tegan

What is the Nadir of the Simpsons?

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I actually like that episode, and I hardly think it's fair to say "shamelessly." We don't see the resolution, he could have been terribly embarrassed or apologise about it. There is nothing to indicate that he does or doesn't feel bad about falling asleep. Only that the rest of the cast find it funny.

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I think that in the early years, they were a lot better about incorporating pop culture references into jokes, but not making the reference itself the joke. "Homer Goes to College" works even if you've never seen any of the movies it's spoofing, because the episode itself gives you all the context you need, and because it's about parodying the conventions of those movies more than specific scenes. "The Springfield Files" just feels like "we found out we could get Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, so we threw together an X-Files parody."

Yes exactly, like Lady Bouvier's Lover where Grandpa Simpson plays out the story of The Graduate. It works on the spoofing/parody level but it becomes a sweet little story arc within the Simpsons universe itself rather than anything cheap.

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You know, it didn't occur to me until now that Homer's Enemy is a pretty good intro to the idea of privilege

 

I love it! Except that you're implying people who hold privilege are clueless and undeserving idiots like Homer, rather than the natural products of a sexist/racist/ableist society. Someone's going to see that as an important distinction.

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I love it! Except that you're implying people who hold privilege are clueless and undeserving idiots like Homer, rather than the natural products of a sexist/racist/ableist society. Someone's going to see that as an important distinction.

Well that's one reading yeah, and that's why I think it's mostly useful as just an introduction to the idea rather than a comprehensive metaphor.

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Well that's one reading yeah, and that's why I think it's mostly useful as just an introduction to the idea rather than a comprehensive metaphor.

 

Nah, I was honest in saying that I really do like it. I just wish there were a metaphor for privilege that didn't leave the obvious out of "But I'd never be as careless as the person in your example..." Anyway, back to the Feminism thread!

 

Also, my vote in the actual thread topic goes to "Homer vs. Dignity" for the many metalogical parallels to the show itself.

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"Homer vs. Dignity" 

 

Too late for me. It's a couple of seasons after I lost interest. 

 

As a non-AmeriCanadian I'm really interested in viewing "SMTV" which is cited as the influence for the best of The Simpsons. If anyone here has seen it, is it worth the digging? (In a quick internet search I didn't find much.)

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I have no idea where I'm going with this so forgive the rambling.

 

This thread somehow entered my dreams last night because at one point I had a thought about whether or not The Old Man and the Lisa belonged in this thread.  Specifically the scene where Mr. Burns goes to the Simpson household to enlist Lisa's help in getting his fortune back and he tells Homer he's there to see his daughter.  When Homer asks him if he means Maggie, Burns' response is a very nonchalant "Ah the baby who shot me".  My dream thought at the time was a vague notion how this was a sign the show was losing it by calling back to a previous crazy idea.  When I woke up I tried to continue this thought but as I considered it more, I realized the episode was more akin to Lisa the Vegetarian than Lisa the Simpson.  Lisa starts with a well-intentioned crusade, like she usually does, but instead of becoming a morality tale about recycling where Lisa is right, she ends up enabling Mr. Burns to become even more evil and her entire plan blows up in her face in a spectacular way.  Whether or not she learns a lesson from this I don't really know (what lesson is there to learn except that Burns is evil).

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Also, my vote in the actual thread topic goes to "Homer vs. Dignity" for the many metalogical parallels to the show itself.

 

That's the episode where Homer gets raped by a panda, right? If so, that's definitely a low point.

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Pretty much every episode is an adaptation of something

 

Is this really true regarding the first eight seasons? I haven't gone through and counted or anything, but this feels like quite a heavy exaggeration...

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Is this really true regarding the first eight seasons? I haven't gone through and counted or anything, but this feels like quite a heavy exaggeration...

 

I'd say the first 2 seasons are immune. After that, while it is an exaggeration (I wasn't being 100% serious), The Simpsons doesn't have many entirely original plots. Not that it's a bad thing, it's what makes the show so great. 

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It's basically a different show but the first two seasons of The Simpsons are maybe my favourite of them all. It's absolutely not as funny as the 4 or 5 seasons that followed but, as a comedy-drama, it is unbelievable.

 

How many comedy programmes would have an episode based around the father becoming depressed and attempting suicide? An episode about infidelity where the wife is the one who questions her marriage? An episode about learning to respect women! Uh... a lot of serial killers! And this is for a cartoon, ostensibly aimed at a family audience.

 

Man, I'm going to watch some Simpsons tonight.

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Thus entire thread and that mini book make me sad I don't have the box sets that would allow me to watch the seasons sequentially and Ve able to take note of the shifts as they happen.

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It's basically a different show but the first two seasons of The Simpsons are maybe my favourite of them all. It's absolutely not as funny as the 4 or 5 seasons that followed but, as a comedy-drama, it is unbelievable.

