm not sure it's possible to have a satisfactory final episode, especially considering the writers assembled to write the underwhelming film:

James L. Brooks
Matt Groening
Al Jean
Ian Maxtone-Graham
George Meyer
David Mirkin
Mike Reiss
Mike Scully
Matt Selman
John Swartzwelder
Jon Vitti

DeadBishop

From what I gather the movie was in production for the best part of a decade and subject to numerous re-writes, test screenings and some vicious editing. I think it ended up a bit overcooked, especially since it came from writers who'd produced something brilliant working to deadlines and strict running times.

Also I thought the movie was okay.

Petey Pate

If you listen to the DVD commentary of The Simpsons Movie, what sticks out is the amount of times they say "we changed this", "this was rewritten", "this scene didn't do as well as we hoped in preview screenings", e.t.c.  A large part of the success of The Simpsons originally was that James L. Brooks' involvement essentially shielded the writers from network interference.  They all but abandoned the ethos of "lets just make something we think is funny" when writing the film, and it probably suffered for it.

syntaxerror

Quote from: onthebeach on June 24, 2013, 07:55:53 PM
I was going to post that I had this book but your post beat me to it and showed that, quite clearly, you had my copy which he now has. I'll thank you to return it to me once he's returned it to you.

I wanked all over it

George Oscar Bluth II

I wonder how it will end. It does pretty solidly in the ratings, Fox keep renewing it...it's going to run forever isn't it?

elnombre

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on June 24, 2013, 11:20:37 PM
I wonder how it will end. It does pretty solidly in the ratings, Fox keep renewing it...it's going to run forever isn't it?

Almost all of the 25 episodes (out of the lot) that have fared worst in the ratings are from the last 2 or 3 seasons.

Petey Pate

I always thought it'd run until one of the main cast members dies.  That said, Warner Bros. didn't stop making new Bugs Bunny cartoons after Mel Blanc died, so its conceivable they could just replace whoever dies first and carry on running the franchise into the ground even further.

elnombre

This is what I was looking for:

http://deadhomersociety.com/category/ratings-fail/

So out of the 20 least watched episodes ever, 19 are from the last two seasons and the other is from the season before. I suspect international airings are keeping it afloat.

George Oscar Bluth II

I REALLY like the name 'Zombie Simpsons' for the show in it's current state. Apt.

elnombre

Quote from: George Oscar Bluth II on June 24, 2013, 11:36:33 PM
I REALLY like the name 'Zombie Simpsons' for the show in it's current state. Apt.

It's a good site. Plenty of vitriol, but also some reasoned arguments about why the show is not what it was. The free ebook is a good place to start:

http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/

checkoutgirl

The Simpsons ceased to function as a creative and spiritual nourisher and further more as an Objet d'art and cultural signifier on 17th December 1989 after leaving the confines of The Tracey Ullman Show, when the first standalone episode was broadcast. This was clearly the beginning of the end as the writers struggled to find themes relevant to a generation raised on MTV and Sinclair C5 Scooters. Why did they bother ? I don't know. Why did Seinfeld bother ? I don't know. Why did John Loogy Beard bother ? I don't know. When that first episode aired, Simpsons Roasting on an Open Christmas, I believe it was called, the warning signs were there, slipshod animation, confusing plotting and cliched gags coupled with a limited cast and unimaginative dialogue, I would have preferred to have experienced shooting pains down my arm and a tightening chest. Every subsequent episode represented an ever deeper plumbing of the depths of desperation and abject misery.

This much is plainly obvious.

But what to do ? My advice is to get a copy of the Tracey Ullman Simpsons Shorts DVD which is available on Amazon, get a nice bottle of wine, Chablis or a nice Merlot is best, pop on your tinfoil hat (making your own is most advisable as they are hard to track down) and play your DVD while wanking in the attic or shed for that 'end of the world' feel.

Phil_A

Quote from: Petey Pate on June 24, 2013, 11:19:24 PM
If you listen to the DVD commentary of The Simpsons Movie, what sticks out is the amount of times they say "we changed this", "this was rewritten", "this scene didn't do as well as we hoped in preview screenings", e.t.c.  A large part of the success of The Simpsons originally was that James L. Brooks' involvement essentially shielded the writers from network interference.  They all but abandoned the ethos of "lets just make something we think is funny" when writing the film, and it probably suffered for it.

Ironically, according to the Ortved book it was Brooks involvement in the movie that took a lot of the fun out of it, as he apparently pushed for a more sentimental Marge-heavy storyline instead of an all-out gag fest.

To really jumble a whole load of metaphors, I think the movie was the case of a whole load of cooks attempting to salvage a broth that was already mostly water by that point. Ultimately, it took four years and all those writers to produce something not much better than an average late period TV episode.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: elnombre on June 24, 2013, 11:29:13 PM
This is what I was looking for:

http://deadhomersociety.com/category/ratings-fail/

So out of the 20 least watched episodes ever, 19 are from the last two seasons and the other is from the season before. I suspect international airings are keeping it afloat.

