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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.

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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.

Go Harvey Go

loyatemu wrote: »

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.

Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein ran season 8 (as well as 7), and they have repeatedly stated that they thought the show was coming to the end of its natural life by then - hence episodes like "The Principal and the Pauper" (held over until the start of season 9), "Homer's Enemy", "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase", as well as episodes with extreme endings like "The Homer They Fall" and "Mountain of Madness".

Many of the writers from before season 5 - and indeed many of the writers recruited by David Mirkin during seasons 5 and 6 - had moved on by that stage too. And the television landscape in 1997 was considerably different to what it had been in 1989 - in particular, there were hardly any family sitcoms left, mainly due to The Simpsons itself.

But Fox ultimately decided that the show must go on while it remains profitable - and Mike Scully, and later Al Jean, seemed to agree. As, indeed, did Dan (who has since written a few episodes himself), Julie, Nancy, Yeardley, Hank and Harry.

This despite Futurama and Family Guy, long-time fans turning off in their droves, and everyone getting older (from what I hear, voicing Marge and her sisters is quite an effort for Julie these days). The Simpsons is about to overtake Gunsmoke as the longest-running scripted primetime TV show in American history in terms of episodes - but what does it have left to achieve after that?

briany

King of the Hill was excellent over its 13 season run. That's four seasons longer than where most people agree that the Simpsons went off the rails. In fact, I think the show got better as it went on because the characters got more fleshed out and developed more defined personalities, the clashes thereof making for interesting story lines.

And the show did this by remaining (relatively) realistic and on an even keel, and this is something that the Simpsons stopped doing by about season 5, really. And we all loved some of these episodes that had no basis whatsoever in reality or likelihood. When you talk about what killed the Simpsons, it's a seed that was planted in the middle of the show's glory years.

But I think the Simpsons writers knew this, too. I mean the whole Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show episode is a commentary on the difficulty of keeping the Simpsons fresh and impactful, as it had once been. I have often thought that the show could have been 'rebooted' to be a little more down to Earth. But then again, I always thought they should also get wackier, and have more robots and magic powers...

astrofool

briany wrote: »

King of the Hill was excellent over its 13 season run. That's four seasons longer than where most people agree that the Simpsons went off the rails. In fact, I think the show got better as it went on because the characters got more fleshed out and developed more defined personalities, the clashes thereof making for interesting story lines.

Mike Judge has an excellent (for TV, and not at Gilligan level) eye for detail, which allowed the essence of KotH to remain right to the end, and fittingly, and similar to the first, the last episode was about the father/son relationship, propane and meat.

Mutant z

Its well passed its sell buy date time to put it out of its misery now.

johnnyyesno

I agree that the rot set in around season 8. For me it was the Mary Poppins episode where I started getting the distinct feeling that it was jumping the shark, though I had missed big chunks of seasons 7 but that episode sticks in my head for the wrong reasons.

loyatemu

johnnyyesno wrote: »

I agree that the rot set in around season 6. For me it was the Mary Poppins episode where I started getting the distinct feeling that it was jumping the shark, though I had missed big chunks of seasons 5 but that episode sticks in my head for the wrong reasons.

that was season 8.

I think the first crack was "Who shot Mr Burns" - part 1 was the final episode of S6 and was pretty much the high point of the show's cultural impact. Part 2 which kicked off S7 just seemed a bit of a let down after all the hype and there were a few episode in that season that were notably below the incredible standard of the previous few years.

Duckworth_Luas

pickarooney wrote: »

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

Never watched Mad Men so know nothing about their episode. However, the premise dates back to at least the Middle Ages and the true life case of French peasant Martin Guerre.

This story has been dramatised multiple times, including Gerard Depardieu in The Return of Martin Guerre and its Hollywood remake Somersby starring Richard Gere.

In this case the imposter arrived claiming to be the presumed dead husband of a widow.

The writer of the episode claims that the inspiration was not the above, but a more obscure claim from Victorian England, the Tichborne case.

Not as well known in popular culture, this involved an Australian butcher claiming to be the son of a baron who was lost at sea. While the mother believed him the courts did not and he ended up in prison.

