FWIW: The Simpsons season premiere is tonight

You’re talking about the network which gave us such shows as The Tick, Family Guy, Futurama, and Firefly, and then swapped them around the schedule so that they could never find an audience until they could cancel them. Expecting them to do something sensible is pretty much out of the question.

As far as episodes go, I wasn’t overly happy with it. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t nearly as good as previous episodes. Anyone notice if Hank Azaria was listed in the credits? He’s left the show, and they’ve supposedly found someone to replace him. I didn’t notice and I couldn’t tell if the voice was significantly different.

“What’s all this, then?”

As long as they can sneak in bits like that, they’ll keep me as a viewer.

Didn’t look for his name, but he hasn’t left the show. Are you thinking of this thread? It was a mistake.

I thought the first third was OK, the second two not so great. The animation seemed off somehow.

That’s the thread, all right.

Like that’ll ever happen ;). The NFL has the networks by the balls. They dictate to Fox, not the other way around (and may I add, that’s the way it should be) :D.

Better for Fox to not schedule anything else until 7:30.

Well, luckily I missed it. Thanks again to Fox for not realizing that football games go longer than 3 hours. You should not have a 7pm show on Sunday, start your lineup at 7:30 and fill in whatever you need with the sports guys. Don’t reschedule your entire Series Premiere lineup to be outside the normal start times.

Some of us (me) are going to watch a show that ends at 8pm, turn to Fox for the premiere, realize we’ve got 20 minutes to blow, decide to pass the time watching Smokey and the Bandit, and wind up watching the rest of the movie, instead of your show. :smack:

I can think of one good laugh this episode gave me: When Flanders dropped Moleman down the manhole. ‘What’s All This Then?’ gave me a chuckle, as did ‘The Republican Party’ in the credits.

On the whole, I found this episode sub-par.

It was ok. The Perfect Strangers theme song made me reach for the depends though. :smiley:

I live for the Treehouse of Horror Eps. This one, just didn’t cut it. It just wasn’t inspired.

Thank you! I was trying to figure out what theme song that was! And God help me, I guessed right.

“I can make Opium-O’s!”

My biggest criticism is that tonight’s best segment (the Flanders one) would have been the weakest on ToHs in the past. A decent weakest segment, but the weakest by far.

It is a shame. Because despite my lessened enjoyment of the show over the last 4 or 5 seasons, the ToHs were always solid.

Yeardley Smith should never be allowed to do an English accent again.

That is all.

Geez, you guys. I thought it was good. My only beef was the Homer-under-the-skin ending, which reminded me of the time Mr. Burns’ head was grafted onto Homer’s body.

Homer-under-the-skin did remind me of the two-headed ending, and the musical number invoked the horrible “fog that turns you inside out” musical ending from a number of seasons ago (TOH#4?).

My sat scheduler brought me in halfway through the “alien sitcom” bit. What was that all about?

the Flanders Dead Zone bit wa not bad, but not much meat on it. When it ended, I couldn’t imagine that it had lasted more than 30 seconds.

I second the Yeardley Smith accent motion. At least Julie Kavner managed to make it sound like Marge just not trying very hard to sound British, which was amusing. Smith just sounded stupid. She occasionally tries a little too earnestly to do things she can’t do. I was reminded of the time she sang Carol King’s “Jazzman” and really inject some feeling into her delivery. It just wasn’t her forte. Liked the 1890s aliens, though.

Fantastic Voyage. You needed to be a big fan of the movie to get most of the references here, and that’s pretty much the sum total of the humor in the segment. Made me nostalgic for the cartoon verion of “Fantastic Voyage” I used to watch back in the 70s. Any fans out there? (Hey, we’ve already had an SNL hijack)

Frankly, it sucked. It had its moments (“Happiness is a warm poppy”), but overall, the bits they used in the promos were pretty much the best parts (“That’s what makes an OK voyage a Fantastic Voyage”).

Every single line of the the opening, with the family in Kang and Kodos’ oven, was quoted entirely in the promos, with the exception of the closing sentence, which wasn’t even very good.

Did anyone find Ralphie Wiggum smoking opium rather disturbing?

[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Anyone notice if Hank Azaria was listed in the credits?/QUOTE]

The names in the credits were more heavily distorted than in previous THoHs, but nothing that seemed at all like “Hank Azaria” appeared. (Yeardly Smith was seriously scrambled.)

The voice of Apu in the Victorian segment seems standard.

“Lock him up until we find someone darker, boys.”

Maybe Hank Azaria was “The Republican Party”.

I thought it was pretty lame, and I’m more forgiving than most of the show.

I liked it when Frink said, “riboflavin FLAVEN”.

Some of the signs in the Jack the Ripper bit were funny. Comic Book guy had a couple funny lines.

I thought “I can make Opie-O’s” felt like a lame attempt to add another line to the Ralph Wiggum lexicon.

Overall: “meh. I. said. meh”

It was a take-off on the hoary “boss is coming over for dinner and we need to impress him” sitcom plot. The SImpsons were the meal. They all end up eaten, but Bart bursts out through the boss’s belly and ends up adopted by the aliens.

I no longer have any expectations of the ToH episodes. I’ve never thought that the bulk of them were that good. I think they’d be better served to do two or even a single episode-length segment to devote more time to paying off the premise. Although none of the premises last night were too worthy of even the time they got, let alone more.

I have been a Simpsons watcher (and for the first 9 seasons, Simpsons fan) since the first Christmas special back in 1989. The show’s continual decline, and the effects on me of being constantly disappointed and saying WTF more than I laugh has made me decide to finally give up. I did not tune in last night (or even turn my tv on), and from the comments posted here, it sounds like it was the smart move. As far as I’m concerned, the show has finally been cancelled.