Who's leaving the Simpsons Sunday?
 

Noooooooooo not Ralph!

Gee... do I smell more cheap ratings wafting from the should-be-dead series?

SI

This series is still excellent. I love the show, and am actually writing an academic paper on using the Simpson's to teach child psychiatry. The show does an excellent job of still being funny, and examining a variety of issues in interesting ways.

You're kidding, right?

This is another thread where it would be useful if I had television.

Actually no, I am not kidding. There are plenty of episodes which aren't at all useful for my teaching endeavors. In fact 98% are useless to me, but there have been several excellent episodes which have been very useful as a funny illustration in teaching medical students. There was a great episode on an acute stress reaction Marge developed in response to being mugged. She developed severe agoraphobia and used systematic desensitization to overcome her agoraphobia. There was also a very funny episode on ADHD with Bart in which Principal Skinner orders Homer and Marge to get Bart started on a stimulant. I see teachers trying to order me and psychiatry residents to start meds on kids all the time. There are other episodes which have some useful clips (those two are the ones I use the most.) I heart the Simpsons because I'm pretty sure I'm about to have my very first acceptance of an academic paper (two other ones I wrote about Autism which were much more dry were rejected from most major academic journals.)

PS. I'm pretty sure it will be accepted because one of senior colleagues has heard good feedback from the editor of the journal :)

I thought last week's episode was great. I don't get to see it every week anymore, but I enjoyed the history episode.

I also really enjoyed the history episode last week.

one of these days, I'm going to get the internet installed so I can respond to this

The Simpsons is still excellent. The people who don't like it are simply weepy nostalgiaists.

And yes, I did make up that word.

LOL. I'd have the television if I could, though. :)

Such a classic show. I remember watching it before/after 'Married with Children' on FOX Sunday Nights. Woo! Those were grand days!

I'm as big a Simpsons fan as there is around these parts, but it's just not as funny any more. There isn't nearly the rewatchability of the earlier episodes. I still pick up stuff I missed out of some of the earliest episodes even though I've seen them 10 times, but now it's just a lot of cheap laughs (here come the flames: ala Family Guy). It's a fundamental shift from universal humor to pop culture references and cheap laughs- in 5 years, these episodes won't be funny. If you don't believe me, watch the ones from 5 years ago versus the ones from 10 years ago: you get stupid jokes about Bill Clinton screwing pigs and lots of throwaway jokes versus some of the best comedy ever to grace tv where the jokes fit into the plot and weren't forced.

SI

Simpsons isn't as good as it was, but I want to see it on TV for as long as it can stay on. One good episode out of 10 shown is still good enough odds for me. :D

The only time I watched the Simpsons was when they were in between The Tracy Ullman Show skits.

I really wish they had let the Simpsons die and offload some of the writing "talent" to Futurama. They still had places to go with that show whereas the Simpsons is just flat out of ideas. I mean, they've been on the show for over 300 episodes- it's a testament to them that there really is nothing left to do but they need to realize that.

SI

THe show should have been cancelled 4 years ago.

Offered without comment..........

Well, the Simpsons may have been going downhill, but the history episode was one of the best ever!

Over 3 hours and no one's called out SI yet? ;)

On which point, in particular? I've only said about 10 inflamatory things in this thread. ;)

SI

I sadly have to agree with this. I'm a huge Simpsons fan, but watching the episodes in syndication from the first 7-8 seasons and what is being put out now, there's a huge difference in my opinion. There's a lot less snap to the dialogue, many of the episodes try to crowd too many (often unfunny) jokes into a scene, with less setup than was used before, and in many cases it's clear they are just running out of things to write about. Some of the episodes still have some good stuff in them though, so I still watch.

I was thinking this line: "now it's just a lot of cheap laughs (ala Family Guy)"

Family Guy rules!

Actually I'm watching the Simpsons much more now than I used to(TiVo is great:D)

Isn't this the last season?

Nope, I've seen interviews with Matt Groening and the writers who say they have enough material for 8-10 more seasons. :)

Am I the only one who has any idea what Bucc is talking about here?

You don't think that you're the only two who know the origin of The Simpsons, do you?

Yes, the Simpsons have come a long way since an old drunk made humans
out of his rabbit characters to pay off his gambling debts. :)

It seems the new eposides of the Simpsons are taking a page from Family Guy's style.

Blasphemy!!!!!! Style maybe, but they are nowhere near as god as the Family Guy. I caught last weeks episode and I actually felt dirty because it was so damn unfunny.

