The Simpsons: A Journey Through Shit

[madhair60]

Never understood the mass hate of Family Guy, a show that has never pretended to be anything more than a lowbrow gag vehicle you stick on ITV2 before bed.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Season 19 - Episode 2 - The Homer of Seville

The episode opens with the family accidentally crashing a funeral. Bart convinces the grieving grandson of the deceased that he must pay him $10 every week from now on. Bart is now a reprehensible human being.

Homer mishears pallbearer as "polar bear" and falls into a grave. This causes him to become really good at opera singing when he is lying down which is what the episode is about.

Lenny and Carl have sex with some old women before a fan of Homer rescues him from some old people a bit like that Father Ted episode. The fan takes off her clothes in front of Homer and tells him he can have her at any time but if he tells Marge then she will say he attacked her. Jesus fucking Christ, Homer is being threatened with false sexual assault claims. Oh great. Splendid. Well done.

The resolution is that the crazy fan has a chandelier fall on her and then Homer decides to stop being an opera singer because... erm... because.. erm... I dunno. But he can paint now. Roll credits.

1/10 - Shite.

EDIT - Forgot to say, Lenny and Carl have sex with the old ladies just a few seconds after the ladies say they aren't interested. All a bit rapey.

is this real?

[PlanktonSideburns]

wikipedia sayz



It was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award in 2008.[8]

[Leo2112]

Something I've noticed in recent episodes is a tendency towards casual gore and gross-out stuff, way beyond the point where it feels appropriate for this kind of show

I remember this story segment from a recent Treehouse of Horror, which was just horribly gross and unfunny:

Homer remains home while the rest of the family go on vacation with Patty and Selma. Homer gets comfy, but ends up eating his food supplies, ending up with only vegetables before finding a frozen hot dog. Losing the hot dog to Santa's Little Helper, Homer accidentally cuts his finger off while grilling. He cooks the finger and eats it. He discovers how tasty it is, losing interest in other food when invited by Ned for lunch, and starts cooking parts of his body before his family come back. They become suspicious with Homer constantly wearing oven mitts to hide his severed fingers, being 20 pounds thinner, and walking with a limp. When Marge discovered Homer's self-cannibalism one night while he was frying his own severed leg, she takes him to an addiction counselor for help, but Mario Batali, in search for new ingredients, convinces a despondent (and now missing the entire lower half of his body) Homer to cook his remaining body parts as ingredients sold at Chez Homer and several other restaurants across Springfield. Carl mentions that they are also eating Barney Gumble, Comic Book Guy, and horse meat. In Heaven, Homer comments to Jesus how he now shares people eating his body with him, as the Springfield residents have turned into cannibals.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Never understood the mass hate of Family Guy, a show that has never pretended to be anything more than a lowbrow gag vehicle you stick on ITV2 before bed.

It bothers me how hateful the main characters have become towards each other. In the early days the parents being cruel to or about the kids was funny because it happened infrequently and was the complete opposite of how you'd expect parents to behave. A personal favourite moment of mine (which ironically often gets cut down in reruns) is a cutaway where Stewie presents Peter and Lois with a drawing which they fawn over, Peter promising that it's going straight up on the fridge. As soon as they believe Stewie is out of earshot, they laugh uproariously, trashing their toddler's efforts, and declare "Let's spit on it!", which they do. It's so over the top and outlandish that it's hilarious. Flash forward however many seasons and the rest of the family have spent so much time shitting on Meg that they have to write an episode justifying it. Then they turn around and try to do a heartwarming family togetherness episode and no. No, I don't believe you that these characters actually love each other. Fuck off. Make up your damn minds.

The show still has its moments. The funniest jokes are self-referential, like when Stewie acts like a baby ("Ugh, there's a lion in overalls on the aluminum foil. Who's that for? ...Lois, what are you doing? Get the one with the lion!") and Brian acts like a dog ("Rooo-ooo-ooo-ooo! I'm matching the sound! Roo-ooo-ooo-ooo! Is what I'm doing helping?"). Or when they make fun of the fact that they're characters in a sitcom ("Quick, cut to the outside of the house and play some music, that usually fixes everything!"). Arguably it didn't have as far to fall as The Simpsons, but it has fallen. Then again, what can you expect? It's been on the air for 19 seasons (soon to be 20).

[DrGreggles]

wikipedia sayz



It was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award in 2008.[8]

Wasn't that the year of the writer's strike?
Are Simpsons writers scabs?

