I’ll admit it - I got an inappropriate amount of laughs out of “Haben sie Homer und Peter mit das Chevronpump?”
Sigh…
Yeah, I’m going to rain on everyone’s parade. Again. Consider yourself duly warned. If you want to toss off a dismissive “TLDR” (Why the slash? It doesn’t need a slash. I thought the whole point of abbreviations was to make things simpler.) and go on to the next post, I understand.
See, there’s this trend I’ve been seeing in cartoons not specifically aimed at a young audience, and it’s been going on for a long time. That is, parts that are deliberately, knowingly, willingly unpleasant, or hard on the eyes, or just plain bad, but the audience is just supposed to quietly accept this because…well, I don’t know. Presumably because if the show is completely brazen about it, you’re not allowed to say anything. I’m pretty certain this started with South Park, and it’s no secret that Eric Cartman becoming the Eternal Invincible God-King of the Universe (and this was well before the Lovecraftian abomination that was Scott Tenorman Must Die) was what killed that show for me. (I’ve seen a handful of episodes since for various reasons…most of them involving TVTropes, go figure…and wasn’t impressed by any of them. Definitely, completely totally done with this show for good now.)
Hey, I was in college for a majority of the 90’s, I was huge into the Internet almost the moment I heard of it, and I don’t have the slightest problem with cartoon dogs talking to cartoon people. I’m the perfect demographic for something like Family Guy. And yet I never gave a damn about it. Ever. I saw about three episodes and decided it was enough. Then I saw a few episodes here and there after it returned and supposedly improved a zillion jillion percent…and it still left me completely flat. Then I picked up a couple episodes online after (yep) reading about them on TVTropes…and I was utterly underwhelmed. I never, not for a single moment, gave a damn about this show, precisely because no matter how many superficial changes there are, it held true to the modern cartoon formula and never wavered. “Look, hideous, creepy criminal who’s allowed to run wild and never faces the tiniest comeuppance whatsoever! Good! Look, incredibly long, boring fight scene! Good! Look, constantly abused, down-in-the-dumps token daughter! Good! IT IS ALL GOOD! YOU WILL RESPOND POSITIVELY, DAMMIT!” And guess what, my complete loss of hope in The Simpsons, the point where I just couldn’t be bothered to give a damn anymore, was when it became like this. “Bart should be a one-dimensional jerk! The bullies should rampage all over Springfield like they own the place! Marge should be a passive cipher! Hans Moleman should, well, exist! YOU DARE QUESTION THE TRUTH, HEATHEN?”
Probably not a coincidence that this is all over the damn place in Simpsons Guy. “Homer and Peter guzzling gasoline and making a lame sex joke is good! Homer and Peter showing off their hideous bodies is good! (Seriously, I couldn’t even look at the screen for most of it, it was THAT sickening. Is fan disservice ever anything but a colossally horrible idea?) Incredibly long, excessively gory, cliche-filled flight scene is good! Oh, and jokes being run into the ground is good! Lisa and Meg being shunted off into some throwaway two-minute segment is good, because who gives a crap about girls, right? The entire Bart/Stewie arc making not one goddam bit of sense, good! It’s all good! Best crossover ever! The quality of the shows hasn’t gone down a bit! It’s all good, good, good!”
Sigh…when did cartoons become indistinguishable from Dancing With The Stars?
Look…if that’s the state of television in 2014, if our cartoons are completely critic-proof, if things that like stagnation and gore and wretched excess and endlessly repeated gags, which used to doom shows, now are held up as shining ideals…well, fine. Whatever. I already mentioned that I hardly watch anything as it is, and I’m not going to be one of those grumps whining about how much better TV was in my day. Times change, standards change, I just gotta deal. But when I realize that what everyone else on this board loves, and consequently what everyone else talks about, is stuff that I disliked or even despised for pretty much my whole life, it looks like I’ll always be on the outside looking in. Not the end of the world. Just disheartening.
Disclaimer: I laughed a couple times. A bit. For the most part, though, it was simply forgettable. Not unwatchably bad, however. Except for the car wash scene. What were they thinking? (Don’t answer that…)
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though it was technically a FG episode it was the best Simpsons in years. Reminded me of the movie. And I like how for the car wash scene they used the newer Pour Some Sugar on Me 2012 version (long story short- the record company was cheating the band out of iTunes royalties for their old catalog so they said f*ck you and just recorded new versions). And as a fan since the beginning I immediately recognized Springfield Gorge (probably the most iconic Simpsons scene in its history) the moment they showed a glimpse of it.
Fun fact… The Simpsons first did the “Fights That Go On Way Too Long” gag back in 1993, six years before Family Guy debuted (and the first chicken fight happened early in the second season).
I quite liked it, at least the first 2/3 of it. The reason for the big clash at the end seemed arbitrary, but then it wrapped up pretty well in the last few minutes.
I loved the part where they compared all the FG characters to the Simpsons characters, I never realized that nearly every FG character, major and minor, is based on a Simpsons character.
Yeah, the fight went on much to long, but, overall, it was a good episode.