But that’s precisely what went wrong with The Simpsons. Just because it refers to something doesn’t make it funny. At some point, the writers stopped understanding that mere imitation does not constitute satire. The late Simpson’s episodes are chock full of stuff that’s a “reference” to some movie, play, t.v. show, etc. - But how do the shows satirize the referenced thing? What clever things do the writers do to make us re-examine the work in question and perhaps have a chuckle? Nothing, that’s what. It’s not satire; it’s just laziness. Copy something else and you don’t have to come up with any original ideas.
Except that you’re basically calling all of who are saying “the simpsons has been better in the past couple of seasons” liars or idiots or dupes or morons or something. Three or four years ago, I (and many others) was saying “yeah, it’s not as good as it used to be, but it’s not the totally-devoid-of-humor-massive-black-hole-of-sucking some of you make it out to be”, not what you claim we were saying in some weird effort to discredit what we’re saying now. In the past couple of years, I honestly think it has gotten better, and I haven’t always thought that before. Nor do I remember hearing that frequently in the past. I don’t know what Simpsons newsgroup or SDMB threads you were reading, but they weren’t the ones I was reading.
Mainly, though, why are you so ANGRY at anyone who disagrees with you? I enjoy the Simpsons whenever I watch it, but don’t think it’s as consistently stellar as it was at its prime. Can’t we all just get along?
If its 7:00 Sunday and I’m home, I’ll tune in. If it’s funny I’ll watch and says It was good, if not funny I’ll say it was lame and turn it off. It would be wrong to call something shit without at least giving it a shot right? I’m pretty sure no one here who hates the last several seasons would lie and call any new show crap if it were a return to form, nor would any be upset if they did return to form. All I know would be tickled shitless because we would love to be entertained by the Simpsons again. SNL usually sprinkles a good episode or three in each year, and you want to be watching when they do.
As much as I dislike the Armin Tanzarian episode, I have to admit that the episode does do exactly that - flipping the original story on its head to the point that Springfield prefers the fake to the original.
Family Guy is worse at this, though, often recreating an extended bit from some movie or TV show or music video shot-for-shot and not changing it at all (or if so, barely). Is there any point, for example, to showing an entire Gene Kelly dance sequence with the only change being Stewie subbing for Jerry?
Then again, Smithers did steal the whole “Mister Burns” song from Citizen Kane. In any case, using this as a barometer of suckitude means you either have to heap more scorn on Family Guy or admit this isn’t something Simpsons has started doing just in the last ten years, when the suckitude allegedly became irreversible.
Personally, I think the author of the article is a pretentious git. At this point, Simpsons has been frozen in time for so long under so many different writers that they may as well not be compared to other TV families but to comic-book characters. So Superman maintains his secret identity by the subconscious use of super-hypnotism, amplified slightly by his Clark Kent glasses, the lenses of which are made from Kryptonian glass? Sure, why not? And if later stories ignore this… sure, why not? Get over it. Super-hypnotism or Armin Tamzarian; just pretend it didn’t happen if it offends you so damn much, idiot.
Yeah, all of those things. Retards, dumb-fucks, and buttheads, too. 
Or Peter singing the entire Shipoopie AND doing the entire dance number. That’s just laziness on the part of the writers.
Ah, but that’s just one drop in the bucket of Simpsons suckitude. To say The Simpsons sucks now is not to say that every moment of every episode before 1997 was utter perfection, or that no other show has ever done anything lame. Quite the false dilemna you’ve got going there.
This thread reminds me of a Simpsons episode, when they all begin electrocuting each other, even Maggie, during a family therapy session. Maybe their funniest scene ever, IMO.
I will experience flasbacks to Simpsons episodes for the rest of my life. They have done enough to enrich my life and even my vocabulary, that a few years of relative suckdom doesn’t matter at all.
Dude. Just don’t watch it anymore. It’s a fucking TV show.
Go outside. Drink a beer. Fly a kite. Learn to knit. Write a novel. Take up fly-fishing. Learn some birdcalls. Anything would be less pathetic than whining on and on and on about a TV show you don’t like anymore because your feelings were hurt when the writers made fun of amateur internet critics.
You don’t like The Simpsons. We get it. Perhaps it’s time to move on with your life now.