[idunnosomename]

wow that autophagia bit is joke-free shit huh. remember when you could have a horrifying Treehouse segment that also had great jokes like "lousy Smarch weather!"

him imagining ned's turkey as a trussed-up himself makes me think it's someone on the writing staff's creepy vore fetish more than anything else

[Pink Gregory]

wow that autophagia bit is joke-free shit huh. remember when you could have a horrifying Treehouse segment that also had great jokes like "lousy Smarch weather!"

him imagining ned's turkey as a trussed-up himself makes me think it's someone on the writing staff's creepy vore fetish more than anything else

Guest starring Armin Meiwes

[checkoutgirl]

Probably because he's very ubiquitous, efortlessly successful and often a bit smug with it. 

He doesn't rub me up the same way, but I totally understand those that share your opinion.

And he did a load of singing and tap dancing while hosting at least one award ceremony. Like he was Bruce Forsyth or Fred a fucking stair. Fuck him. And he does those feature films about teddy bears or cowboys that are painfully unfunny. And in interviews he seems to think the origin stories of his shit catchphrases (Giggidy?) are noteworthy and interesting. And that guy in Family Guy with the big face is proper rapey. Yeah, it's all coming back to me now. He's a bell.

[checkoutgirl]

I remember this story segment from a recent Treehouse of Horror, which was just horribly gross and unfunny:

To be fair Treehouse of Horror is often quite gory. There's a piece from classic era where the teachers in Springfield Elementary are systematically eating the students.

"Now to check on the free range children"



And a bit where Bart Lisa and Millhouse are backed up into a giant blender. Grossness isn't really an argument against shit Simpsons so much as it being badly written, unfunny and devoid of originality.

[Leo2112]

Grossness isn't really an argument against shit Simpsons

I think it is part of the argument.  Compared to the goriness of classic Treehouse episodes, the segment I mentioned was gratuitously nauseating, almost to the point of fetishizing its horror.

[JamesTC]

I wonder if they just thought that Hannibal can get away with it on Network TV so they can.

[JamesTC]

Season 20 - Episode 5 - Dangerous Curves

The Simpsons pick up the pimply teen kid and his girlfriend who are hitch-hiking which causes them to reminisce 20 years earlier on the same road. Homer and Marge are bike riding and meet the Flanders on the roadside. Homer takes an instant liking to Ned.

Now just five years earlier, they are driving across the same road with Patty and Selma. Homer throws Patty and Selma out of the car, but they then run out of fuel so Homer and Marge walk to a mansion to find a phone. There is a party at the mansion which Homer gets distracted at. Marge gets angry at Homer speaking to another woman called Sylvia (Homer is being his oblivious self and doesn't pick up on her advances) and then Marge falls into the pool.

Flashback to present and the family arrive at the Kozy Kabins where they are staying. Flashback to 20 years again but now Marge, Homer and the Flanders arrive at the Kozy Kabins. Ned refuses to let the two be together as they are unmarried.

Homer: "I never thought I would say this but: Stupid Flanders"

Flashback to the party and Marge is crying in a changing room at the party. The owner of the mansion, Alberto, brings a dress for Marge and then takes her for a ride in a plane. The plane lands at Kozy Kabins and Alberto tries to woo Marge. Homer also arrives drunk with Sylvia, but he just wants Marge. Homer and Marge get together whilst Alberto and Sylvia get together.

Now back in the present we see Alberto and Sylvia arrive at the Kozy Kabin and are together with a daughter. Homer realises that Marge was with Alberto that night and storms off. Now we see Bart and Lisa driving a children's toy car through the forest and acting like an old married couple.

Flashback to 20 years earlier and Homer and Ned are fishing. Marge arrives and they both sit under a tree and decide to carve their name on it in a heart. Now in the present Homer sees the carving on the tree and tries to pry it off for some reason and ends up knocking the tree over which leads to Homer and Marge falling into a ravine, but they stop just before hitting the water due to Homer holding onto the carving. Bart and Lisa peddle along in the toy car which is now a peddle boat due to Bart getting lost. Credits roll.

5/10 - A really great idea behind it to have the interlinking flashbacks, but it could have been done better. All that said, I saw it was a flashback episode and was worried, but then I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps lighter on the laughs, but I will forgive it that for trying to tell a more inventive story.

