Closer to 20-25, really.
Would this new show of yours end up being called Family Guy, perchance?
The lament “the Simpson’s aren’t funny anymore” is actually old enough for the statement to not be clever anymore. It’s actually older than Bart “is” , were he born the first time someone uttered it.
Disclosure: I quit watching full time sometime around 2000.
Still, our local channel shows one every day at 10:00 pm. Most of them are 21st century episodes. Some are really stupid, some are quite clever. They surprise me every now and then.
But there really has to be no arguing that continuity is meaningless, In the OP’s example, they really can’t be the same people doing all the same things. Aside from that, Homer went into space, he was in the most popular singing group of his day, He (and Marge) got the gold medal at the 2000 Olympics (demonstration), his picture is in the dictionary, he…well, you get the point,.
If you look at it as an anthology show of different people with the same name, it will help with your sanity. 
No. I still watch it, and I say it shouldn’t end. So there!
I can see the merits of an argument that a show should end in previous eras, because it would water down the average greatness of the syndication episodes. But nowadays there are more options to view just the episodes you want - heck, in previous years there weren’t even a lot of collections of seasons being sold, let alone streaming options, but for the time being we have both options (until companies decide to stop releasing physical product.)
Yes! First I saw of The Simpsons was a hilarious clip in the Tracey Ullman show with a baby moving rapidly across the floor, yes, Maggie, and doing a faceplant every few steps, but getting up and moving again just as rapidly without any reaction to having fallen down. Then came the Simpsons show. By then I was already a fan of Matt Groening, and had a few of his comics (life in hell, starring angry rabbits).
So now it’s been 30 years. And Maggie is still a baby?!
They really can be the same cartoon characters doing all those things. Just think of Homer doing all those things in the same spirit as Bugs Bunny being a bullfighter, and a baseball player, and an opera singer, and…
I thought season 20 was supposed to be their last. What happened not to make them end?
All of your examples are from back when the show was still funny.
I don’t have a problem with cartoon characters doing different personas. The problem is there’s TOO MUCH continuity in that the show has the same plot week after week as I have described. Simpsons get interested in something, wretchedly conceived totally unfunny one-off character becomes the focus as the mentor for the something. Peripheral Simpsons characters float around making comments. Simpsons give up whatever the something is by the end of the show.
Maybe if the wretchedly conceived character were Poochie, they might still have something. But the show can’t even take its own advice.
Seriously, why do you keep watching a show that is causing you so much grief?
Because I always watch the animation block on Fox the night before starting the work week. That’s been a tradition for fifteen years.
And because most of television otherwise sucks even worse.
I don’t understand the call to end shows.
Well, I do, kind of. Sometimes you get a show that you really want to stop watching but you’ve invested too much time to stop watching. The Walking Dead is one such show for me.
I can’t imagine The Simpson’s being such a show, for anyone. Since it’s not serialized you could just wait and watch the last show and you wouldn’t even know you missed anything.
It’s just sad to see something once so great reduced to what it is now.
Doctor Who fans will understand the sentiment.
Hmmm…though I view Bugs differently. I can’t really describe why I think of it differently, though. Maybe because they are shorter, or because of comic book physics.
And Bugs in What’s Opera Doc wasn’t really Bugs and Elmer. They “were” the characters. Or at least, they were actors playing the characters. Not sure how many layers deep that goes! 
I grew up watching The Simpsons and loved it as a teenager and young adult.
Last time I watched most of a season was maybe 5 years ago, and I thought it was still pretty great. It doesn’t appeal to me as much any more, but I don’t think it’s bad or tired. I just got older and I’m looking for something else now.
I still watch it and even if the stories are almost immediately forgettable, the writing is still better than 95% of current sitcoms. In other words, there are dozens - maybe hundreds - of shows more deserving of cancellation. Chances are if The Simpsons was cancelled, it would just be replaced with something from that other 95%.
I stopped watching regularly when the producers fired Alf Clausen (composer) several years ago, although the show had been in decline for years before that and I was mainly watching out of habit.
Once in a while, I’ll watch a recent episode on Hulu, and I’m reminded why I lost interest in the show. It’s not a bad show—it’s competently written, and the animation looks better than it did during the show’s peak years. But it’s a shadow of its former self.
I don’t blame Fox for keeping the show going. If it’s profitable, and everyone involved is still willing, why not? I don’t have to watch it, though.
Well then that means that The Simpsons is, in your opinion, one of the best shows on TV! Why would you want it to end? 
Whoa, don’t do this to me. I woke up, stumbled across this thread, and thought it was 15 years ago. Amen, Cats!
Why have you been watching it for the last 10 years?