The Simpsons: A Journey Through Shit

[Harpo Speaks]

god I bet there's an episode called "Old Yellow"

There is an episode called 'Old Yeller-Belly', but that's going way back at this point, think it was around Season 14/15 time.

[idunnosomename]

Yellow Man Bad

[dissolute ocelot]

The movie is Paul Flart Water Park Cop.

RIP McBain.

The seal episode definitely deserves a prize for being among the most baffling. Surely it's sexual harassment to hug someone who doesn't like to be touched? LOL.

[Mobbd]

I just watched Duffless from Season 4 as part of a lazy OLD Simpsons rewatch. Holy wow, it's a goodie. I don't think this is nostalgia on my part: I didn't remember it well and it was almost good as new (you know, if "new" didn't mean "shit"). Zinger after potent zinger. A machine gun of really funny images and ideas.

Idly wondering if this special-feeling episode was written by John Swartzwelder (who we all saw interviewed in the New Yorker recently and has a list of huge Simpsons hits), I looked it up and found that it was written by David M. Stern. I don't know much about Simpsons writers so this didn't mean much to me. It looks like he wrote some pretty good episodes back in the day (Homer Alone, Selma's Choice) and then returned for a Season 28 episode after an 18-year absence. Kamp Krustier. Figured I'd give it a shot. New episode by an old writer. See how it stacked up.

NO. I will not watch this.

Even the titles rubbed me up the wrong way (none of this being Stern's fault but the failures of the titles are of a similar tone to those of the episode itself so bear with me). After the now-standard clutter of flavorless in-jokes, we see Bart writing on the blackboard "We're the only house where the Christmas Tree is still up," which isn't anything a school kid would be asked to write as punishment ever. It's not even in the right parlance. At best it would be "Christmas Trees should not be up in June," but even that would be bending it. We then smashcut artlessly to the garage, presumably to max out the amount of weak sauce we can pump into the episode itself. The couch gag (in which the screen becomes an old-fashioned pinball table resulting in Homer choking on the ball) isn't inherently lame but the timing on the edit is all wrong and drains the bit of any personality it might have had.

We then see Santa's Little Helper sniffing around a kid-free Simpsons' house, which made me feel sad in the way that the Big Brother house makes me feel sad after everyone is evicted; and then some tepid piss from Chief Wiggum and Lou as they break up Homer and Marge's rutting in the treehouse for some reason (illegal? immoral? apparently Flanders reported them anonymously - was this a joke?) and some very, very weak stuff about the kids coming home from Kamp Krusty. Nelson comes off the bus (driven implausibly by Krusty himself) and says "the basketball teams were skins versus bones."

No more, thanks.

So what, really, is up with new The Simpsons, you watch-along gang? Seriously, please tell me. The new writers are shit and apparently so are the old ones and so are the showrunners (or whoever is responsible for general tone and editing style and vision and continuity). I will not watch another moment of this guff. Give me Duffless on repeat.

[Leej88]

The Bee bit my Bottom, Now my Bottom Big.

[JamesTC]

To pick up one minor point, Krusty would have been driving the bus following the end of Kamp Krusty because he drove them all to Tijuana.

As I understand it, Kamp Krustier is about them all getting PTSD from the events. Which is such a shit idea for The Simpsons.

[Leej88]

Who knew Krusty could drive, Yeah he can fly a plane but he has always been driven around by a chauffeur.

[Jumblegraws]

The Bee bit my Bottom, Now my Bottom Big.

That's from Homer Goes to College. If you knew this and weren't responding Mobbd but just doing a funny quote, I apologise for being a snickerpuss.

[Leej88]

You want one from Duffless

When I was 17 I had a very good beer, I had a very good beer which I purchased with a Fake ID, My name was Brian Magee I stayed up listening to Queen when I was 17.

[Mobbd]

Who knew Krusty could drive, Yeah he can fly a plane but he has always been driven around by a chauffeur.

I really just meant that he's a TV entertainer who was pals with Jay Leno. It doesn't seem plausible to me that he would personally drive the customers home from one of his many business concerns. It's like Ronald McDonald personally driving the kids home from a McDonalds birthday party or something. But James is right that its consistent with canon.

[Mobbd]

You want one from Duffless

When I was 17 I had a very good beer, I had a very good beer which I purchased with a Fake ID, My name was Brian Magee I stayed up listening to Queen when I was 17.

Lisa: I've grown a futuristic tomato by fertilizing it with anabolic steroids.
Bart: The kind that help our Olympic athletes reach new peaks of excellence?
Lisa: The very same.

[Leej88]

After everything that happened at Kamp Krusty it is the least he can do.

[Mobbd]

Judge: Your license is hereby revoked and you are to attend traffic school and two months of AA meetings.
Homer: Your honor, I'd like that last remark stricken from the record.
Judge: No.

and

Homer: All right, starting tomorrow no beer for a month.
(Marge turns off the light and Homer opens a can, audibly)
Marge: What was that noise?
Homer: I was saying, "Psssst, I love you."

and

Homer: I'm here for the Alc-Anon meeting.
Rev. Lovejoy: Mm-hm. Third door on your left. [Jasper walks up] Coping with senility?
Jasper: [gruff] No. I'm here for Microwave Cookery. No, wait. Coping with senility.

and

Rev. Lovejoy: So Homer, please feel free to tell us anything. There's no judgment here.
Homer: The other day I was so desperate for a beer I snuck into a football stadium and ate the dirt under the bleachers.
(Everyone in the meeting gasp in disgust.)

and

Marge: I don't know if I like you experimenting on your brother.
Lisa: Please, mother, it's purely in the interest of science.
Lisa's Brain: That'll learn 'em to bust my tomater.