[rue the polywhirl]

Season 19 - Episode 11 - That '90s Show

I did not hate this episode as much as I thought I would. There were enough funny moments to keep it ticking along.  I like Homer slumming it whilst watching Seinfeld - 'oh Elaine will you find anyone who is spongeworthy'. Also 'he who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life'. You could have easily had all the same jokes without ripping apart Homer and Marge's backstory. Would have been much better if it was 'Homer got hit in the head and thought he was in grunge band in the 90s', or 'it was all a dream and we're somehow in the 90s again'. Why was Chief Wiggum his regular age in the flashback portions of this episode? Everything got a lot noticeably worse when Bittersweet Symphony started kicking in. 6/10

Season 19 - Episode 12 - Love, Springfieldian Style

An episode where Marge and Homer get stuck in a Tunnel Of Love ride and proceed to tell 3 completely random love stories. This episode wasn't offensively bad, just incredibly naff and lame. The Bonnie And Clyde had one laugh where Ned Flanders finds out he's an unwitting accomplice and also when he gets shot in the knee. Also a very surreal laugh when Homer and Marge keep up a conversation with the cops despite continually getting riddled with bullets for a full minute.

Shady and the vamp - A mostly weird and naff Lady And The Tramp parody. Has a line where Moe Dog says to Homer Dog that he has no chance with Marge Dog and that her fleas have more class. And then they actually cutaway to a gathering of Marge's fleas and all they're wearing monocles, smoking pipes and whatnot and sat in armchairs and talking with posh accents, killing what would have been a half-funny line completely stone dead. The Goofy bit where he is gassed would have been funnier if they had just left him dead and not have him make a reappearance at all to make a 'satirical' dig at Disney.

Last segment is purely what if Nelson and Lisa were Sid and Nancy and were chocolate addicts instead. The lamest yet least offensive of the segments, if a bit too reverential towards the Sex Pistols. Then the episode ends without resolving the main storyline and we never find out if Marge and Homer manage to escape from the Tunnel Of Love. 5/10

[idunnosomename]

To be fair Treehouse of Horror is often quite gory. There's a piece from classic era where the teachers in Springfield Elementary are systematically eating the students.

"Now to check on the free range children"



And a bit where Bart Lisa and Millhouse are backed up into a giant blender. Grossness isn't really an argument against shit Simpsons so much as it being badly written, unfunny and devoid of originality.

he said unfunny. i'm not a massive fan of that school cannibalism segment but it's not awful. for instance that's a good joke right there. the homer eating himself is just fucking bizarre and not funny at all. it's not even that gory (no blood or organs other than bits of his brain), it's just unpleasant

[JamesTC]

Season 20 - Episode 6 - Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words

Bart and Lisa are selling lemonade. A huge crowd forms but Homer is refused as he wants the money to be put on his tab. Homer rides Lisa's bike to Moe's. At Moe's we see Krabappel and Skinner breaking up but she can't do it as Skinner keeps misunderstanding what she is about to say. Homer breaks up with Skinner for Krabappel but then convinces Skinner that things aren't all bad as he isn't tied down. Lenny congratulates Homer on making Skinner feel better after the breakup than before it and asks Homer to break up with his girlfriend for him. Lenny's girlfriend arrives and Homer tells her that Lenny is dead.

Bart and Lisa get stopped from selling lemonade from the State of Commerce and told to submit for a licence. Bart and Lisa go to get one but are delayed by a man doing a crossword so Lisa does it super quick for him. Homer's old gay roommate calls him and asks him to breakup with his boyfriend for him.

Homer: I'm going to a hardcore gay club and I won't be back till three in the morning.
Marge: Have fun.

Lisa is obsessed with crosswords. Homer successfully breaks up loads of couples at the gay club. Lisa sees the entire world as a crossword. Montage of Homer breaking people up as he now does it for a job. Lisa and Super Nintendo Chalmers talk about crosswords and he suggests she joins a tournament. Marge feels that Homer is making it too easy for people to break up and draws a comparison to their own relationship. Homer is haunted by the ghosts of the relationships that he broke up and vows to quit the breakup game.

Homer bets his breaking up money on Lisa at the crossword tournament and wins loads of money. Lisa is now facing Gil in the final but says she is worried so Homer bets against her. Lisa loses. Lisa finds out and is dejected. She changes her name to Lisa Bouvier. To win Lisa back, Homer commissions the New York Times to do a special crossword with an apology to Lisa hidden. The two makeup. Credits roll.

