The Fall of the Simpsons

Hector Savage

The Fall of the Simpsons how it happened

I thought this was an excellent analysis of how a once brilliant show has fallen so far.

Lorelli!

I have a vague memory of watching the first episode aired on SKY One here. I also remember there was a big hype surrounding it. At the time you got SKY with cablelink, i think. A couple of years after it first aired, cablelink were getting rid of Sky and we were like "****, better start recording The Simpson's before it goes"

I personally always felt that they should have aged them.

pumpkin4life

Series 1-2: Excellent, but maybe a little bit inconsistent. Still better than 99% of anything on television.

Series 3-8: Greatest stretch of telly a lad can watch.

Series 9: Excellent, but maybe a little bit inconsistent. Still better than 99% of anything on television.

Series 10: Watchable enough if you've nothing better to do.

Series 11+: Shìt.

The last episode of The Simpsons should have been Trash of the Titans as it's:

1: The 200th episode.

2: Really funny.

3: I like the cyclical nature of it. What better way to end a T.V show whereby the safety inspector of a town (made safety inspector in one of the very first episodes) ends up destroying the whole town?

Or the Frank Grimes episode. After that was when the decline of the show really started to set in.

Agent Coulson

Simpsons was at its best between 93 and 98

With season 6 being the highlight and one of the best seasons of tv ever across any genre.


So basically 20 years of going downhill.

Wesser

Am I expected to watch the whole video?
The man's voice is the most bored and boring voice I have ever heard.

AMKC

Lorelli! wrote: »

I have a vague memory of watching the first episode aired on SKY One here. I also remember there was a big hype surrounding it. At the time you got SKY with cablelink, i think. A couple of years after it first aired, cablelink were getting rid of Sky and we were like "****, better start recording The Simpson's before it goes"

I personally always felt that they should have aged them.

I also agree with this even if they just got a little older every year or even every two. I think not aging them at all was a big mistake. How awesome would it have been to see Lisa and Bart as mad teens. You thought they were mad before now look at them.

duffman13

Wesser wrote: »

Am I expected to watch the whole video?
The man's voice is the most bored and boring voice I have ever heard.

My god, i got about 45 seconds in, that voice is so slow and dull

Hector Savage

Wesser wrote: »

Am I expected to watch the whole video?
The man's voice is the most bored and boring voice I have ever heard.

duffman13 wrote: »

My god, i got about 45 seconds in, that voice is so slow and dull

I know but put up with it, the content is spot on and he really presents it well.

For me it's so sad that this show has been a crappy show now way longer than it ever was a great one ..

Mossy Monk

Good video. It sums up the decline really well.

Defunkd

The Simpsons are still falling though...until it is completed there is no point in an autopsy.
If i was getting 300-600k per episode, i wouldn't be in a hurry for it to end either.

loyatemu

the movie was decent, and I've watched a few more recent episodes that have been pretty funny. But I'm not trawling through 20 years of crap to find the odd good episode.

Seasons 3-6 are probably the best TV ever made - the rot set in in Season 8 IMO

The first 2 seasons are seriously underrated though - so much great stuff in them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-j2NVdhlfo

lorcand1990

Very well put together video but not exactly groundbreaking. The idea that The Simpsons started to decline from The Principle & The Pauper has been done to death.

That being said I found the laugh track & 5 jokes in 15 seconds analysis very good, along with the pop culture & celebrity references.

If nothing else it reminded me of some of my favourite Simpsons moments

Grab All Association

Mike Scully then/and Al Jean is where it went wrong after season 9. Mike did produce and write some good episodes but he and Jean were full time execs after s9. Writers exodus too by about that time.

loyatemu

Grab All Association wrote: »

Mike Scully then/and Al Jean is where it went wrong after season 9. Mike did produce and write some good episodes but he and Jean were full time execs after s9. Writers exodus too by about that time.

maybe, but there's a limit to how much you can squeeze out of an idea - realistically what show has remained vital for more than 8 seasons?

Hector Savage

Yeah, I must go back and re watch seasons 1-7, anyone know of a streaming service ? - a legal one ?

