Can somebody please take that damn show behind the barn and put it out of its misery already? I’ve been getting Simpsons dvds from Netflix for the past year or so and the show goes from brilliant to rather sucky somewhere in the middle of Season 9 and they just get worse from there. The show has been in a vegetative state now for the past 10 years and Fox’s conservative pro-life agenda refuses to pull the plug and put it out of its misery. (BTW the show officially jumped the shark when it was announced that Principal Skinner was really Armin Tamzarian. Worst plotline ever.)
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26 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Ooh, you could’ve used “nuked the fridge” there.
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@Geoff,
In my day we didn’t have a 4th Indiana Jones movie to refer to. We had to use the term “Jump the shark”. And we loved it.
And wtf are you doing on my lawn. Git!
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People forget that writers move on to other projects. It’s like, why can’t all the high school holiday pageants be so hysterical? Because the beefy jocks have to graduate, and so someone ELSE will have to wear a football jersey with a tutu. Oh wait, it’s just next year’s beefy jock. Maybe it IS the concept that’s getting old…
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I don’t know, I think the Simpsons has gotten better over time. There was a slump somewhere in the early 90′s when I just quit watching it, but now it’s one of my favorite shows again.
And I like the updated opening with characters that joined/became prominent later in the series (only took ‘em 20 years).
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I think you are right about the steep decline around that time. As I remember, Homer gets ridiculously dumb and everything seems like predictable slapstick.
But I think the show has been getting better the last few seasons. It’s funnier and Homer is someone you can actually relate to occasionally. I think it will never be as good as the early seasons, but how can it be? It’s got 20 years of themes it’s already explored. Yet it’s still quite good in it’s own right.
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In this tough economy, now is not the time to call for the cancellation of this cartoon. These writers, voice actors, and South Korean animators have children to feed and mortgages to maintain.
It is our duty as Americans to watch this terrible show, and support the sponsors.
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i still like the simpsons and watch it whenever its on tv, which is like 15 times a week, but i’m sick of defending it against the increasing number of people who don’t appreciate it.
fuck it, pull the show, im sick of hearing about it.
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The new opening is entirely unnecessary, but shockingly, there have been a handful of episodes the past few years that I’ve enjoyed.
Not like the 99% hit rate of the first 7 or so…but it’s better than nothing. And by nothing I mean CBS’ entire primetime lineup.
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I rather liked the new opening. It gives many a nod to running or “in” jokes from previous episodes. (ex: Clamacco juice on the checkout line) It’s the same kind of opening sequence revamp that South Park got.
I will say this, though: I do get the sense that the writers are trying to see far they can push the envelope of absurdity. I envision writing sessions with conversations like:
“Hey, lets put THIS in the episode!”
“Hah! No way they’ll keep running the show if we run that.”
“Bet ya fifty!”
“Oh, you’re on!”
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You’re not alone in your gripe, Mr. Cynical.
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I think that opening does an excellent job of showing what a pile of shit Simpsons has become in the last decade. It’s basically “Homers Crazy Adventures Around The World Featuring The Simpsons”
Everytime i hear the words “The Simpsons are going to…” i can’t bear to watch.
Next week the Simpsons are going to Italy! They will likely upset the Pope after being invited to the Vatican for whatever reason, Super Mario will certainly show up, they’ll engage in gladiatorial combat in the colosseum and i imagine they’ll knock over the Leaning Tower of Pisa with hilarious results.
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Armin Tamzarian? Worst plotline ever? What season are you on, Chris? There is much, MUCH worse to come…
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I agree that The Simpsons isn’t what it used to be, but I still think it is better than A LOT of what passes for television these days. Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, According to Jim, CSI: Miami, ANYTHING ON MTV, any of the reality/game shows…I could go on and on and on. There are some greatly written shows on television if you can get through the rest of the muck, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t put The Simpsons in even the bottom half of current television programs. They may not be at the top of their game anymore, but you can surely do worse.
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ya, the simpsons have def gone down hill, i used to watch it so much that i’d say a line from a show and whoever i was talking to would know the show, the circumstance, who said it… so you could have a conversation o sorts just by saying arbitrary lines from the simpsons… but no more. i dont know which season it was, but a couple of years ago. but the show stopped reproducing new ideas, just running off the stereotypical behaviour of the character that was developed over time with the better material. … that might be kind of muddled, but for example, homer being stupid just because it’s funny, not so much because there’s a statement in it like there used to be.
as for the intro… i dont mind it. it’s an update of sorts, keeping it fresh. they should’ve done it a while ago when i still cared. the couch bit at the end was trying too hard though.
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While we’re discussing the decline of The Simpsons I have to chime in and mention that anyone that doesn’t think Futurama is a smelly idiot with a stupid head. The ratio of grown-up jokes to slapstick is far higher, and like The Hitchhiker’s Guide there are some very clever jokes that a) require an understanding of physics to understand, and b) often only reveal themselves after a third or fourth viewing.
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“that doesn’t think Futurama is superior” is what I meant to write.
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Oh god, there are so many parts of that that I want to change now. Require an understanding of physics to understand? I feel like such a twat. We need an edit function. I do, at least.
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Geoff, your heart was in the right place, and to me, that’s good enough.
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But where was Geoff’s twat, that’s what I want to know.
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Wow, as someone who was born around the time The Simpson’s started airing (it’s actually got a four months and change on me if you count the shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show) I really don’t like the idea of the opening being changed. It’s like fixing the crack in the liberty bell. I’ve got a feeling the shows cancellation is imminent. All the signs are there. New opening, obvious sell-out tactics (saw more than one HDTV nudge in there), recent movie with mediocre reception at best and most people just don’t seem to give a damn about the show anymore.
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Its just lost all it’s subtlety. The sad thing is definitely how long it is taking for it to be cancelled. I think there’s more bad episodes then good episodes so we have to consider it a bad show.
Family guy seems to be heading down the same track, becoming cheaper each episode.
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of course there is room for all points of view on subjective matters, but… sorry, people who say the show just had a slump and is now ok are just wrong. the show is bad, and only appears more terrible because of how great it used to be.
i think you’re mistaken about the timing, though, Chris. there were several solid episodes up until the 11th season, e.g.:
10×13 homer to the max
11×03 guess who’s coming to criticize dinner
11×05 e-i-e-i-(annoyed grunt)
11×22 behind the laughter
but i agree that the 9th season was approximately when the show lost its consistent polish.
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I think all this means I won’t have to bother with the later seasons once I start purchasing them.
Completely agree with you Geoff. Simpsons goes on forever but Futurama only gets 4 seasons? Damn you Rupert Murdoch!
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by the way (i mention it since it seems most people don’t know), futurama came back within the last year for four feature-length episodes. they were/are broadcast in segments on cable somewhere, and also released straight to dvd.
the second of the four, “beast with a billion backs,” is AMAZING.
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agreed. I had hoped that for the seasons where the movie was being made suffered due to a drain on the writing staff but the movie was ok (i liked it) but no life ever returned to the show. A good joke pops up here and there but not enough to bother watching much less make a point of staying home sunday nights anymore. Either some really significant reinvention or death should be the future of the show.
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so you hate the armin tamzarian episode because a character youve grown to know and in some sense become close to has announced that one small thing about them is different and you cant accept that, even though at the end of the episode tamzarian is officially given the name skinner and everything goes back to normal? that episode was written about you.
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