5/10 - What seemed to be heading for below average is elevated by a genuinely heartfelt ending.

Blimey, two average episodes in a row. They are on a roll.

[mr. logic]

Most of Family Guy's cutaways are, and always have been, complete non-sequiturs. 

I know most people hate Family Guy because of the cutaway gags, but I've always personally thought they've been the show's strength - there's many an episode where the main story has been piss-poor but it's been saved by some excellent cutaways.  There was a period after (I think) season 8 or 9 when they all but completely did away with the cutaways and went for a more mainstream plot focus, and that run of episodes (may have even been a whole season - I can't remember now as it was several years ago) was a real slog (which, admittedly, says a lot about the writing of the show's main storylines), and then the cutaways came back (presumably because they knew the show was weak[er] without them).

Even though Family Guy is also WAY beyond its welcome now, I think on balance I'd take a new Family Guy episode over a new Simpsons episode, purely just because quite a few of the cutaways are still funny.


I acknowledge that VERY VERY few CaBbers share the above PERSONAL SUBJECTIVE opinion, and that has always been the case, and I have always acknowledged that that has been the case in other threads where Family Guy has been discussed.

I agree completely.

[St_Eddie]

...unlike Fmily Guy which often feels like the writers have a bag of prepared cutaway gags they want crowbar in somewhere.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Just saw this...

Ah yes, the South Park manatees.

D'oh!

[Jumblegraws]

.
Cutaway Simpson gags I can think of- that baseball player in the mystery spot, Burn's "When pigs fly" bit,  the car bed bit.

In $pringfield, when Homer says it's been his lifelong dream to work as a blackjack dealer and Marge replies that it was his lifelong dream to appear on The Gong Show, followed by a flashback to said appearance and it feels quite proto-Family Guy cutaway.

It's not a cutaway exactly, but Homer being ejected from a car by the Archie gang and warned to "stay out of Riverdale" was, if I remember rightly, a non-sequitur pop culture reference that nowadays wouldn't be out of place on FG. ETA I just checked the clip on Youtube, it's done as an echo to Bart being ejected from a car moments beforehand, but otherwise the use of the Archie gang is a pretty arbitrary bit of pop culture referencing whimsy.

Oh, and there's also that pretty throwaway gag about getting Milhouse on the FBI's most wanted list that sets up a cutaway homage to The Fugitive. Also quite FG-ish in retrospect.

[checkoutgirl]

$pringfield has the photographic memory cut away with the bearded baby and penguins and muscley Homer.

"...and then I said to the president..."

[idunnosomename]

if they depend on the circumstances of the plot at all they aren't really family guy cutaways.

it's got to be "that'd suck Lois! It'd almost be as bad as the time that Optimus Prime had to get a job at Dairy Queen"

*cutaway*

IT'S A LIVING

[neveragain]

It's still a cutaway (and surely influenced the style of humour in FG), even if it was more integral to the plot than the FG cutaways. I mean, the bit where Homer chases the squirrel in the College episode could be a cutaway. Smithers and Burns dancing around the nuclear plant. The 'The Birds' parody in Itchy And Scratchy Land. All cutaways, in my humble. (Okay, they weren't called 'cutaways' back then but they were still brief comedic tangents... I often think The Young Ones might have influenced MacFarlane as well)

[JamesTC]

Reading up some plots of recent Family Guy episodes, I see they did a recent episode called Cutawayland in which they are transported into a dimension in which all of the shows cutaways reside and new ones are made.

[neveragain]

I liked that episode very much!

[darby o chill]

$pringfield has the photographic memory cut away with the bearded baby and penguins and muscley Homer.

"...and then I said to the president..."

That's a great one.



Homer shaving high. Wear your love like heaven ♫

[DoesNotFollow]

"That's the plot."

Enjoying this thread a lot, thanks for your sacrifice JamesTC.

[JamesTC]

Season 20 - Episode 7 - MyPods and Boomsticks

The Simpsons are at the mall just after Christmas time. Lisa wants to go to the Mapple store. No that isn't a typo. The logo is an apple with two bites taken out of it. Lisa is sad about now being able to afford Mapple products and then Krusty gives her a MyPod for some reason. Fucking hell. Oh it is Steve Mobbs on a big screen. Fucking hell. Bart takes over the audio to take the piss out of Mapple users which leads to a parody of that Apple 1984 ad. Bart escapes angry Mapple users.

