Brief Summary of The Show's decline… Season 1 (1989–1990) — the beginning When the show first started, it wasn't bad. Yes, there was less humour, and the stories were slower-paced, but they were strong stories, and (crucially) the characters were strong, likable and identifiable (despite being badly drawn). It's easy to forget now, but these first episodes absolutely revolutionised cartoons at the time — until then, nobody made cartoons with satirical adult humour. Nobody had seen yellow people before. And cartoon characters had never been so near to real life before — so similar to a real family. Back in 1990, The Simpsons blew everyone away. Seasons 2, 3 and 4 (1990–1993) — the classic years Pretty much all Simpsons fans would agree that you can't get better than these years. The writing team was at its absolute best and the stories were all fresh. Pretty much all the absolute classic episodes came from this period ("Last Exit for Springfield", "Cape Feare", "Marge vs. the Monorail", "Lisa's Substitute"). In these days there was no such thing as a bad episode. There wasn't a single episode that did not make you laugh for 22 minutes. Seasons 5 and 6 (1993–1995) — the latter classic years Season 5 marked the beginning of the gradual decline of the Simpsons, after the original writing team left at the end of season 4 and staff started changing. However, there was still a lot of talented people involved, and seasons 5 and 6 were still of an extremely high quality. These latter classic years were almost indistinguishable from seasons 2–4, apart from tending towards being slightly more surreal and less emotional. Seasons 7–9 (1995–1998) — the poor episodes come Season 7 marked a distinct change in The Simpsons. It was the first ever season to have bad episodes. Yes, there were still some goodies (such as "Bart Sells His Soul" or "Marge Be Not Proud") but some really poor ones were there in the mix, too ("Two Bad Neighbours", "Homerpalooza", and — worst of all — "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"). And by season 8 (when Phil Hartman was murdered), we had episodes that weren't just poor: they felt like a completely different TV show. (Episodes such as "You Only Move Twice", "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer" and "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"). We were all thinking the show was going through a rough patch, but this was nothing compared with what was to come… Seasons 10–18 (1998–now) — the crap episodes come Until now, The Simpsons had always been somewhere between excellent and (occasionally) poor. Then, in season 10, they began making absolute crap. The Simpsons as we knew it was all but dead. Some of the worst offenders were: "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" (season 10) and "Kill the Alligator and Run" (season 11). But probably the one moment when every Simpsons Fan realised — for certain — it was no longer the same show, was when Homer traveled to leprechaun land in season 11's "Saddlesore Galactica". The scene (featuring leprechaun jockeys singing to Homer) must've lasted 2 minutes and contained absolutely no humour or plot. The episode concluded with Homer "killing" the jockeys by throwing them in a bin bag. He may as well have been throwing the fanbase in that bin bag, too. From here on, the crap episodes just got more and more and these days you can go almost an entire season without finding a good one. Why The Simpsons Sucks Now There are several key reasons why the show is no longer anywhere near as good as it used to be, including: • By far the biggest change (in my opinion) is the lack of reality. The Simpsons was always great because it was like real life only a cartoon. The people felt like real people. The family seemed like a real family. Now it's just a cartoon. • The biggest casualty of this shift from reality to cartoon is Homer. Homer was always like a real man. Yes, he wasn't perfect and he screwed up, but he was someone we could all relate to, and he loved his family. The New Homer is just a madman who annoys everyone, never goes to work, and doesn't care about his family. Homer has no identity any more. He just develops extreme, baseless emotions to fit the story. He would occasionally do that in the old days, but it was funny because it was unexpected. Now Homer is constantly crazy, it's just weird. • The Simpsons was originally full of social commentary and subtle satire. This has been replaced with slapstick toilet cartoon humour. • The Simpsons originally had a lot of cinematic drama in the script and direction, giving everything a "grand" feeling and made each episode seem like a movie. Now it's just a cartoon show. • The Simpsons always had so much heart. The stories were sentimental and heart-warming character-based tales. Everything felt very poetic and artistic, and well-crafted. Now it's just a cartoon show. • The new plots are all over the place, jumping around randomly from one subject to another, making it seem like the writers don't even plan the episodes out. Usually the first 10 minutes has nothing to do with the rest of the episode these days. The episodes are no longer mini-movies; now they're just a series of jokes tied loosely together. • The plots of the classic episodes were usually heavily character–based. The new episodes have surreal outlandish stories that don't focus on the characters at all. A little surrealism was always welcome, but when the entire story is based on stretching the "rubber-band-reality", then we completely lose touch with it and it becomes meaningless. • Endless pointless guest appearances that aren't funny and are only used to generate interest in the show. • Endless "Simpsons go to..." episodes. • Where there was once 22 minutes of tightly-packed top-notch humour, now we have endless streams of "hit and miss" jokes, with lots of waiting inbetween. The old episodes used to (and still do) make me and my friends laugh out loud for 22 minutes solid, whereas the new episodes rarely make us smirk. In summary, the general rule for whether an episode is "classic" or "crap" is: if it features Troy McClure, it's classic.
I never really enjoyed the Simpsons outside of the Treehouse of Horror episodes. But that's just me. Although the Simpsons to me started off good, got worse pretty quick, they ran out of original material. Just like Family Guy, the Cleavland Show is the worse offender since it's based off of Family Guy running out of material and changing Cleavland's character to a Peter/Homer. I personally thought American Dad was a better show than both Family Guy and The Simpsons by Season 2, but after that, they took jokes from Family Guy, and it got lame (hint hint, awkward silences aren't funny anymore and the songs were never really funny and a clear way just to make an episode 22 minutes). God, I hate TV.
I would like to watch the episodes from the "classic years". But I was born during that period and it's hard to find DVDs of the shows anymore.
I haven't really liked any of the recent series of The Simpsons. They seem to be trying too hard to stay relevant by doing things like cramming a celebrity (and all the ego-tastic "in-jokes" that go with said celebrity) into every. Single. Episode. And rubbish "jokes" like Homer responding to someone saying something in a high-pitched whinny voice and then running off crying (it wasn't even funny the first time, they have now run it so far into the ground that it just hit a koopa in the arse). They also try heavy-handed political commentary too often, too bluntly and too cheaply. Futurama is far better IMAO.
i couldnt agree more haha the simpson's have went down though but maybe i just expect more from it now being 23 years old and not like 12 when i used to like it.. some episodes still hold up though haha Eat my shorts!
Well, you really can't blame them (the show's producers) if the show has gone stale seeing it's been on the air for 20 seasons or so. They've obviously run out of gags & good plots to work with.
its still good, i laugh at the simpsons more than family guy. family guy gets old, fast. futurama is best, bender is total genius! south park is close behind though.
@msg: I also liked Futurame because it was actually targeted at a more adult & mature audience. They should have just made it so that the Simpsons kids grew up as teens, then made the show a bit mature oriented so that the shows fans who started watching the show when they were younger could have grown up with the show & not out grow it altogether.
Believe it or not, I find all those retarded shows (Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad, Et Cetera) hilarious. I've been watching simpsons for as long as I can remember and still enjoy it to this day.