The plot even came up in Dallas, where a guy turned up claiming to be the presumed dead father of JR.

briany

loyatemu wrote: »

that was season 8.

I think the first crack was "Who shot Mr Burns" - part 1 was the final episode of S6 and was pretty much the high point of the show's cultural impact. Part 2 which kicked off S7 just seemed a bit of a let down after all the hype and there were a few episode in that season that were notably below the incredible standard of the previous few years.

I would say the seed was planted a few years earlier. People always talk about 'Jerkass Homer' being symbolic of the show's decline, but his roots are set firmly within the golden years of the show.

Take Homer Goes to College as an example - Great episode, but if you look at it soberly, Homer acts like the biggest idiot imaginable throughout it. He's so focused on making his time at college just like the screwball comedies he's been watching in preparation for the coming semester that he completely loses touch with the reality of the situation - that he has the world's soundest dean, that his roommates are meek and bookish and want no part in his escapades, or that college actually requires a degree of hard work and study. That's not to mention giving abuse to a passing student for being a 'nerd', kidnapping an innocent animal, or showing little remorse for getting his roommates temporarily kicked out of the school. Oh, and that great one liner he lets off - "Hello, Dean? You're a stupid head!"

That's all a far cry from the Homer of even just three seasons prior, who was a work-a-day oaf. Dumb, but relate-able, and fairly grounded - sometimes struggling to pay bills, frustrated by his son's delinquency, intellectually inferior to his daughter, and trying to be a good husband to his wife. Common struggles, but through it all a heart of gold.

Homer's increasing zaniness was in many ways demanded by the audience due to the laughs it brought, but those laughs came at an ever increasing cost to the heart of the show.

Mr.Nice Guy

briany wrote: »

I would say the seed was planted a few years earlier. People always talk about 'Jerkass Homer' being symbolic of the show's decline, but his roots are set firmly within the golden years of the show.

Take Homer Goes to College as an example - Great episode, but if you look at it soberly, Homer acts like the biggest idiot imaginable throughout it. He's so focused on making his time at college just like the screwball comedies he's been watching in preparation for the coming semester that he completely loses touch with the reality of the situation - that he has the world's soundest dean, that his roommates are meek and bookish and want no part in his escapades, or that college actually requires a degree of hard work and study. That's not to mention giving abuse to a passing student for being a 'nerd', kidnapping an innocent animal, or showing little remorse for getting his roommates temporarily kicked out of the school. Oh, and that great one liner he lets off - "Hello, Dean? You're a stupid head!"

That's all a far cry from the Homer of even just three seasons prior, who was a work-a-day oaf. Dumb, but relate-able, and fairly grounded - sometimes struggling to pay bills, frustrated by his son's delinquency, intellectually inferior to his daughter, and trying to be a good husband to his wife. Common struggles, but through it all a heart of gold.

Homer's increasing zaniness was in many ways demanded by the audience due to the laughs it brought, but those laughs came at an ever increasing cost to the heart of the show.

I would argue in that college episode he does have a genuine concern for the geeks. "That wasn't the wallet inspector" moment for example. Then letting them come into his home. His heart is in the right place even if his head isn't - which is the Homer I like. Yes he acts improper at the times you pointed out but there's remorse at the end of the episode.

I would say there's a difference between being insensitive and being a jerk. Take one of the early episodes for instance 'Dead Putting Society' where he reads Ned Flanders' apology note at the table for laughs. Marge has to point out to him that's not on (before she leaves and has a cheeky chuckle herself). To me this is fair enough because I don't think he realises he is causing pain until it is pointed out to him.

What puts me off about the later seasons is when he starts doing things that he knows full well are going to cause pain, including to his loved ones, but does it anyway. That's where I think it crosses from insensitve Homer to jerk Homer. Running away from surgery that Grampa needs springs to mind.

LoughNeagh2017

I stopped taking following it when they made a jab about Northern Ireland saying "the Northern Irish are parading as well" something like that on a St Patricks Day episode maybe 10 years ago and they showed a load of orangemen, they assumed that all people from Northern Ireland were orangemen and Protestant. You know what some of us northerners are like, we don't forget little jabs like that. I didn't understand the joke, why wouldn't they be parading? St. Patrick is the patron saint of Northern Ireland isn't he?