As well as international broadcasting, there's also syndication of other American channels, which is very profitable.

As that article very clearly states, the numbers are just the overnights and there's no breakdown in terms of demographic, so we're limited in what conculsions to draw.

A major reason that Seth MacFarlane has been so prized by Fox is the amount of advertising his shows generate – this isn't because of high overall numbers, but the high concentration of young people and they are the most prized when it comes to selling to advertisers.

SavageHedgehog

I read at one point (around 2010) that it was mostly being kept on air to keep merchandising viable/because of merchandise sales, don't know how true it is. I think the high ratings for the 20th Anniversary episode (which was shown after the superbowl, I think) gave it a shot in the arm too.

Quote from: elnombre on June 24, 2013, 11:29:13 PM
So out of the 20 least watched episodes ever, 19 are from the last two seasons and the other is from the season before.

Although, you could probably say the same thing about any TV show, as ratings for TV in general are gradually declining.

lazyhour

I just watched a very recent episode called Adventures In Baby Getting and it was.... okay! Homer wasn't mentally subnormal, the plot stayed consistent after the obligatory short silly opening concept - which actually fed directly into the bigger plot. There was even a sub-plot running throughout, with Bart trying to figure out what Lisa was up to after school. Admittedly, the subplot's conclusion was pretty underwhelming, but still. The episode wasn't riddled with pop-culture references, it had some warmth and heart in the main storyline, and I even laughed at several points. Consider me shocked!

checkoutgirl

Quote from: lazyhour on June 25, 2013, 01:59:03 PM
There was even a sub-plot running throughout

I would have thought that nearly every episode has a main story and a secondary strand and they alternate between the two as the episode progresses. The standard Simpsons formula.

lazyhour

Oh really? I thought that proper sub-plots were a thing of the past these days. Don't modern episodes consist of a stupid big concept for the first 6 minutes, which then leads on to a practically-unrelated second concept that lasts for the rest of the episode? Or have they stopped doing that?

checkoutgirl

Quote from: lazyhour on June 25, 2013, 02:47:26 PM
Oh really? I thought that proper sub-plots were a thing of the past these days.

I honestly don't know but I suspect that even the new ones have the same structure of two plots just that the two plots these days are generally agreed to be a bag of shite compared to the old ones. I genuinely don't know, maybe I was inadvertently harking back.

Jerzy Bondov

If The Simpsons had ended around 1997 as many people agree it should have, which existing episode would you use as the finale? You can take it out of its current position in the run and move it to the end in order to catch some stray good episodes.

For me the two most obvious answers would be Summer of 4 ft 2 and You Only Move Twice. Either of them could provide the last word on the show's thoughts about families. They are both packed with brilliant gags and are ultimately quite sweet. If forced to choose I think I'd go with the more understated Summer of 4 ft 2. It suggests that the kids might one day grow up, all the family members (except Maggie) get great lines, and there's something about ending the whole run on a fairly quiet Lisa episode over some bombastic Homer-gets-a-new-job adventure that appeals to me.

So move that episode to the end of season 8, get rid of that season's numerous duds to be replaced with the very few decent efforts from season 9, creating a shortened final season, and you've got 8 years of perfect TV with an understated, tender send-off.

Unfortunately we don't live in that universe. We live in the universe where Homer Simpson got raped by a panda.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Jerzy Bondov on June 25, 2013, 02:59:12 PM
If The Simpsons had ended around 1997 as many people agree it should have

Thinking of The Simpsons ending has just made me glad it's still on air, even in it's current dilapidated state. It's worth having it around for even 1 or 2 good episodes a year. It doesn't harm me in any way to have it on air because I don't watch telly as such. And it's still better than Family Guy and all the rest of it.

When it does go and it may well do, it will be the end of something and a lot of people will miss it. You must think that I sound like an old fool and son, you're probably right. You know that when I met your mother she worked at the local Dairy Queen.... continues

jake thunder

Quote from: Jerzy Bondov on June 25, 2013, 02:59:12 PM
If The Simpsons had ended around 1997 as many people agree it should have, which existing episode would you use as the finale? You can take it out of its current position in the run and move it to the end in order to catch some stray good episodes.

For me the two most obvious answers would be Summer of 4 ft 2 and You Only Move Twice. Either of them could provide the last word on the show's thoughts about families. They are both packed with brilliant gags and are ultimately quite sweet. If forced to choose I think I'd go with the more understated Summer of 4 ft 2. It suggests that the kids might one day grow up, all the family members (except Maggie) get great lines, and there's something about ending the whole run on a fairly quiet Lisa episode over some bombastic Homer-gets-a-new-job adventure that appeals to me.

So move that episode to the end of season 8, get rid of that season's numerous duds to be replaced with the very few decent efforts from season 9, creating a shortened final season, and you've got 8 years of perfect TV with an understated, tender send-off.