Eat my bloody diarrhea, fanboy. This show used to mean something. You’re just another quisling dipshit who’s either too young to remember what it once was or too stupid to give a fuck.
Eat my bloody diarrhea, fanboy. This show used to mean something. You’re just another quisling dipshit who’s either too young to remember what it once was or too stupid to give a fuck.
That’s EXACTLY what I think! That filler annoys the living shit out of me. You’re writers, THINK of something.
Great Jumping Jeebus on a green machine Hildo, you’re acting like The Simpsons was a movement instead of a 3 minute cartoon once used on the Tracey Ullman show. Seriously. All it is, was, or ever will be is a TV show. It’s meaningless in the grand scheme, and although the societal impact (due to excellent marketing) was and in some ways continues to be huge, being this obsessed about it is no different than those whack jobs who tick the religion box marked “other” on the census form and write in “Jedi”.
Too stupid to give a fuck? I say, too SMART to give a fuck (see, cause odds are, someone too young to appreciate the supposed genius of the Simpsons wouldn’t suggest taking up knitting or birdcalls, but YMMV).
Now Family Guy was more funny, and more ascerbic, in it’s prime (which, admittedly was like four or five episodes) than the Simpsons ever were, but like everything else, it was forced to succumb to the evil corporate forces that seek with almost reckless urgency to make absolutely everything the same as everything else.
Way to prove my point. I don’t recall saying that I like, dislike or even watch The Simpsons. You forgot option C: someone who has a sense of perspective regarding the importance a television show should play in one’s life.
I’m not going to bring my A Game to a debate that should really be about how much of a whiny loser the article writer is (I say a lot) when he spends time complaining that a show that’s given him free entertainment for years is no longer up to his personal standards instead of, say, watching something else.
It’s not free (though the Simpsons writers like saying it is). By tuning in the viewer drives advertising rates and the previous viewers paid for that episode. If you don’t receive entertainment in exchange for tuning in then you haven’t been paid for your eyes. Deflecting complaints about television shows because “It’s free” doesn’t actually answer any criticism.
Ten years ago the Simpsons was going down hill. Five years ago saying that the Simpsons had gone down hill jumped the shark. Now pointing out that saying that complaining about the Simpsons going downhill jumped the shark has been beaten to death. They need to end the show soon before we’re all cocooned in metacriticism…
They can’t cancel it now. Who knows what adventures they’ll have between now and when the show becomes unprofitable?
So, Johnny Hildo, let me get this straight. there are three possibilities: 1) The Simpsons is horrible now, 2)someone is too young to remember what it was like, 3)someone is too stupid.
Really? Those are the only three possibilities?
Dave doesn’t understand that the reason he’s constantly forced to call people “elitist” is because most people actually are better than him.
-Joe
Unless the viewer is part of a Neilson family or some comparable unit that reports its viewing habits, he can pretty much tune into whatever he wants and nobody’s the wiser.
Anyway, my primary answer to the criticism, if I was going to put some minor effort into crafting one, is that there was never a “golden age” of the Simpsons where every episode was a hit. There were plenty of clunkers sprinkled in among the seasons claimed by critics as being the show’s heyday. These episodes, being forgettable, were (naturally) forgotten. I’d say it’s extremely rare to watch an episode and not get at least a few solid chuckles out of it. I thought The Principal and the Pauper was kinda funny. Had I to personally nominate one episode for worst ever, it’d be one in which Lisa’s sanctimony takes center stage or, vaguely related, that sappy one with the white guy who thought he was Michael Jackson (“Lisa, it’s your birthday / Happy birthday, Lisa”).
What I can picture happening is a viewer being left behind by the pop-culture references. I know and care little about, say, Lindsey Lohan, so a joke at her expense means nothing to me, while a riff on some 1970s action movie might give me the familiar warm chuckle of recognition. The same thing’ll happen to anyone who reads a comic-book series for a decade or more - the style will change and it will no longer resemble whatever comfortable familiar elements drew the reader in the first place. Bits that seemed important years earlier are forgotten or ignored (or unknowingly and unflatteringly repeated) by current writers. Realizing this isn’t an accomplishment. Complaining about it isn’t a sign of maturity. Being a punk-ass bitch about it is about the best a complainer can achieve.