Comments on: Celebratings 20 Years of The Simpsons

By: jic

jic — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:16:22 +0000

“You know, this has certainly become the conventional wisdom. But nobody ever details how and why.”

Well, the joke quality and density were lower, the general writing quality was lower, the animation quality was a little cruder, and the show felt like an animated *Married With Children* knockoff (those last two really only applied to the first half of season one).

Of course, all this stuff is just a show finding its feet; but just because it’s understandable, it doesn’t mean that the show was particularly good at that point. Now, it’s true that there is an element of hindsight to this, in that the astounding quality of later seasons does make the early episodes seem a bit worse than the really were. But I remember being more than a little underwhelmed with the show when I first saw it. Obviously not so underwhelmed that I stopped watching it, but I didn’t consider it anything special at that point (besides the novelty of it being a primetime animated series).

And yes, the second season was much better than the first. But it was also vastly worse than the third.

By: Thomas Dee

Thomas Dee — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:05:32 +0000

I’m going to say this only once: the difference between a Brad Bird or a Matt Groening and the people who whine about them here is that instead of complaining about the work of others not being up to their “comic book guy” standards, they’re out there spending their energy and their imaginations actually CREATING something.

Actually, the other difference is that they’re incredibly talented too. Success follows ability and hard work. Oddly enough, they don’t give out Emmys and Oscars and Harveys and Caldecotts for internet bitching.

Come on, folks! We’re a talented bunch, I’m sure, but here even the complaining is unoriginal. Get to work and do something to make your mamas proud.

By: Chris Sobieniak

Chris Sobieniak — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:26:31 +0000

“Anyone who has a problem with the second season of the show is an idiot. There – I said it. THE END.”

I couldn’t agree with you more. I arguably love the first 2-3 seasons myself for what they had to put up with and what direction they thought of going to.

By: John A

John A — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:21:43 +0000

Mudron is right. The first 13 episodes they were just laying the foundation, but by the second season they had acheived perfection.

By: Mudron

Mudron — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:47:59 +0000

Anyone who has a problem with the second season of the show is an idiot. There – I said it. THE END.

By: Dock Miles

Dock Miles — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:59:20 +0000

“Actually, the first two seasons or so were pretty lame too.”

You know, this has certainly become the conventional wisdom. But nobody ever details how and why. (I suspect it’s simple historical amnesia. The same deplorable human shortcoming that caused Louis Armstrong and Jerry Lee Lewis to be considered “lame” for stretches of their careers. Oh, and black and white cartoons. They were “junk” for a long time, too.)

By: doop

doop — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:27:37 +0000

Well of course the Simpsons isn’t the same as when it came out. It’s been 20 years! It has morphed and changed with media and pop culture with passing time, for better or for worse. And compared to the rest of the garbage on TV animation for this decade (which is near everything) the Simpsons has held up pretty well in my opinion, even having taken a dunk in quality.

And those of you whining about the show, I suggest taking a look at some from the latest season, particularly “Oh Brother, where Bart Thou?”, “Pranks and Greens”, and “Bart Gets a Z”. The story has been surprisingly solid for these few, with “Oh Brother” even being dare I say, touching. They’ve got an old-school feel that is a bit more character-based than before, and If I can guess anything, the show is somewhat changing in this direction, for the better. And it makes sense, I mean, they can only go up from where they’ve been for the last 9 years.

By: jic

jic — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 02:31:11 +0000

“The funniest thing about the bitter, jaded fans of the early Simpsons is how important it is to convince people who still enjoy the show of how wrong we are.”

Actually, the first two seasons or so were pretty lame too. But there was a good, solid, five or six years there where the quality of virtually every episode was amazing, and it’s a shame they couldn’t have quit when they were ahead.

Wasn’t there a bit of dialog in *The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular* along the lines of ‘the show will continue until it ceases to be profitable’? Turns out it wasn’t supposed to be a joke after all…