Simpsons fans: At which point did the show start to suck?

The Simpsons is easily one of my favorite TV shows ever. In its heyday, there was nothing like it, and nothing has ever compared to it, though many have tried. Then it all went downhill, and it's just a shadow of what it once was. My question to you, is when did it start to suck?

enough to make you cry sometimes -- "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" and "Lisa the Iconoclast" still get me teary, even now.

ETA: Of course, things like "The Great Escape" make me cry, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

I think what happened at some point is the characters became too cliched. They lost their souls, and in the process a fundamental part of what made the show great in the first place.

It lost its fun.

I think that the series would have died many seasons ago if they hadn't made Homer into the uber-doofus that he is today. Before that time, far too much of the series rode on Bart's shoulders, and even by the early 90's it was clear that he wasn't up to the task.

I've watched The Simpsons since before they had their own show, but I now find some of the earliest episodes almost unwatchably unfunny.

But I don't deny that recent seasons have sucked.

some episodes aren't so great, but after nearly 20 years, that's to be expected. It's become and institution, and that's part of what I like about it now. It's comforting, in a way.

Bender was the m-er.. robot.


And I haven't really watched the Simpson in years, so it started sucking then. Sorry I can't be more specific. :P

Bender's Game

It looks great! :D

:bounce:

Or something like that. I forget how to count.
How you doing?

And for me, it was all about Zoidberg. Yeah.

Except it is um November, so maybe it has. :o


Did you have a fun Halloween? :hi:

Lol, probably my fault though. I'm a boring person. :P
How was yours?


(And it is November so it has been! I think.)

Partied after with the fam - it was a combo party for Halloween and my bros birthday which was Thursday.

:)

Work was fun in the morning, then the afternoon went massively down hill. :P

I got 2nd place in the costume contest too, which was cool because I didn't like the 1st place prize. :rofl:

I got a $25 coffee card instead, which I am far more likely to use. :7

I mean, I wouldn't have any use for that either...
...
...

So we do tend to like girly things - I mean I wouldn't turn down a mani/pedi, but I just wouldn't ever take to time to go do it.

:hide:
I want free coffee, though.

Dude I am so girly. Gosh!

I never noticed.
Am I obliviously stupid?

But I'm a total girl. I love makeup and dressing up, and shopping, and romantic comedies, and lots of other girly things like that. :P


Of course I do have a bit of tom-boyishness as well. :P

Most of our conversations are very nerdy and thus decidedly ungirly.

Should I start discussing how cool it was in FFX-2 that you could changes clothes to change powers! Or gush over Sailor Moon because that was the first anime I ever watched? Or I could ramble on about how hawt Spike Spiegel is for a cartoon character. :bounce: :7


SEE I can be geeky and girly! :P

made me weep.
But do go on. In Silent Hill 3, you can unlock multiple alternate outfits for the (female) main character. One causes her to undergo a very Sailor Moon-esque change and allows her to use the 'Sexy Beam' (don't ask). There is also a cheat code that causes one of the main characters to be dressed as a flasher. He wears a trenchcoat, boxers, hat, and shoes, and nothing else. (SERIOUSLY don't ask)

I never finished FFX-2, it got way too tedious, but I did find it amusing. Sexy Beam? :rofl:

like an angsty teenager dressed like this

shouting 'sexy beam' and blasting said abominations with hearts fired from her eyes
I highly recommend SH3, btw. It's scary and very emotional, without being as horribly depressing as SH2 or as freaking hard as SH4.

But I found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtKuIEctEA&feature=related



She does look like Sailor Moon! :rofl:



Oh, you know I'm super obsessed with deviantART? Well I saw this and thought of you... :P

http://tamasaburo89.deviantart.com/art/Pyramid-Head-85369610





And dude it's late, I have to go to bed!! I'll see you later! :hug:

It also comes bundled with the soundtrack, which is a nice bonus.

...and you saw THAT and thought of me?
Is there something you should be telling me? :scared:

sleep well.
:hug:

Season 10 and 11 had a bunch of episodes that I really liked, but as the season progressed I felt like the show was starting to get worse. Maude's death, IMHO, was not the singular moment that ruined the show. Instead, I feel like the way she was killed and the bulk of the episodes after her death were crap.

I like both of them, but the earlier one was better.

All of a sudden I no longer cared if I missed an episode,and before long stopped watching.

