Jesus Christ, it’s like this man has crawled into my brain and made every legitimate complaint I ever had about this show.
Well, except for one. Come about Season 9, the writers seemed to think that they were the hottest shit ever to exist in the history of the universe. Rather than respond to or understand the criticism hurled at them, they held fast in their misguided understanding that they were the most supreme shit ever and mocked their own fans. Fuck you, show. To this day, the smug writers still haven’t gotten over themselves.
Simpsons, you’re a hollow shell of a show that you used to be. Your movie will suck. I just can’t be bothered with you anymore. Excuse me while I go watch my Family Guy DVDs. While FG doesn’t have the heart that you did in your prime years, it does something that you haven’t been able to do for a long time: it makes me laugh.
Oh, and anyone who replies with the stock “The Simpson may not be as good as it once was but it’s still better than 99% of the stuff on TV” gets beaten to death with a claw hammer. It’s been 15 years. Get a new argument, you worthless cunts.
Only thing I can add is that I fucking HATE family guy. That show deliberately annoys you every episode with repetitive bullshit, like a 90 second pain moan, or a 3 minute condescending novel-bashing. God damn it.
What I hate is that now the Simpsons has sucked for longer than it was great. There was a time when a rerun was a real treat, but now they’ve diluted their pool of shows so badly that I never watch them unlsess they are showing some from the golden years. Just let it go. Stop making episodes, much like when Deary Abby and Anne Landers pleaded to the Springfield Gazette: “let us die!”
Both “critiques” are just filled with with the same nostalgic platitudes people have been repeating for years. It’s easy to make statements like “Every episode was brimming with imagination, excitement and some of the sharpest one-liners to come out of America for decades.” And then cherry-pick three examples from 80 episodes, then claim the show got stupid and cherry-pick three more examples from the following 80 episodes. That does not an argument make.
It would be just as simple to say “the show has never been as smart as it has been for the last 5 years” and then find examples of where a “burp gag” preceeded “an arch pop-culture reference.” (which somehow supports his original premise of the brilliance of the show)
Hildo – you think current supporters of the show are guilty of “stock” arguments? You just repeated the same fucking thing I’ve heard every week since 1996. Congratulations.
What he said. I actually can’t stand to watch the episodes from the first few seasons. Not only was the animation shitty (not Family Guy shitty, but pretty awful) and the voice-work tentative, but looking back, so many of those shows had the same element of cheesy family wholesomeness that the show was supposed to be (at least partially) making fun of.
Most of my favorite episodes are actually from the 1997-2004 era. If the movie captures anything like the spirit of the best of those shows, I’ll be very happy.
But, those examples that he cites can be used to illustrate a lot of points anyway. If the Simpsons tried that rake gag today, people would criticize it for the show being stupid and losing its way.
And that article is criticizing the Simpsons movie and new episodes for relying too much on violent gags. Jesus, that Sideshow Bob episode was non-stop violent gags. . .Homer, “hey, let’s drive through that cactus patch”. The whole sequence of “hey Bart, do you want to see my hockey mask and chainsaw” couldn’t be more contrived.
You’re in a shell if you’re going to defend those idiotic things because they were followed up by Bob singing stuff from HMS Pinafore, or they were done at a time when Simpsons still had “soul” or “originality”.
Tell me about it. It was funny the first time; now it’s a part of every single episode. I always think, “Here’s the part where the writers waste time because they can’t think of enough material to fill a whole show.”
I cannot fathom how anyone, especially on a board like this, can think current Simpsons are funny, let alone funnier than ever. The article is dead on- the humour now is no different than on any generic sitcom. The type of gags now used are not on the same level as early episodes, save or one two good jokes an episode, nor do they try to be, because current writers aren’t capable of witty intellignet comedy, plain and simple- look at the IMDB page on any current writer, and see if any have written any great comedy.
Sure humor is subjective, and the same thing can be enjoyed on different levels, but no offense, and no elitism here, but anyone who thinks Simpsons are funnier than ever just doesn’t have the elevated sense of humor the early episodes require. But hey, if people like them, great, no hard feelings. If there is a gag where Homer falls down the stairs in the exact manner as someone in Un Chien Andalou- person A can enjoy it because he knows the reference, while person B can enjoy the mere sight of him falling down the stairs.
It’s just no fun, I guess, to continue enjoying a show. After all, it’s much better that you loved it before it was cool, and now it’s so popular that it can’t possibly be any good.
I still enjoy the Simpsons. Sure, I loved many episodes from the early seasons, but some of the really bad episodes I can recall were in the first season. There was a season or two when I stopped watching, but I think it’s good again. Is every episode a classic? No, but that’s an unrealistic expectation.
I think the criticism of the article is somewhat silly. Of course they’ll put Homer in other jobs. If they didn’t, nay-sayers would say that the ideas were stale. You have to change the format a little over 15 years.
I still like it. It got a bit weak a few years back, but I think what little of it I’ve seen this season is among the series’ best. Come on – Dark Stanley? Boxingham Palace? That’s some of the best TV I’ve seen. Ever.
Do you still watch the show, by the way? Because, and no offense, I think people who watch TV shows they don’t enjoy and then complain about them CBG-style are weak willed morons who deserve whatever suffering watching the shows cause.
I’m a recovering Family Guy fan; I loved the original episodes, but FG turned predictable and repetitive in an amazingly short time. Now I find that I’ll watch the new ones, but I feel a bit like a little kid with an inert goldfish, insisting, “No! He’s fine! He’s only sleeping!”
The Simpsons is still one of my favorite ways to spend a half-hour in front of the TV, along with King of the Hill and reruns of Futurama.
(BTW, Trunk: neutron star was rolling his/her eyes because the linked article misidentified Whitman’s book as Leaves and Grass instead of Leaves of Grass, right there in a sentence extolling the early episodes’ “dizzyingly intelligent” humor. I had to read it twice to catch the bolding.)
I give each new episode a shot, hoping for a funny episode- same with SNL. If a new episode is funny and has any good lines, I’ll be the first to say so. I’m sure there are some who knock new episodes without giving them a try- I don’t. But usually for the last several years I have switched channels by the end of the first act- you can get a feel for the level of humour of each shows writer after a few minutes.
Why bother if I haven’t seen a good episode in years? Maybe I’m just desparate for some laughs, and know that there are only two or three shows where that is even possible, and yes, even the worst Simpsons usually has one or two good lines, which is more than any other sitcom out now provides.