The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened

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Aug 13, 2017 1:34:55 GMT -5 andrew8798 said:

Should have ended with the movie

It was bad before that, but the movie was the show's last shining moment. So yeah the movie should have been the end.

[HMARK Center]

That was a pretty darn good overview of things in the video, solid stuff.

Really like how it works from a simple, multi-pronged thesis:

-First, The Simpsons was a show conceived with three tentpole principles in mind: Groening's anti-authority/counterculture rebelliousness and satire, Simon's experience in keeping smart sitcoms grounded in consistent characters and characterizations instead of flying off into needlessly complex narratives, and Brooks' insistence that the show demonstrate that it had an emotional core and a was not cynical to the point of becoming an existential nightmare. Maintaining these principles was very taxing, necessitating long hours, many writers, numerous rewrites, and in some ways put a time limit on how long the show could maintain its style...the fact that it was probably the best thing to happen to television for seven whole seasons is a monumental accomplishment in and of itself.

-Second, The Simpsons was a product of its era, representing a countercultural voice against the perceived prevailing pop cultural/political consensus of that time, much of which existed as an extension of nostalgia for the 1950s among 1980s adults who had been children in those older days. See: the change in many sitcoms from family-based stories in the 1950s (Leave it Beaver, et. al.) toward more sitcoms that focused on single/working adult leads in the 1960s and 70s (Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, etc.), back toward an era of family-based sitcoms by the 1980s (Family Ties, Full House, etc.), aging alongside the 40s/50s Boomers they were marketing toward. This gave The Simpsons an exceptionally strong voice during its early years that would become harder to maintain as the cultural status quo shifted to better reflect The Simpsons' style, but the show seemed to not even attempt to maintain its edge as time went on when they could have put in more of an effort (e.g. having more and more celebrities on as themselves for no real purpose, rather than using them as original characters, more organic components of the narrative, or as another avenue by which to satire celebrity-obsessed culture).

-Third, the show's longevity shifted the show's core tenants because after so much time the humor stopped being about skewering the wider culture that the show originally targeted and instead became much more self-referential. This is where the Frank Grimes episode becomes an issue: it was a very well done episode, and an occasional self-aware/lampshade-hanging episode is often welcome in a long-running series, but now the joke turned from "here's how these dysfunctional characters live, work, and still manage to find contentment in a dysfunctional world" toward "oh my God, how stupid is Homer, right?" The example the video cites from that blog post at the end about how old Simpsons and new Simpsons would handle a similar joke setup was really telling, it was something I hadn't considered before: older Simpsons was too iconoclastic for its time to adhere to the simple "set up --> punchline --> laugh track" structure, yet new Simpsons seems to embrace both it and, again, celebrating hollow celebrity rather than making fun of its inanity.

Does really put things in a couple of perspectives I think I had subconsciously noticed, but had never really known how to express or single out.

I happily own seasons 1-8 on DVD, I might consider 9 and 10 at some point as there are still some gems to be found there, but it's pretty amazing how steep the drop off became.

[Cyno]

My cable's free on demand service has the entirety of Seasons 5 and 6 under the FXX listing and I've been on-and-off binging on them. So many classics.

[mcstoklasa]

Maybe it sounds silly but if it's on tv I will watch it but if o see it's the new animation in the intro I won't bother

[SmashTV]

I thought it went off the boil in 1995/6, when Homer went into space. I remember thinking a few weeks before that it had lost its edge, and that a future episode would have Homer going into space as the writers were running out of ideas. I was being facetious, but lo and behold...

The fact it's lasted 22 years more is astounding...and not necessarily in a good way.

[Hit Girl]

Aug 13, 2017 14:47:22 GMT -5 mcstoklasa said:

Maybe it sounds silly but if it's on tv I will watch it but if o see it's the new animation in the intro I won't bother

I do the same thing. Anything from season 9 at the latest and I won't watch it.

[Johnny]

i feel blessed that my youth coincided with the Simpsons hitting its peak. stopped watching around season 9, after noticing the show dropped in quality during 8. i remember realising the show was no longer the same during the Alec Baldwin episode. the episode was literally about the fact there were famous people on the show. "zombie simpsons" is the PERFECT way to describe it now.

[Limity (BLM)]

Aug 13, 2017 15:48:17 GMT -5 Johnny said:

i feel blessed that my youth coincided with the Simpsons hitting its peak. stopped watching around season 9, after noticing the show dropped in quality during 8. i remember realising the show was no longer the same during the Alec Baldwin episode. the episode was literally about the fact there were famous people on the show. "zombie simpsons" is the PERFECT way to describe it now.

I think there's enough about the Baldwin / Basinger episode to still be funny, though. Like the very last freeze frame shot of Ron Howard makes me laugh.

[Mozenrath]

The ran out of stories, they stretched the characters too many times and broke them (Remember back when Marge and Homer's marriage could be remotely believable?), and lastly, the same problem South Park has, and to a degree Family Guy, I guess, not sure how subversive they ever strived for:

You can't still be counter culture if you ARE the culture. It's like CM Punk chastised Cena for, and what ultimately took some of the teeth from Punk himself once he was on top for long enough, you can't rebel against yourself. You can't push back against the man while also being the man.