Pity Netflix don't have them.

Sofiztikated

AMKC wrote: »

I also agree with this even if they just got a little older every year or even every two. I think not aging them at all was a big mistake. How awesome would it have been to see Lisa and Bart as mad teens. You thought they were mad before now look at them.

If Bart aged normally, his teens would have been years ago. He'd be about 40.

Man, that's depressing.

If yous have time: https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/

This page shows the problem with writers: https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/zs5/

It's awful now when ya see it's on and ya know that it's twice as likely to be a **** episode than a great one.

Lorelli!

Just something that popped into my head when he was talking about it at the beginning of the clip and saying it was the first and antithesis of what was done at the time, i did notice he failed to acknowledge Married with Children which was before The Simpson's. Different but similar in how he was comparing it to other shows.

Oafley Jones

Sofiztikated wrote: »

If Bart aged normally, his teens would have been years ago. He'd be about 40.

Man, that's depressing.

Yip. I was Bart's age when the show started, now I'm Homer's. That's a weird change of perspective for an on-going show. Haven't watches it in years, but I keep hearing that it slightly improved recently. I still think that had it quit around season 7 or 8 it'd have a reputation up their with Fawlty Towers as one of the greats.

pleas advice

Wesser wrote: »

Am I expected to watch the whole video?
The man's voice is the most bored and boring voice I have ever heard.

Change the channel Marge

ERG89

Sofiztikated wrote: »

If Bart aged normally, his teens would have been years ago. He'd be about 40.

Man, that's depressing.

I'm always amazed that the writers now surely grew up watching it yet its so bad they must have lost their passion 15 years ago.
Low points are probably the celebrity ones I unfortunately watched; the Ricky Gervais written one was focused on a bad song and an undertone of buying HD televisions
Another 2 vids on the subject in particular the Armand Tamzarian (season 9 episode 2....) and more recent Lady Gaga episode

Sabre0001

Really interesting video. Liked the segment that analyses how a segment plays out now compared to what it may have been written like in the past.

briany

It's like Lisa said in The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show - long running characters just can't have the same impact they once did. Where the Simpsons were once contemporary, satirical and subversive, they're now a well-ingrained part of Western culture.

People say that 4-9 are the heyday of the show. In many ways, I agree. The characters were very well-drawn by that point (not necessarily speaking in terms of animation), and you could have some really entertaining plots going. On the other hand, when people complain about "Jerkass Homer", I believe his roots were in these seasons. In some ways, I blame Conan O' Brien, because the first episode where he starts acting really moronic is the Homer Goes to College episode where he's belligerent towards the world's nicest dean, just because he got the evil dean idea into his head through watching too many college comedies, as well as the immature pranks, and getting his nerdy, bookish room mates in trouble for no good reason. Throughout 5-9, Jerkass Homer slowly takes over, until it's only him.

ignorance is strength

When Bush said more like the Walton’s and less like the Simpsons, it was hardly an attack on the show itself, which the video strongly implies; it’s just a political remark that contrasts the two starkly different portrayals of family, which the video itself says was intended (and which supposedly makes the Simpsons brilliant). It’s quite easy to imagine the same being said today, when the Simpsons is considered tame.

I’m happy to be convinced that the Simpsons is the greatest thing to happen to TV, but I always find the arguments wanting. Five jokes in quick succession, each confounding the expectations created by the previous one - so what? Clever, but is it funny? And even if it is, why does that make it great? The Bush mischaracterisation epitomises for me the way these videos work: they frame the TV landscape as being boring and staid, and then introduce the Simpsons (or whichever) complete with exalting praise, expecting the viewer to draw the conclusion of greatness for themselves without ever really showing it. (I’m sure you could make a similar video about the Big Bang Theory and its, say, momentous portrayal of nerdy characters.)

Well made, though, and nice to hear an Irish voice.

the purple tin

Lorelli! wrote: »

Just something that popped into my head when he was talking about it at the beginning of the clip and saying it was the first and antithesis of what was done at the time, i did notice he failed to acknowledge Married with Children which was before The Simpson's. Different but similar in how he was comparing it to other shows.