Bart smells something nice outside a house and goes to the back and meets a new friend called Bashir who has just moved from Jordan. Bart gives him the lowdown on Springfield Elementary and also tells him not to let people know he is Muslim as the bullies will attack him for being different (it is done a little better than how I have written it down). Lisa is enjoying her MyPod.

Homer meets Bashir (initially thinking he was Millhouse) and likes him. Now at Moe's we see Lenny and Carl make fun of Homer for his son having a Muslim friend. They convince Homer that Muslims are bad. Homer invites Bashir's parents over, and he acts islamophobic so they leave. Marge tells Homer he needs to go to their house and apologise. He goes to their house but sees a light in the garage and thinks he sees dynamite and returns home. Homer has a dream with the Robin Williams genie in which he turns everything in Springfield Muslim. Homer wakes up and now believes the threat is real.

Lisa gets a huge bill for the MyPod for all the songs she downloaded. Homer overhears Bashir's father say "but I love blowing up buildings" but doesn't hear him elaborate that he works in construction. When the father has left, Homer knocks and apologises and is invited in.

Homer: Praise be Alaba
Bashir's Mother: That's Allah
Homer: We'll look it up in the corona*

Homer continues to act islamophobic and then finds the family computer has plans to blow up Springfield Mall. Homer rushes to the mall and finds Bart, Bashir and his father with a detonator. Homer rushes past and finds the dynamite which he throws into the river which destroys a bridge. Homer hosts a BBQ with Bashir and his family to apologise for his intolerance.

Lisa travels to the bottom of the sea in a giant USB stick to visit Steve Mobbs. In order to pay her bill she must dress up as a MyPod and hand out flyers. Credits roll.

2/10 - The Apple stuff was absolute vapid shite. The Homer plot was only slightly better. I do think that Homer is just very easily led by the gang at Moe's rather than an intolerant person, but it is still pretty uncomfortable stuff.


*I only quoted due to corona and people saying that The Simpsons predicts everything.

EDIT - I would add that the episode's intentions are noble. The episode is looking to question Islamophobia and in that sense it probably does a better job than some contemporaries but that doesn't mean the episode itself is actually any good, unfortunately.

[sutin]

Never understood the mass hate of Family Guy, a show that has never pretended to be anything more than a lowbrow gag vehicle you stick on ITV2 before bed.

Ugly animation, lazy comedy, obnoxious shallow characters.

[JamesTC]

Season 20 - Episode 8 - The Burns and the Bees

The episode opens with the opening titles remixed to be Christmas themed which is actually okay.

Mr Burns is at a billionaire's retreat. Bart is dared to put a bee's nest on second-graders but Lisa discovers that all the bees are dead. Back to the retreat and Jeff Bezos wets himself. Mr Burns plays poker with the rich Texan and wins a basketball team.

Lisa explains to Homer that the bees are dying and that there will be no honey and he imagines a post-apocalyptic world with no honey and agrees to save the "worms". Professor Frink says they need to find a bee queen to start a new colony. Lisa is stung in the face by a queen bee and a new hive forms around her face. Marge doesn't like Lisa having bees on her face but she agrees to let her keep them for one night.

Mr Burns meets the owner of another basketball team who has a lot of fun. Mr Burns does the secret billionaire handshake with him and then asks him about why he has fun. Marge takes Lisa to an abandoned greenhouse for the bees. Mr Burns tries to have fun with his basketball team, but he keeps getting it all wrong. Mr Burns murders a man in a gorilla costume. Mr Burns decides to build a new arena for the basketball team, but it is going to be built right on Lisa's bee hive.

Town meeting with debate between Lisa and Burns. Mr Burns wins. Lisa takes away the bees in a bottle and takes them to Moe's for some reason. Lisa leaves the bees at Moe's with Homer. Moe tells Homer that he has super strong bees in the back and they should breed them to make super strong bees.

Six weeks later we see Homer and Lisa go to the stadium. Outside there are hives full of the thriving bees. Lisa panics as she asks if they are dangerous. The bees rush to the stadium because it looks like a hive. The crowd in the stadium are overrun by bees. Chief Wiggum is shot by the bees.

One year later Mr Burns is at another billionaire retreat and it is revealed that Mr Burns is $4m short of being a billionaire, so the billionaires throw him to the millionaires camp. Credits roll.

3/10

[Marner and Me]

Why are you putting yourself through this procedure?