The Simpsons: A Journey Through Shit

[Pink Gregory]

Sure I've said this before but what's with the tendency towards needlessly violent imagery?

Skinner hung from the flagpole is neither funny nor necessary for that joke (well, that image) to land. 

[idunnosomename]

always think the thing that changed the Simpsons was the challenge from South Park and Family Guy, leading to nasty and unfunny gags like the badger revealing Homer's organs in A Tale of Two Springfields (S12, 2000)

as a satire on the American family c.1990, it needed to fucking end by the end of the decade. it was irrelevant.

it's funny how they've never changed it up though? No Great Gazoo/Poochie stuff. The closest they've came to it was killing off Maude Flanders, and the relationship between Ned and Edna (which was trashed by Marcia Wallace passing)

[dissolute ocelot]

Part of the reason I've spent so long not watching is that the rest of the episodes this season seem so bland. Nothing stands out as interesting or potentially awful. Just malaise.

I have looked ahead to some plots from future seasons. Some excitement awaits.

Much excitement to look forward to. Not telling if I made any of those up myself.

Ugh I have seen some of those. "30 years in the future Lisa is married to a zombie and Homer is just a face on a screen." has definitely omitted about 90% of why that episode is awful. It's Treehouse of Horror but slow and sad. Sometimes I wonder what the Simpsons would be like if they abolished all continuity. But maybe they already have.

I watched "Professor Frink develops a crypto currency that makes him rich" a few days ago but can say nothing about it. It seemed to superficially have a plot. A random series of unconnected events occurred. I see the problem with these reviews.

I just watched Season 12 episode A Tale of Two Springfields, in which the city is divided into two over phone area codes, and The Who visit (although Pete Townshend was too busy on internet research to take part, so his brother Paul appears). It's not top quality but it's not actually terrible. There are some funny John Schwarzwelder lines like "As for food, the following breeds of dog are edible" and a well-executed running gag where Homer keeps dialling the wrong phone numbers. It's not prime era but it's also well-constructed and funny, at least compared to literal zombie Simpsons, and the cast and crew still try to make it funny.

[wrec]

Comic book guy and his wife Kumiko debate having a baby.

Two-hander bottle episode, no jokes

[retsuza]

always think the thing that changed the Simpsons was the challenge from South Park and Family Guy, leading to nasty and unfunny gags like the badger revealing Homer's organs in A Tale of Two Springfields (S12, 2000)

as a satire on the American family c.1990, it needed to fucking end by the end of the decade. it was irrelevant.

it's funny how they've never changed it up though? No Great Gazoo/Poochie stuff. The closest they've came to it was killing off Maude Flanders, and the relationship between Ned and Edna (which was trashed by Marcia Wallace passing)

They DEFINITELY did gags to compete with the family guy and south park at the same time those shows were peaking, expanding the edgy stuff, doing topical stuff.

They insist on keeping status quo beyond a few upsets like Maude death (brought upon by voice actor asking for more money/accomodation after needing to fly out to record).

Everyone hates Principal and the Pauper, the Arman Tamzarian episode but I love it. At the end they sort of make fun of people who care about the ongoing canon of these long running shows and that's literally me, but that's why I find it so funny.

Comicbookguy has a wife and child now?

[Pink Gregory]

Selma adopting a baby from China will be ten fuckin years ago now won't it

though that episode also has that image of Homer pleading for the embalmed body of Mao to wake up, so who's to say

[retsuza]

There's going to be so many annoying "Simpsons predicated it" memes when Lenin's corpse rises from his glassy coffin and the USSR becomes a thing again.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

always think the thing that changed the Simpsons was the challenge from South Park and Family Guy, leading to nasty and unfunny gags like the badger revealing Homer's organs in A Tale of Two Springfields (S12, 2000)

as a satire on the American family c.1990, it needed to fucking end by the end of the decade. it was irrelevant.

Surreal or absurd stuff leaking out from Treehouse of Horror into seemingly every other episode happened around the same time.

I think on one of the commentary tracks someone is particularly snide about Family Guy taking cut-away gags from the Simpsons and making them over the top. Cut-away gags worked in the Simpsons because they only break the reality for a second or two, and we're back to planet earth. Family Guy didn't need to care about breaking a sense of reality and Simpsons writers definitely wanted that freedom. Unfortunately it didn't just give freedom to do wackier jokes it absolved them of any need to write plots or keep characters coherent from one scene to the next.