And Roseanne too. It was out just before the Simpsons and got massive in the late 80's.

the purple tin

ignorance is strength wrote: »

When Bush said more like the Walton’s and less like the Simpsons, it was hardly an attack on the show itself, which the video strongly implies; it’s just a political remark that contrasts the two starkly different portrayals of family, which the video itself says was intended (and which supposedly makes the Simpsons brilliant). It’s quite easy to imagine the same being said today, when the Simpsons is considered tame.

I’m happy to be convinced that the Simpsons is the greatest thing to happen to TV, but I always find the arguments wanting. Five jokes in quick succession, each confounding the expectations created by the previous one - so what? Clever, but is it funny? And even if it is, why does that make it great? The Bush mischaracterisation epitomises for me the way these videos work: they frame the TV landscape as being boring and staid, and then introduce the Simpsons (or whichever) complete with exalting praise, expecting the viewer to draw the conclusion of greatness for themselves without ever really showing it. (I’m sure you could make a similar video about the Big Bang Theory and its, say, momentous portrayal of nerdy characters.)

Well made, though, and nice to hear an Irish voice.

The Bushes did hate the show though. Bar regularly attacked it calling it 'that stupid show' and demanding that it be taken off the air (and that was before the neighbour George Bush episode).

ignorance is strength

the purple tin wrote: »

The Bushes did hate the show though. Bar regularly attacked it calling it 'that stupid show' and demanding that it be taken off the air (and that was before the neighbour George Bush episode).

According to this video, Barbara Bush said in a magazine interview that she’d seen it and thought it was dumb, but clean. The Simpsons writers wrote a mock letter to her from Marge, which Bush graciously responded to. Hardly hatred.

pickarooney

The Armin Tamzarian story was good enough for Mad Men to rehash.

valoren

The Simpsons for me will always be Season 4. Every episode is a gem with 'Last Exit to Springfield' a standout. Clearly it became a cash cow for Fox which explains it's longevity. The writers have always been self knowing in that regard. The episode with Frank Grimes was a clear in-joke about how ridiculous the plotting had become.

Homer: Yeah, that’s me all right. And the guy standing next to me is President Gerald Ford. And this is when I was on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, and here’s a picture of me in outer space. Would you like to see my Grammy award?

lorcand1990

valoren wrote: »

The Simpsons for me will always be Season 4. Every episode is a gem with 'Last Exit to Springfield' a standout. Clearly it became a cash cow for Fox which explains it's longevity. The writers have always been self knowing in that regard. The episode with Frank Grimes was a clear in-joke about how ridiculous the plotting had become.

Homer: Yeah, that’s me all right. And the guy standing next to me is President Gerald Ford. And this is when I was on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, and here’s a picture of me in outer space. Would you like to see my Grammy award?

Although ironically Homer's Enemy is one of the highest (if not the highest) rated Simpsons episodes ever- one of my favourite episodes too

I think The Principle & The Pauper is attempting to do the same thing as the line you quoted, take the piss out of the show itself & also depict how pointless plots are in general.. Unfortunately they did it with a character that the fans loved (maybe more than even the writers expected?) & it backfired on them

Fr Tod Umptious

briany wrote: »

It's like Lisa said in The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show - long running characters just can't have the same impact they once did. Where the Simpsons were once contemporary, satirical and subversive, they're now a well-ingrained part of Western culture.

People say that 4-9 are the heyday of the show. In many ways, I agree. The characters were very well-drawn by that point (not necessarily speaking in terms of animation), and you could have some really entertaining plots going. On the other hand, when people complain about "Jerkass Homer", I believe his roots were in these seasons. In some ways, I blame Conan O' Brien, because the first episode where he starts acting really moronic is the Homer Goes to College episode where he's belligerent towards the world's nicest dean, just because he got the evil dean idea into his head through watching too many college comedies, as well as the immature pranks, and getting his nerdy, bookish room mates in trouble for no good reason. Throughout 5-9, Jerkass Homer slowly takes over, until it's only him.

I'm no expert but I certainly think that the focus switched from Bart to Homer in those seasons.