That's enough already. Sorry.

[Leej88]

I cast thee out.

[The Mollusk]

Krusty has been shown driving his own car as far back as season 3 episode "Homer Alone". Here he is giving his monkey a bollocking:

[Leej88]

Ah right me forgot

[Mobbd]

Heh. Okay, okay. It wasn't my intention to nitpick Simpsons canon. Check out the rest of what I said about Duffless versus Kamp Krustier please. Or don't. Either way, I take it back that Krusty's driving the bus is implausible (even though really it is a bit).

[idunnosomename]

A car?!? He would need a class-B commercial drivers licence to drive a bus. Really this sort of thing is not on!!!

[Len Pounds]

Sure Krusty drove them to Tijuana, but who was driving that bus when they left 🤔

[JamesTC]

I hope somebody was fired for that blunder.

I'm fact why not fire them all.

[purlieu]

I don't think this is nostalgia on my part

It's not: when I watched the Entire Simpsons (Until Midway Through Season 10 When I Gave Up Through Desperation) a couple of years ago, there were season 2 episodes I'd never seen, and they were exceptionally good. It was so nice to find good Simpsons that were new to me.

[idunnosomename]

it's remarkable how having seen every episode of series 1-8 if not up to 11 is completely unremarkable for pretty much any English-speaking millennial

[Pink Gregory]

We've been watching seasons 4 and 5 after we got to shit-the-bed time around season 15 (I think I have more tolerance with zombie simpsons because those are the ones I've seen the most); and it's interesting to note what develops later - Nelson's Dad is the soccer coach, Krusty lives in a normal house rather than a mansion, it's even surprising to see the first episode featuring Dr Nick Riviera and think that he could have just been a one off. 

[idunnosomename]

And I would say it changed at eight because the showrunners changed and more writers started to leave and some became more prominent, for the worse. Eight is only 1997, and it has a few poor episodes, overall it's good. Nine has the infamous shark-jumping Tamzarian episode but also some real stinkers (Simpson Tide).

Ten is the first one to come up against Family Guy. Maybe this is why it shifted very hard tonally to Jerkass Homer and far more "The Simpson are going to!" plots.

Eleven it's funny to remember aired on the BBC, because I wasn't even bothering to watch it when it did. I remember seeing the Kid Rock and Joel C on Sky One and being like "nope".[nb]Lest us forget that Kill the Alligator and Run was written by John Swartzwelder though[/nb] It should've been put out of its misery with Behind the Laughter.

[Len Pounds]

I hope somebody was fired for that blunder.

I'm fact why not fire them all.

Must have majored in not getting fired...

[JamesTC]

I still stand that Season 10 is a classic season. A big drop off from the high of 4-9 but by no means the cliff that comes with Season 11.

I've often thought that the tone and quality of The Simpsons can be correlated broadly with Seinfeld. Season 8 and 9 go more slapstick and silly but it is still great. Just imagine if Seinfeld was now starting Season 32.

[Len Pounds]

Anything after season 10 is a complete no-go for me.

Season 9 and 10 have some decent episodes and some memorable jokes, but even at their best they are only on a par with the lesser episodes from the earlier seasons. And given the shift in tone, and even things like the animation and the design starting to become less likable, I found I no longer enjoyed them much at all on a recent rewatch.

I actually found season 10 to be slightly better than 9, but to be honest I'm happy to draw a line after season 8 these days.

[buttgammon]

I still stand that Season 10 is a classic season. A big drop off from the high of 4-9 but by no means the cliff that comes with Season 11.

I've often thought that the tone and quality of The Simpsons can be correlated broadly with Seinfeld. Season 8 and 9 go more slapstick and silly but it is still great. Just imagine if Seinfeld was now starting Season 32.

A sobering thought - imagine if they were still making Seinfeld, but with increasingly desperate celebrity cameos (Kramer auditions for American Idol and bombs, but ends up going into a cigar smuggling scheme with Simon Cowell), out of character nonsense (Elaine becomes a circus performer and has a torrid affair with Newman in a series 26 story arc), and stupid meanness (George runs over a homeless man by accident, dumps the body in the Hudson River and it never gets mentioned again).

[JamesTC]

A sobering thought - imagine if they were still making Seinfeld, but with increasingly desperate celebrity cameos (Kramer auditions for American Idol and bombs, but ends up going into a cigar smuggling scheme with Simon Cowell), out of character nonsense (Elaine becomes a circus performer and has a torrid affair with Newman in a series 26 story arc), and stupid meanness (George runs over a homeless man by accident, dumps the body in the Hudson River and it never gets mentioned again).

Elaine rapes Jerry in a steroid fuelled passion.

[buttgammon]

A pointless cameo from Katy Perry, who is inexplicably wearing a latex dress with Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer's faces printed on it.