Whenever I catch recent Simpsons, Bart isn't even recognisable as a kid to me anymore. Its not just that the context of the nuclear family is gone now, he's no longer written as a kid but as a Bart. Yeah there's school sometimes but now he's just some gremlin that does inappropriate things, he has adult seeming plots half the time. When he's in the house his relationship to Marge and Homer is more like Slimer's relationship to the Ghostbusters than anything parental. Astonishing to get to this from Bart's Friend Falls In Love, Three Men and a Comic Book and Marge Be Not Proud.

[idunnosomename]

yeah killing off Maude just because Maggie Roswell was pushed out the cast was really low. she also does Helen Lovejoy, she was a key part of the adult female* character cast in the early days. e.g. Princess Kashmir in Homer's Night Out, the perfect wife in No Disgrace Like Home, and the camping wife in Call of the Simpsons. she does some really funny lines, hardly just an additional voice.

It was notable when Harry Shearer nearly left in 2015. as I said he's really he's key to so much of the show and they'd shit their pants without him.

think an interesting thing will be when Dan Castellaneta (b.1957) passes 70 in the next part of this decade. I mean already he's closer to Abe than Homer. are they going to start having understudies?

*yeah sorry I know this reads a bit weird but I mean as opposed to Nancy Cartwright and Russi Taylor who mostly do kids. oh man Taylor passed 2019? at this point I guess they're beyond retiring characters

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I wish Short Films About Springfield became the template for new episodes after that point. They could have had all the wackiness and meanness they wanted if they made it more of a sketch show set in a particular town instead of keeping up the pretense of the family sitcom. Cast still good, writers still capable... we could've got a few more years of decent stuff at least.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

They did a "Bart is no longer recognisable as a real kid" joke in Summer of 4 Ft 2, in 1996. A quarter century ago. Wonder how many times they've made similar references since. Can't be many

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

I just watched Season 12 episode A Tale of Two Springfields, in which the city is divided into two over phone area codes, and The Who visit (although Pete Townshend was too busy on internet research to take part, so his brother Paul appears).

Didn't know that! Also didn't know this

When Roger Daltrey hits Marge with his microphone he improvised and said "Shut the fuck up, Marge." This was later included in the deleted scenes on The Simpsons – The Complete Twelfth Season DVD release.

Great delivery

[Consignia]

Selma adopting a baby from China will be ten fuckin years ago now won't it

Decade? Nearly two. About 17 years ago. Just highlights how the dredge years just blur together.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Selma adopting a baby from China will be ten fuckin years ago now won't it

though that episode also has that image of Homer pleading for the embalmed body of Mao to wake up, so who's to say

and we barely see the kid

except that one time when she could walk despite being younger than Maggie who still can't walk

[wrec]

It was notable when Harry Shearer nearly left in 2015. as I said he's really he's key to so much of the show and they'd shit their pants without him.

think an interesting thing will be when Dan Castellaneta (b.1957) passes 70 in the next part of this decade. I mean already he's closer to Abe than Homer. are they going to start having understudies?

Kavner is 71 and her Marge voice is fucked. It's a pity Shearer and/or other key cast members didn't quit when it started going downhill. Though easy for me to say that as while I care about the quality of it, 300 grand an episode would probably shut me up. Actually I'd be prepared to say The Simpsons is as good as it ever was for 100 quid an episode.

[Ferris]

Part of the reason I've spent so long not watching is that the rest of the episodes this season seem so bland. Nothing stands out as interesting or potentially awful. Just malaise.

I have looked ahead to some plots from future seasons. Some excitement awaits.

Much excitement to look forward to. Not telling if I made any of those up myself.

It's like a poorly conceived HS Art thread. You've got to hand it to the writers (you don't).

[buttgammon]

It's a real headfuck when you realise how long it's been shit for. During a recent class, a student started talking about the decline of The Simpsons (there was a good point to it but I can't remember what it was) and it was shocking to consider that most if not all of these young adults had always lived in a world where The Simpsons is past its prime.