The Simpsons is a hard show to judge in terms of quality. In Season 1, when the animation was at its most primitive and the actors were still "finding their voices," Hank Azaria...in the first episode featuring Apu...pulled off what remains as Apu's greatest line EVER:

"Hey! hey! This is not a lending library! If you're not going to buy that thing, put it down or I'll blow your heads off!"

Later, when things got slicker, some of the charm went south. I've always enjoyed the annual "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, even though random segments have bean real stinkers.

In Season 11, I thought the "Tomacco" episode summed up the weaknesses of later seasons, even though it had a few laughs. The Kid Rock thing didn't bother me...I got a kick out of Homer singing along...incompetently...with "Bawitdaba." The "Focusyn" episode had Chief Wiggum pulling an overly medicated Bart out of a tank and proclaiming "End of the line for you, DRUGS Bunny..." Another favorite. I thought the Mel Gibson episode sucked. The food critic episode was weak but not a total loss. The bowling episode had another line that's an all-time personal favorite ("Oh NO...not LENNY!"). The biker episode was fun...Henry Winkler was a bonus and I'm a John Goodman fan...both were great. "Back To The Future" goes on the "sucked" list. "Behind The Laughter" was a gimmick, but once again...Homer's nipple rings sucked off with a hand vac by IRS agents? You've GOTTA give that one an "E" for effort.

:toast:

the crazed cow screaming 'Tomacco!!!' near the end. For some reason, I completely lose it at that part every time.

...who cheerfully leaps its way to safety after the copter crashes. Even my less-favorite episodes have some killer bits.

:patriot:

With very few exceptions, the "musical" episodes have always sucked, but this one was so bad that I almost smashed my tv and torched my living room. Horrible.

Not sure what season that was, but it was the undeniable beginning of the end.

But the whole thing was, obviously, a take-off on Lloyd-Webber's awful musical, and every single song was horrible. Sometimes in the show's history the songs have flowed very well, almost naturally ("Rock me Dr. Xaius" and "See my Vest" being the two leaders IMO), but in this case it was agony to have to sit through them.

Also, Lisa was cast as Eva herself, so she got the lion's share of the awful songs, so she earned my particular ire.

Dreadful, from start to finish. Prior to its airing I made an effort to see every episode in first run; after the Evita espisode, I didn't bother anymore. If I caught an episode, great. If not, no big deal.

It might simply have been the last straw, but it basically killed off the series for me.

Treehouse of Horror XII, and realized that I hadn't laughed once at it.

"They Saved Lisa's Brain" was the last funny episode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_saved_lisa%60s_brain

and even it had a bunch of really weak episodes. Since then, every season has had some memorable episodes, and a whole bunch of crap.

A big problem is that they've explored so many character angles, that when they try to do an episode more in line with the tone of the earlier seasons, they end up repeating themselves (hey, look another episode when Lisa gets super-pissed at Homer's thoughtlessness, only to realize at the end how much he truly loves her). So they mostly go with off-the-wall wacky, which is much funnier in small doses.

:D

:D

But the Paul Bunyan one and the Johnny Appleseed one blew.

when Homer gets raped by a Panda bear.

That whole episode probably ranks as the worst isode of all the seasons. Totally unfunny and painful to watch with no plot or purpose to what was going on and

on top of the shit sundae.

The only seasons I own; the only three seasons I need own.

And it also started to play around with the show's continuity in a way that was not good but nevertheless it was still intermingled with great episodes. Season 10 was when it really began its downhill slide, though, with terrible episodes such as "Kill the Alligator and Run". It was from this season on that they really began to destroy the show's continuity and the character development on many of the characters. While they still had good episodes after Season 10, the downhill slide was never reversed

Homer eats some psychedelic chilis and has a vision quest in the desert and meets Coyote (voiced by Johnny Cash) was the last standout episode I remember(forget what season though)...I just gradually lost interest and eventually stopped watching, although I've watched a few this season (including tonights Treehouse)and the show is just not what it once was. I did enjoy the movie, though, but I have strange tastes when it comes to movies.

but it's still better than most crap on the TV.

Not quite up to its heyday, but it remains one of the only shows I make a point of catching on TV when it actually airs.

I like the stupid Homer (3 - 9) better than ignorant Homer (10 - present). I also dont like the fact that they switched from Homer being the main character to Bart and Lisa being the main characters.

I've met one of the head writers of "The Simpsons" and he lives in a mansion next door to Antonio Banderas. I'm not kidding. He has never worked any job except writing for this TV show, directly from the Ivy League. How are you supposed to write these characters from that perspective?