 

I always think of that moment in the Binky the fish ep where Homer is leaving the plant late and shouts "Echo!" down the corridor. It's such a nice little character moment that later Simpsons would never take the time out for.

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Thus entire thread and that mini book make me sad I don't have the box sets that would allow me to watch the seasons sequentially and Ve able to take note of the shifts as they happen.

 

I know I'm all set.

 

 

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I kind of like later Simpsons episodes. Like stuff from the season 11-15 range (I think I stopped watching beyond that so I make no claim about later later Simpsons episodes). I will not deny that the show got stupider, and more incredulous. But they also featured a ton of amazing, super subtle jokes. It was like everything got amplified around that period: the dumb jokes got really dumb, and the subtle jokes got really subtle. The earlier episodes had a much better balance as far as that stuff goes, and deserve to be called classics, but personally there is stuff I like about the Simpsons past its prime (up to a point!)

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I really liked the Frank Grimes episode. I agree with other posters that it explores the idea of 'privilege', in so far as it demonstrates just how successful Homer has become, relative to the amount of effort or skill he required to achieve that success. It points out just how hard it can be to achieve social mobility, even in a country whose identity is largely based on the ideal that social mobility is for everyone, and it's fairly scathing in its approach. Grimey's diligence and resilience are what eventually gets him into the middle-class, but these are the same qualities that alienate him from the other loafers who were simply born into that class, and this eventually drives him insane and ultimately to his death.

 

I also liked the Armin Tamzarian episode. I can totally understand why people pinpoint this episode as the nadir of The Simpsons, but I think it was still funny and warm. It is a kind of a red flag episode though, in that you can see the writers are struggling for fresh ideas.

 

For me, the episode where I first realised that The Simpsons was getting kind of shit, was the episode 'Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder' in the eleventh season. You might remember it best as the episode where Homer becomes famous after bowling a perfect game. I think this is the episode where you really start to see the writers sacrifice narrative structure and characterisation in favour of cheap gags. I don't mind episodes that tinker with narrative or character in order to explore new and/or interesting ideas, but this episode just came across as lazy writing, which of course is the greatest sin of all.

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I also liked the Armin Tamzarian episode. I can totally understand why people pinpoint this episode as the nadir of The Simpsons, but I think it was still funny and warm. It is a kind of a red flag episode though, in that you can see the writers are struggling for fresh ideas.

I liked that one too, which I guess places us in the distinct minority. I still think it's intrinsically hilarious seeing Skinner/Temzarian take to being a worthless bum with the exact same stoic sense of duty he took to being a son/principal.

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I always liked the moment in the Temzarian episode when Temzarian becomes Skinner, when Skinner's mom tell him to go to his room, then says under her breath "3rd door on the left". It's a nice little joke that redefines the whole dynamic.

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I'll be the boring predictable guy and cite Homer's Enemy from season 8 as the definitive end of classic Simpsons. The whole thing felt too mean and against the spirit of the rest of the series. RIP Grimey. RIP Simpsons.

It's really true, though. I mean, it's a great episode, but it pushes the boundaries too far and crosses a few lines too many. Seasons 4-7 are the best, without question.

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As someone who has seen maybe ten full episodes of The Simpsons, nine of them when I was a kid over ten years ago, I think the tenth episode I saw was the Nadir.

 

I don't know what Nadir means. I did look it up though and it's good that I'm still able to figure out general definitions of words from context.

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The thing that blows me away about old Simpsons episodes is the sheer density of jokes. They didn't care at all if you got all of them, they just threw in tons of background gags and random innuendo in. Now, whenever they make a joke, they pause to MAKE SURE YOU NOTICED A JOKE HAPPENED. It's pretty terrible.

That same kind of confidence, incidentally, is what I also think is amazing about Arrested Development.

A THOUSAND times this. Going back and watching those old episodes, some of which I've seen multiple times, there are STILL jokes I don't get. And multi-layered jokes (I got that "Chairman Moe's Magic Wok" was funny because Moe had wanted American cooking, but it took my most recent viewing to realize it's ALSO a riff on Chairman Mao) that are funny when you get them and even FUNNIER when you GET them.

 

I can't say what the nadir is (we may not have reached it), but I'll tell you what my breaking point was: Marge was doing something with cooking in the A plot and Homer was remodeling the house in the B plot. Homer realizes a wall has to come down and takes a running start at it with a sledge hammer. He breaks the wall open, hitting a fuse box, electrocuting himself and HURLING himself across the room. He slowly, stammeringly, stands up, shakes himself off and triumphantly declares "And now to do the EXACT same thing AGAIN!" and does...the exact same thing...again...

 

I just sat there, dumbfounded. It was a bad setup. A bad payoff. A bad swerve at the end. And they chose to HIGHLIGHT it.

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