For what it's worth, I mentioned the premise behind this thread and some of the students recoiled in horror at the thought of watching so much Zombie Simpsons!

[Pink Gregory]

Decade? Nearly two. About 17 years ago. Just highlights how the dredge years just blur together.

oh jesus christ

[idunnosomename]

Kavner is 71 and her Marge voice is fucked. It's a pity Shearer and/or other key cast members didn't quit when it started going downhill. Though easy for me to say that as while I care about the quality of it, 300 grand an episode would probably shut me up. Actually I'd be prepared to say The Simpsons is as good as it ever was for 100 quid an episode.

yeah on the episode where Marge restages her high school musical about the Millennium Bug (!) they got Kristen Bell to do her singing voice. Even though Marge's slightly dorky singing voice is well-established (not least in Streetcar)

A millennial mother with a beehive? It was supposed to signal in the 90s she harked back to her parents generation, but now such achronic tropes just beggar belief. They knew this back in the 90s when future episodes had Lisa as a successful high-earner and Bart as a jobless slacker. They wouldn't dare show those millennials as married homemaker and married blue-collar industrial worker.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

Even though Marge's slightly dorky singing voice is well-established (not least in Streetcar)

la la la LA la la laaa!

[Pink Gregory]

"You're a gal and I'm a fella!"

"Stanley stop or I'll tell Stellaaaa!"

[buttgammon]

yeah on the episode where Marge restages her high school musical about the Millennium Bug (!) they got Kristen Bell to do her singing voice. Even though Marge's slightly dorky singing voice is well-established (not least in Streetcar)

This thread is torture!

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Keeping someone who was remarkably good at something doing it well into an age where they can't even do the basics anymore is so horribly depressing. The Simpsons has long sinced turned into Atoll K.

[Pink Gregory]

"You're a dame and I'm a fella!"

"Stanley stop or I'll tell Stellaaaa!"

Watching a Streetcar Named Marge now.  I remembered the brilliant 'Ayn Rand School for Tots' but I missed 'The Fountainhead Diet'.  It's barely a joke but it pleased me.

Christ, Homer's scream from offscreen before running into the candy machine.

Ah jesus this episode is ridiculous.  "What's a paperboy to dooooooooooooooooooo?"

[The Mollusk]

When The Simpsons does a shot-for-shot duplicate of the scene it's parodying it's really something else. Burns as the Grinch, Maude's face lighting up in "When Flanders Failed" like Mary in It's A Wonderful Life, and in "Streetcar" Homer pulling at his face yelling "HEY MAAAARGE". Any others I'm forgetting?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Any others I'm forgetting?

Smithers as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

[Pink Gregory]

I have genuinely missed the 'HEY MAAAAARGE!' before this viewing.

Testament to how dense with jokes this show was when it was good.

Don't they do a Peanuts skating scene bit at one point that ends with Homer falling through the pond?  Or is that something else?

[Ferris]

One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a beer seller at a baseball game. These guys usually have some decent patter up and down the aisles slinging cans to punters too lazy to get up and go to the bar, but they have to yell so everyone can hear them coming. "Get your beer! Ice cold beer here!" Is your standard, but sometimes they'll work some gags in "I just got popcorn but don't worry dads, the seller you want is on his way" Etc.

There's one guy up in the nosebleeds at the SkyDome who yells "beer here - I got coors, I got Keiths, I got Stella... Stella! STEEELLLAAAA!!"

He got a round of applause from our section. I was laughing about it for several minutes and still chuckle about it whenever I remember it.

[The Mollusk]

Smithers as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

A banger.

Don't they do a Peanuts skating scene bit at one point that ends with Homer falling through the pond?  Or is that something else?

Not sure but there's always this!

[idunnosomename]

Of course THE shot-for-shot parody is the Psycho scene in Itchy, Scratchy and Marge, S2:E9

I think the first movie parody is Life on the Fast Lane of Officer and a Gentleman? not shot-for-shot but it copies a lot of shots

I've reconsidered Life on the Fast Lane now, it's good. Homer's Odyssey is still the worst S1 ep. real mess of an episode tonally. although the power plant visit is good ("I gotta get where the action is!") it just slides downhill from there and the finale is such a drawn-out bit of nothing. it's nice to hear Christopher Collins' original Burns but otherwise it gets really dull