Was The Simpsons always horrendous?

snoopboggybog

I started watching all the episodes I remember from child hood and my god its absolutely shocking. I loved them in my younger days

Maybe till I was 14 it must of been entertaining but now watching any of the famous old episodes its horrendous.

Jaysus its ****ing awful.

EmmetSpiceland

You’ve changed, man.

gmisk

Nope it was utterly fantastic for a long time.
It definitely isn't now, although it still has an occasional good episode.

Jimbob1977

The Simpsons was top notch until around 1999. The peak was around 1995.

It's like writers fatigue

Nobody can churn out quality content for 30 years. Eventually standards fall and the audience lose interest.

valoren

It was brilliant for 177 episodes. The episode Homer's Enemy was peak Simpsons.

The 178th episode “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson” was a personal turning point. It marked an episode in which I was, in hindsight, merely watching instead of enjoying. Bart get’s sent to military school while Lisa, insufficiently challenged at Springfield Elementary, joins him there. The jokes (e.g. “Company L? But sir! They smell!”) were still there but were stretched and intermittent. That episode was the season 8 finale. Season 9 marked the beginning of the decline after a celebrated run of seasons that remain a benchmark for comedy writing, voice acting. The jokes were still funny but the plots became more and more outlandish and contrived. What’s interesting is that a celebrated episode preceding “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson”, the aforementioned “Homer’s Enemy” contained a veiled message from staff writer John Swartzwelder that the series had very much run it’s course and was becoming more and more reliant on the outlandish plots alluded to earlier.

That episode marked the Simpsons reaching it’s peak and a prescient scene is where Homer invites Frank Grimes to his home and is giving him a tour of the house where Grimes bears witness to some of Homer’s history. He won a Grammy, he toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, he’s friends with Gerald Ford, he’s been to Space. This is Swartzwelder forewarning the audience that the show is becoming stale and will be more outlandish and contrived going forward to try and maintain a semblance of quality. The Armin Tamzarian episode is frequently cited as the beginning of the end in terms of subjective quality I'm the show but for me, Schwartzwelder called it correctly in that coded scene but to suggest the preceding seasons were horrendous is wrong. The Simpsons was consistently excellent during the 1990's (season 4 is my personal favourite, the writers found their stride), it really should have ended two decades ago but it's a cash cow. It was a significant asset for 20th Century Fox but hopefully now that the rights lie with Disney they will simply cease producing it.

Most of early Simpsons could have been a TV show with human actors. The later bad ones needed to be cartoons because they’re ridiculous. All the warmth went out of the characters.

RocketRaccoon

I remember watching it religiously every evening on Sky One, then waiting for the new episode at half 6 on a Sunday. The mid 90s were the absolute peak, I still kept watching it on and off as I got older but the movie was where I stopped, I can't remember the last time I watched a new episode.

I have watched a lot of the older ones on Disney plus recently and they're still great.

JohnnyFlash

valoren wrote: »

It was brilliant for 177 episodes. The episode Homer's Enemy was peak Simpsons.

The 178th episode “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson” was a personal turning point. It marked an episode in which I was, in hindsight, merely watching instead of enjoying. Bart get’s sent to military school while Lisa, insufficiently challenged at Springfield Elementary, joins him there. The jokes (e.g. “Company L? But sir! They smell!”) were still there but were stretched and intermittent. That episode was the season 8 finale. Season 9 marked the beginning of the decline after a celebrated run of seasons that remain a benchmark for comedy writing, voice acting. The jokes were still funny but the plots became more and more outlandish and contrived. What’s interesting is that a celebrated episode preceding “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson”, the aforementioned “Homer’s Enemy” contained a veiled message from staff writer John Swartzwelder that the series had very much run it’s course and was becoming more and more reliant on the outlandish plots alluded to earlier.

That episode marked the Simpson reaching it’s peak and a prescient scene is where Homer invite Frank Grimes to his home and is giving him a tour of the house and Grimes bears witness to some of Homer’s history. He won a Grammy, he toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, he’s friends with Gerald Ford, he’s been to Space. This is Swartzwelder forewarning the audience that the show is becoming stale and will be more outlandish and contrived going forward to try and maintain a semblance of quality. For me, he was correct but to suggest the preceding seasons was horrendous is wrong, The Simpsons was excellent during the 1990's, it should have ended two decades ago but it's a cash cow so it's still being made.

A term has be coined: Zombie Simpsons. The Simpsons as we knew has died but has been propped up and looks similar but is dead inside. It happened soon after season 11.

whisky_galore

I think it's telling the formulaic American family sitcom that the Simpsons set out to lampoon, that format is seen less these days.

Pauliedragon

I think in my own case who has a pretty crude sense of humour when I started watching family guy and southpark my interest in the Simpsons wained straight away. When I went back I found it too vanilla for my taste. I suppose age probably has something to do with it. When I was 10 a cartoon character pulling down his pants was hilarious, not so much now.

Jordan 199

Having Disney+ is excellent for The Simpsons fans.

tom1ie

Season 6 episode 24 lemon of Troy. For me the pinnacle of the simpsons.