Unfortunately we don't live in that universe. We live in the universe where Homer Simpson got raped by a panda.

Probably the wrong episode to finish on, but I think this image from "Lisa's Date With Density" would have been a fine finale:


Quote from: Jerzy Bondov on June 25, 2013, 02:59:12 PM
Summer of 4 ft 2.

Yes, thats a great episode. It feels like a national lampoon's vacation filtered through the Simpsons universe. Well, no it doesn't, but you know what I mean. Ok probably not. But there's something so simple yet effective about taking the family away from the garish pink walls (down lads) of their home. At least there was before the days of The Simpsons Come to Your Pissant Country and Use Every Stereotype Available. If I remember right there was a palpable feeling of melancholy to Lisa's story bolstered by the antics of Homer and Bart. But then I haven't seen it in yonks.

syntaxerror

if you need to refresh your memory as to which episodes are good, I suggest you watch the simpsons online dot net

Thursday

I'd have quite liked Lisa the Simpson as a finale (simpson gene one)from season 9, it gets kind of forgotten about, but it was the last one produced in season 8, so it has quite a feeling of finality to it, and it's very much about the Simpson family so it would have been a good one to end on.

good times

Quote from: clingfilm portent on June 25, 2013, 04:34:56 PM
Yes, thats a great episode. It feels like a national lampoon's vacation filtered through the Simpsons universe. Well, no it doesn't, but you know what I mean. Ok probably not. But there's something so simple yet effective about taking the family away from the garish pink walls (down lads) of their home. At least there was before the days of The Simpsons Come to Your Pissant Country and Use Every Stereotype Available. If I remember right there was a palpable feeling of melancholy to Lisa's story bolstered by the antics of Homer and Bart. But then I haven't seen it in yonks.

so many great moments, many milhouse related.






elnombre

I'd have definitely picked Homer's Enemy as the finale. It puts The Simpsons (both the family and the show) in an interesting context, it's dark and has a unique ending, and within itself it makes a good case (Frank Grimes' rants, Homer's listing off his numerous far-fetched exploits) for why the show should have stopped there.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

I thought the Movie was a disaster. One of the clearest reasons it didn't work for me was that it didn't have a story to tell. They crammed The Simpsons into a movie format to satisfy a demand, rather than organically develop a story idea that would benefit from a cinematic treatment. It ended up being an obvious patchwork of several ideas, which a TV episode can get away with, but the longer, larger canvas of cinema is less forgiving about.

I think the show started to go downhill when they forgot/ignored character. I'm all for characters' changing, developing and growing over the course of a show's lifespan, but The Simpsons characters devolved into joke cyphers. I've been rewatching King of the Hill and that show's commitment to character is admirable.

Before reading that Zombie Simpsons book, it never would've occurred to me that Marge Be Not Proud was the earliest harbinger of doom, but they make a good case. It's not a bad episode, but even when compared to season one episodes it's the most banal, sitcomy "very special episode" plot they'd done up to that point, without any kind of twist. It's an off-guard moment where The Simpsons cease to be subversive and become a straightforward sitcom.

I started watching the show when the fourth season was airing, and during that time was able to catch up with season three and the best of season two. It all meshed into an extraordinarily consistent show. This carried over into season five, but season six was when I first noticed the show had changed ever so slightly. I later realized this was because of David Mirkin taking over, which had started the previous season. It felt like they'd brought the pace down a bit, and were doing less of the cutaway jokes that would later become the hallmark of Family Guy. These weren't bad changes in retrospect, but at the time I felt the show was losing some of its spark.

When I came to realize the influence that different showrunners had, I appreciated these different "eras" on their own terms, and for a while I became quite adamant that the show never got worse but had merely...changed into something less recognizably Simpsons. I don't know, I forget how I rationalized it.


MC Root

QuoteAugust 10, 2004 -- 'SIMPSONS" voice Harry Shearer says the show's run out of gas.

But the producer of the all-time record-setting comedy says it's Shearer who's full of gas.

Shearer, who voices "Simpsons" characters Mr. Burns, Smithers and Ned Flanders, said this week that he believes the show has run its course and that he'd "rather not be there now.

"It makes me sad," Shearer told the Irish Examiner.

His remarks seem to have set a fire on this side of the Atlantic.

"I don't know why I have to defend the quality of the show to Harry Shearer . . . he's a guy who's been a malcontent, in my view," Al Jean, "The Simpsons" long-time producer, told The Post yesterday.

"For someone earning millions off the show this year . . . I just think it's unfathomable for him to take a shot at us."

Shearer seemed to be most disturbed that his characters no longer have a lot to do on the show. Now they are just walk-on parts.

"They used to have whole scenes," he said. "Season four looks very good to me now. Fortunately, I'm doing a lot of other things."

"I ran season four and he wasn't happy then," Jean fired back. "I just think it's an insult to all of us who work so hard. Harry doesn't put in that much time [working on the show] compared to the writers and producers.

"I think this past season was great, and I'm just so shocked that he would say that."