Chev_Chelios

It's a pity seeing a once great show turning into just an average one. Whenever I see the new intro I just change channel.

Agent Coulson

I think best estimate for the age of characters if they aged with the show would be Homer 65 Marge 64 Bart 39 Lisa 37 and Maggie 29.

Santa's little helper would be 199 in dog years.

Sofiztikated

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I think best estimate for the age of characters if they aged with the show would be Homer 65 Marge 64 Bart 39 Lisa 37 and Maggie 29.

Santa's little helper would be 199 in dog years.

What Snowball are they onto now?

Poor snowball, everyone loves Santa's Little helper.

Agent Coulson

Sofiztikated wrote: »

What Snowball are they onto now?

Poor snowball, everyone loves Santa's Little helper.

Snowball 5 now I think.

TheValeyard

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I think best estimate for the age of characters if they aged with the show would be Homer 65 Marge 64 Bart 39 Lisa 37 and Maggie 29.

Santa's little helper would be 199 in dog years.

Id be in favour of them doing something like this.

Put Homer in his late 40s/mid 50s.

Bart and Lisa in College. Maggie High school.

Reinvent the show, or kill it.

PurvesGrundy

I think the decline of the Simpsons began around the time of the death of Phil Hartman.

Simi

The show's been dead for over 20 years by my reckoning. Hard to believe it's still going. I haven't watched a 'new' episode in 15 years.

It was a completely different show by then. The characters had the same names & the settings were familiar, but it may as well have been a reboot. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like now.

eric hoone

PurvesGrundy wrote: »

I think the decline of the Simpsons began around the time of the death of Phil Hartman.

That certainly didn't help, Lionel Hutz would have been a great character to be going on with

loyatemu

eric hoone wrote: »

That certainly didn't help, Lionel Hutz would have been a great character to be going on with

they'd have probably done an episode where he goes back to law school with help from Marge. And then later a crossover episode with Better Call Saul.

I don't think there's much point delving too deep into the reasons for the decline, it's just been on (way) too long. Normally show creators or the main stars get a sense for when to knock it on the head (I'm sure Friends or Seinfeld or Frasier could have continued, they were all still pulling in the ratings, but the main contributors all felt the time had come).

The Simpsons producers don't seem to care. and because the characters don't age and the voice actors probably see it as an easy gig none of them have wanted to stop.

Agent Coulson

Everyone involved with the Simpsons are now so far on the money train that they are just doing it for the syndication money not the art get as many episodes out there that the money rolls in for generations to come.

the purple tin

Oh mercy! that Lady Gaga episode [puke]

briany

I'm trying to pinpoint the season where the show became unwatchable. Although I can see the decline begin in S9 and continue from there, there are enough episodes in the next 5 seasons to make the show still bearable, although the ratio of good to bad gets worse and worse.

lorcand1990

briany wrote: »

I'm trying to pinpoint the season where the show became unwatchable. Although I can see the decline begin in S9 and continue from there, there are enough episodes in the next 5 seasons to make the show still bearable, although the ratio of good to bad gets worse and worse.

Yeah I'm not fully sure of the exact season where it became brutal. I'd be the same as you that although I can see the decline in season 10 I would still watch the show into the mid teens

As a general guideline if I see the new intro/opening sequence music i turn it off straight away. If it's the old intro then I'd at least give it a chance

Unearthly

Have to admit when i was watching the Simpsons as a kid back then I didn't know which season it was. My favourite ever episode was homer goes to new York which i just checked is series 9 so it still had it back then for me

dr.fuzzenstein

Season 10 was OK (well, quite uneven really, the cracks are showing), but from 11 onwards it's been in a death spiral.

valoren

At it's peak i.e. from summer 1992 (start of season 4) to 1996, the show was what executives call 'appointment' tv i.e. you planned the evening around the time the show was being broadcast. Season 3 was the big bang for the show. Before 1992 it was a show that was irreverant, funny, briliant and interesting.