AllForIt

Noting worse than when Simpsons fans go on a roll recounting this scene, than scene, the other scene, laughing hysterically along the way, and just when you think his memory has failed him a quarter of an hour later, off he goes again not realizing your not following any of this until eventually you're forced to make an excuses and leave or he'll never stop otherwise.

EmmetSpiceland

AllForIt wrote: »

Noting worse than when Simpsons fans go on a roll recounting this scene, than scene, the other scene, laughing hysterically along the way, and just when you think his memory has failed him a quarter of an hour later, off he goes again not realizing your not following any of this until eventually you're forced to make an excuses and leave or he'll never stop otherwise.

Sephiroth_dude

When Conan left it went down gradually, its absolute tripe now and has out stayed it's welcome.

Church on Tuesday

When will it end though? I mean, it can't go on forever and many notable and popular characters have been retired.

Rodney Bathgate

Futurama much better than The Simpsons. They didn’t get the opportunity to destroy by keeping it on life support for 20 years.

Richard Hillman

It has now been bad for longer than it was good.

I watched one of the newer episodes recently. It was OK, I wasn't watching it thinking this is dreadful but I certainly didn't laugh at any of it.

chrissb8

I remember clearly watching the episode when they went to Japan and thinking it's all getting a bit too far fetched and relying on more outlandish elements to land humour. Great episode but I kinda knew at that point the show had went to s**t.

Just as a side note, I always thought Homer was at his funniest when he was not the focus of an episode but rather when he had sub plots.

The Tetrarch

The show gets old, but the actors never get older.
Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

Mad_maxx

tom1ie wrote: »

Season 6 episode 24 lemon of Troy. For me the pinnacle of the simpsons.

Shake harder boy

Paz-CCFC

AllForIt wrote: »

Noting worse than when Simpsons fans go on a roll recounting this scene, than scene, the other scene, laughing hysterically along the way, and just when you think his memory has failed him a quarter of an hour later, off he goes again not realizing your not following any of this until eventually you're forced to make an excuses and leave or he'll never stop otherwise.

Yeah, like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah – the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

completedit

You have to take into account what the show was. Now, the early episodes are good for nostalgic purposes. It's not hilarious but it still has a charm. It was quite a smart show which I think is why people still like it. It's not the funniest but has its moment.

Conall Cernach

I never liked that Grimey episode. Homer was too much of an oaf in it, I think.

The one where Bart and Ralph become friends was on Channel 4 this morning. It has one of my favourite lines from any show. "What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?"

Austria!

completedit wrote: »

It's not hilarious

Apparently my crazy friend here hasn't heard of the food chain

suicide_circus

tom1ie wrote: »

Season 6 episode 24 lemon of Troy. For me the pinnacle of the simpsons.

punisher5112

It's gone with the pc times and following the trend....

Snowflakes.

It was great to about I'd say season 14 and anything previous was brilliant.

If they kept it like that I'd still watch the new ones today but do enjoy watching the old ones....

New stuff is absolute dirt....

fleet_admiral

valoren wrote: »

It was brilliant for 177 episodes. The episode Homer's Enemy was peak Simpsons.

The 178th episode “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson” was a personal turning point. It marked an episode in which I was, in hindsight, merely watching instead of enjoying. Bart get’s sent to military school while Lisa, insufficiently challenged at Springfield Elementary, joins him there. The jokes (e.g. “Company L? But sir! They smell!”) were still there but were stretched and intermittent. That episode was the season 8 finale. Season 9 marked the beginning of the decline after a celebrated run of seasons that remain a benchmark for comedy writing, voice acting. The jokes were still funny but the plots became more and more outlandish and contrived. What’s interesting is that a celebrated episode preceding “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson”, the aforementioned “Homer’s Enemy” contained a veiled message from staff writer John Swartzwelder that the series had very much run it’s course and was becoming more and more reliant on the outlandish plots alluded to earlier.

That episode marked the Simpson reaching it’s peak and a prescient scene is where Homer invites Frank Grimes to his home and is giving him a tour of the house and Grimes bears witness to some of Homer’s history. He won a Grammy, he toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, he’s friends with Gerald Ford, he’s been to Space. This is Swartzwelder forewarning the audience that the show is becoming stale and will be more outlandish and contrived going forward to try and maintain a semblance of quality. For me, he was correct but to suggest the preceding seasons were horrendous is wrong, The Simpsons was simply excellent during the 1990's (season 4 is my favourite), it should have ended two decades ago but it's a cash cow so it's still being made.

You sound like Patrick Bateman reciting his morning routine

branie2

I never found it horrendous, to be honest

Homelander

It was amazing until around Season 11 or 12, and there are a few half decent seasons after that where it has plenty of the old charm about it.

It's only after about Season 16 or so that it becomes flat out weak, and a complete abomination with very few redeeming qualities by around Season 20.

Family Guy is on what, Season 20 or something as well? At this point I just pick the highest rated two episodes and find them easy enough to watch.

I've tried doing the same with the Simpsons a few times but even the apparent 'best' episodes are just awful.