Family Guy's style? Horribly unfunny? Sounds about right.

Didn't say the Simpsons was funny. FG is the shit.

I'm glad it wasn't because the show rebounded from that (relatively) low point a few years ago and has noticeably improved in the last season or two. Last week's "history" episode was hilarious, especially the part with Homer as King Henry VIII and Ned "Thomas More" Flanders being "cannonized" (no, that is not a misspelling). :D

I also liked his "The Yorker" magazine. :D

Agreed.

The Simpson's is still alright, but I find myself hitting the wall recently about 20 minutes in. By that I mean I notice the time. The show drags more than it did a few years ago. That said, I still enjoy the current eisodes more than the first few seasons where it seemed all that happened was centered around Bart and his tag lines. "Eat my shorts." "Ay-carrumba." etc. Homer still rocks! And the funniest episode/plotline lately was Snowball's death(s)

I just hope that the movie isn't the dreaded rumor "Bart gets laid" THat's about as messed up as the Family Guy movie plot for Stewie to realize he's gay. Don't these people realize that the beauty is partially that the characters DO NOT evolve? That's what screwed up Welcome Back, Kotter. THe actors aged and felt the need for the characters to evolve, ie: Horschack's wedding...

Subtlety is lost on Family Guy fans so the original quote had no clue (seriously, outside of a couple of Brian gags spread out across the entire series, does FG know how to do anything high brow or subtle?). Then you had to go and explain it to them so they got belligerent. Now why'd you have to go and do that ;)


My babysitter used to watch the Tracey Ullman show. I couldn't stand The Simpsons at the time. But they came a long way in the first couple of seasons.

SI

This reminds me, since I only watch about 1 out of ever 3 new episodes these days, when was the last time they wrote an honest-to-goodness ending that worked? This has bugged me as much as anything these past few years. Every single episode ends with an exchange like this:
Lisa: And, dad, why did this giant plothole happen?
Homer: {insert stupid metahumor joke here} Really, honey, the reason is- {fade to black}

I know endings are the hardest thing in the world to write- many really good movies and shows have been butchered by bad endings, but you can't just give up and not even try. That's even worse- that's like you're admitting you can't write an ending and throwing it in the viewer's face.

SI

I fully believe that the Sunday night line-up on Fox from 8-10 right now is the funniest television ever.

The Simpsons
Bernie Mac
Malcon in the Middle
Arrested Development

The Simposons may not be as funny as years past, but it more than made up for by what I believe is the best show on television right now, Arrested Development.

Malcom sucks... the rest is good though :D.

Couldn't the same be said of Airplane and its progeny? I see Family Guy as the Airplane of animated TV series. Full of obvious jokes and word play associations that are, at least to me, damned hilarious.

If you're looking for subtle humor in FG, it's no wonder you don't like it. That's like looking for musical depth in a Britney Spears album.

Agreed! I TiVo the whole two hours straight. :) Arrested Development in particular is terrific. It's creative, hilarious, and its style is refreshingly unique in today's copycat TV. I hope it gets good enough ratings to stick around.

Better than when the Simpsons and Married With Children were at their peak, running back-to-back? Sacrilige!

Yup. Remember this is a two hour block. What came on after those two? Plus, I loved MWC, but I wouldn't put it ahead of any one of these 4 shows.

MWC, at its best, was miles ahead of Malcolm or Bernie Mac, as good as those shows are. I've never seen Arrested Development.

You're right, though, I have no idea what was on after Simpsons/MWC on Sunday nights. Probably repeats.

This has been bugging me. I swear there's a website that lists old TV schedules/listings, but I can't find it. Anyway, I know that at least one, if not both of the half-hour slots were filled by a succession of shows that Fox never really gave much of a chance - like Flying Blind (Tea Leoni - God, how I love her), Herman's Head, Chris Elliot's show, etc. There were probably a dozen of them. And then, didn't X-Files take over that slot?

Herman's Head rocked...

OK, well that changes everything. Herman's Head was an excellent show.

I found this one:
http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/primetime10.htm

There used to be: inthe80s.com, inthe90s.com, etc who also had them but they don't appear to be responding.

SI

I heart the simpsons, yeah the episodes may not be as great on a consistent basis as they once were but they are still funny and still better than a lot of what is on tv nowadays IMO.

Married With Children, The Tracey Ullman Show, It's The Gary Shandling Show and Duets, I loved that lineup.