Given the enthusiastic reception Season 3 had, anticipation for Season 4 was sky high. The show had become a pop culture phenomenon and in a way the hype was entirely justified where literally every episode of that season was pure gold. It was subjectively the best run of episodes in American television, the quality of the writing and the humour sustained for quite a long time. Naturally, there is only so much fertile material a show can cover. Such was it's popularity episodes kept getting churned out season after season and the quality naturally suffered diminishing returns notably plot driven episodes became fewer whereas celebrities doing cameos increased.

In essence, it was never a show that was to be a cult classic, where it was a brilliant show that nobody watched which got cancelled and found it's deserved appreciative audience via DVD. The Simpsons in the early to mid 90's was blockbuster TV and using the term blockbuster and equating it to movies then to give an analogy then the early Simpsons would be the first Jaws movie. A phenomenon that made millions, changed the movie business itself. Naturally a sequel would be made and so Jaws 2, while in and of itself a perfectly competent movie is akin to latter 90's Simpsons episodes. The talent, the techniques were still there but there was a sense of over familiarity coming into play.

Jaws 2 still made a very handsome profit and so a movie 'franchise' was born where another movie was made which would equate Jaws 3-D to early 00's Simpsons. Here the quality of the writing and the show as a whole takes a distinct nosedive, almost becoming a parody of itself in a way. Jaws 3D made almost ten times it's budget despite being a weak riff on the original.

The current 'zombie' Simpsons is like Jaws the Revenge, which was the death knell of that particular franchise, where they were now doing the same thing again and again, it might have looked pretty but for all intents and purposes it was rubbish and was produced to milk whatever money they could from the legacy of the original film, any artistic credibility lost with a 'roaring' shark which now had a vendetta.

Still it made money and it couldn't have made that money without an audience. However, it only made twice the budget and thankfully there would be no more Jaws films.

So, current Simpsons compared to classic Simpsons is like comparing the original Jaws to the last movie, which for me, is no comparison at all and for fan's of the Simpsons it's preferrable that, like Jaws 3 and 4, it's probably best to pretend they don't exist at all.

dr.fuzzenstein

As the great man himself said:

I have never seen it (Jaws 4) but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.

Michael Caine

iguana

Lorelli! wrote: »

Just something that popped into my head when he was talking about it at the beginning of the clip and saying it was the first and antithesis of what was done at the time, i did notice he failed to acknowledge Married with Children which was before The Simpson's. Different but similar in how he was comparing it to other shows.

He got a lot of stuff about 80s pop culture very wrong. He states that wholesome family sitcoms were a thing of the late 80s then shows a clip of Diff'rent Strokes a show from the late 70s and early 80s and Family Ties which started in 82. And completely ignored the existence of Happy Days, the ultimate in American Happy Family sitcoms which was prime time tv all through the late 70s and early 80s.

And even Married With Children/Rosanne weren't American prime time's first dysfunctional families. All in the Family (based on the BBC's 'Til Death Do Us Part) was about a dysfunctional working class family, ran all through the 70s and is considered a massively influential show in it's own right. The Carol Burnett show featured a sketch "The Family" about a dysfunctional working class family which spun off into a tv movie and sitcom in the early 80s.

All stuff that your average Irish guy who probably wasn't born during this time wouldn't necessarily be aware of. But if you are going to set out to explain the television landscape of the time to your nearly 400k subscribers a modicum of research is advisable before making nonsense claims.

valoren

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

As the great man himself said:

I have never seen it (Jaws 4) but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.

Michael Caine

I would hazard a guess that the main voice cast feel the same about Season 29.

Lorelli!

iguana wrote: »

All stuff that your average Irish guy who probably wasn't born during this time wouldn't necessarily be aware of. But if you are going to set out to explain the television landscape of the time to your nearly 400k subscribers a modicum of research is advisable before making nonsense claims.

Ye and you know as far as I can remember, he didn't even mention one huge unique thing about The Simpson's. It was a cartoon! That certainly was a big factor in its huge success.

I know there was The Flintstones and The Jetsons in the 60s but The Simpsons was a new take on the Animated sitcom. It was usually on at 6pm and kids enjoyed the show as much as adults. I remember being so excited about it myself for that reason. It was something for everyone.