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

I think there are a few problems with The Simpsons that the video never really addresses.

1) Business trumps creativity. For what reason has The Simpsons been around for 28 seasons? Is there a legitimate storytelling, character, or thematic reason to stretch a television show that long? Other than money, merchandise, ratings, and so on, when the business tail wags the creative dog, it makes for an unsatisfying experience for viewers.

2) The limits of the sitcom television genre. Often these shows establish a status quo, upset it, to then settle it again by the episode's conclusion. Homer and Marge's marital problems are a staple of The Simpsons, but they're not the same problem episode-to-episode, but always another new wrinkle. Related to #1, Zombie Simpsons is a thing because the stories of the sitcom genre are so very much wash, rinse, and repeat. Serial television isn't a new thing by any stretch of the imagination, but the sitcom trappings of The Simpsons (and other like shows) stand out in a TV landscape that has been shaped by Lost, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones, all of which were/are highly serial in design.

3) The refusal to allow characters to grow and change. Related to #2, if everything changes, then nothing changes. But on the flipside, Bart and Lisa have been 10 and 8 years old forever. South Park was willing to let the characters graduate to the 4th grade. Family Guy has had Peter Griffin work several different jobs. The only reason the comedy of The Simpsons aged is because the characters themselves remain frozen in time, whereas the world around them has changed (cellphones, even the animation, etc).

[Hit Girl]

Today's social media world is ripe for satire and critique, but the Simpsons, like many other shows, has become a show that wants social media buzz rather than trying to deconstruct it.

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

Aug 13, 2017 15:21:21 GMT -5 SmashTV said:

I thought it went off the boil in 1995/6, when Homer went into space. I remember thinking a few weeks before that it had lost its edge, and that a future episode would have Homer going into space as the writers were running out of ideas. I was being facetious, but lo and behold...

The fact it's lasted 22 years more is astounding...and not necessarily in a good way.

I thought it was 28/29?..

[Hit Girl]

In the early seasons if a celebrity did a voice on the show they would usually play an original character. That changed. Celebrities began appearing as themselves in ever more contrived scenarios. That's a problem because the original characters they voiced would have a story attached to them, like Dustin Hoffman's appearance for example.

[wildojinx]

Aug 14, 2017 0:46:08 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

In the early seasons if a celebrity did a voice on the show they would usually play an original character. That changed. Celebrities began appearing as themselves in ever more contrived scenarios. That's a problem because the original characters they voiced would have a story attached to them, like Dustin Hoffman's appearance for example.

To be fair, they had celebs as themselves as early as season 2 (Tony Bennett).

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Aug 14, 2017 1:04:05 GMT -5 wildojinx said:

Aug 14, 2017 0:46:08 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

In the early seasons if a celebrity did a voice on the show they would usually play an original character. That changed. Celebrities began appearing as themselves in ever more contrived scenarios. That's a problem because the original characters they voiced would have a story attached to them, like Dustin Hoffman's appearance for example.

To be fair, they had celebs as themselves as early as season 2 (Tony Bennett).

Yeah, but that was 2 seconds, and a one off, they didn't have entire episodes devoted to them.

If they did, like the Baseball episode, then they'd go weird with it, Ken Griffey Jr developing gigantism from an addiction to old timey nerve tonic, Ossie Smith disappearing into an interdimensional vortex etc.

No "hey, it's *blank* meeting the Simpsons, here's 20 minutes about how cool that is".

[A Platypus Rave]

Aug 13, 2017 16:03:25 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

The ran out of stories, they stretched the characters too many times and broke them (Remember back when Marge and Homer's marriage could be remotely believable?), and lastly, the same problem South Park has, and to a degree Family Guy, I guess, not sure how subversive they ever strived for:

You can't still be counter culture if you ARE the culture. It's like CM Punk chastised Cena for, and what ultimately took some of the teeth from Punk himself once he was on top for long enough, you can't rebel against yourself. You can't push back against the man while also being the man.

This is definitely a part of it as well.

I mean during the first season there were newspapers acting shocked that Bart talked back to Homer.

[Ganon83]

I consider Season 11 the end of the series, just because then it ends perfectly with Behind The Laughter

[SmashTV]

Aug 13, 2017 20:48:05 GMT -5 Fade is a CodyCryBaby said:

Aug 13, 2017 15:21:21 GMT -5 SmashTV said:

I thought it went off the boil in 1995/6, when Homer went into space. I remember thinking a few weeks before that it had lost its edge, and that a future episode would have Homer going into space as the writers were running out of ideas. I was being facetious, but lo and behold...

The fact it's lasted 22 years more is astounding...and not necessarily in a good way.

I thought it was 28/29?..

I meant it's 22 years since the 'Homer in Space' episode I referred to. That's when I pinpoint the decline in quality from my own personal reference.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

Aug 13, 2017 13:06:35 GMT -5 Cyno said:

My cable's free on demand service has the entirety of Seasons 5 and 6 under the FXX listing and I've been on-and-off binging on them. So many classics.

If you have on Demand with FXX you should have every single episode on demand.

I have xfinity and they're all there.

[mcstoklasa]

Great video 👍