tegan

What is the Nadir of the Simpsons?

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They already got divorced in season eight for "A Milhouse Divided," and they remarried by the end of the episode. I'm expecting exactly the same thing to happen here, but with even more terrible headline-grabbery. Remember Krusty's father's death?

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Why can't they stop making this? Why?

 

 

MONEYYYYYYYYY!  :wtf: 

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The Simpsons Rick&Morty opening sequence was the first I had heard about the show at all.

 

The Simpsons has been creatively dead for years and years already, but for some reason I have watched all the episodes from the past few seasons and skipped mostly like 10 seasons before those and have just watched some random ones from tv channels. There were some alright ones in the middle, but mostly it's the same as it has been for many years already.

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I've just got onto season 5 and it's around here that episodes I don't enjoy start to show up. That snake beating one at the end of S4 and the season opener about the Be Sharps are pretty ropey, with awkward cameos (although Barry White's return in the next episode almost makes it worth it) and goofy plots. Just because right at the end of the latter they lampshade the fact that it's just taking random characters and crowbarring them into a genre parody doesn't fix that issue. I enjoyed Cape Feare more than I remembered, but it's still basically an episode-long parody of a single film with a bunch of silly jokes and perfunctory plot stringing them together.

 

It's not like it's season 10 or anything - they can still do wacky episodes like the monorail one while keeping it focused and sharp - but you can see the beginnings of the saggy, lazy show it eventually became.

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I know it's a fan favourite, but that gag never tickled me - for me, it never came out of the other side from boring back to funny. I did like the callback to it later in the episode when he gets on the boat and steps on another rake, though.

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What makes it work perfectly for me is the shot where it pans out and shows all the rakes arrayed around him. Like, just as you start to construct a mental model of how this improbable situation could occur, it shows you this ridiculous array of rakes, and it's just perfect. It makes it way better than just the standard 'dumb joke repeated a bunch of times' gag. It's actually several jokes in one: First, him coming out from under the car all beat up after the trip and then stepping on a rake to add to that, which comes out of nowhere and is a pretty good gag in itself. Then, the second rake, which adds another layer of over-the-top weirdness to the abuse he's suffered. Then the third rake is like "okay that makes no sense" until it pulls out and shows all the rakes which makes that make sense (but in the words of Hermes Conrad "just raises further questions"). And then there's even another layer to it when they're having a conversation in another room and you can hear him step on the rake in the background. It's an amazing set of jokes that are the same joke told over and over in different ways. It's a masterpiece.

 

Plus the grumbling sound he makes is hilarious.

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See, I think if it had shown him getting whacked by the third rake in the wide shot, then cutting to Homer and Marge where we hear him step into another one offscreen, that aspect of it would have come through a lot clearer for me and I probably would have enjoyed it. I think what bugs me is that we see him going back to the same rake at least three times at which point it just doesn't make sense to me, it becomes almost too Beckett-esque for me to find funny. (I should clarify that I'm thinking through why it doesn't work for me, not saying it's objectively bad or anything).

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Yeah that's cool, humor is volatile anyway -- sometimes a joke can completely not land for someone and then the 5th or 6th time they hear it something triggers and it totally destroys. I just said it's my favorite, I don't expect it to be everyone else's :)

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The rake joke was never my favorite but I do love the hell out of "HEYBARTYOUWANNASEEMYNEWCHAINSAWANDHOCKEYMASK?"

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What makes it work perfectly for me is the shot where it pans out and shows all the rakes arrayed around him. Like, just as you start to construct a mental model of how this improbable situation could occur, it shows you this ridiculous array of rakes, and it's just perfect. It makes it way better than just the standard 'dumb joke repeated a bunch of times' gag. It's actually several jokes in one: First, him coming out from under the car all beat up after the trip and then stepping on a rake to add to that, which comes out of nowhere and is a pretty good gag in itself. Then, the second rake, which adds another layer of over-the-top weirdness to the abuse he's suffered. Then the third rake is like "okay that makes no sense" until it pulls out and shows all the rakes which makes that make sense (but in the words of Hermes Conrad "just raises further questions"). And then there's even another layer to it when they're having a conversation in another room and you can hear him step on the rake in the background. It's an amazing set of jokes that are the same joke told over and over in different ways. It's a masterpiece.

 

Plus the grumbling sound he makes is hilarious.

 

 

Heyyy, did you edit that second half in after I'd posted? (Not that it changes the context of my reply, just wondering.)

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I've just got onto season 5 and it's around here that episodes I don't enjoy start to show up. That snake beating one at the end of S4 and the season opener about the Be Sharps are pretty ropey, with awkward cameos (although Barry White's return in the next episode almost makes it worth it) and goofy plots. Just because right at the end of the latter they lampshade the fact that it's just taking random characters and crowbarring them into a genre parody doesn't fix that issue. I enjoyed Cape Feare more than I remembered, but it's still basically an episode-long parody of a single film with a bunch of silly jokes and perfunctory plot stringing them together.

 

It's not like it's season 10 or anything - they can still do wacky episodes like the monorail one while keeping it focused and sharp - but you can see the beginnings of the saggy, lazy show it eventually became.

I agree. The Homer goes to college one is particularly bad.

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I agree. The Homer goes to college one is particularly bad.

 

Interesting. This is how I remembered it, but there was some disagreement on page 1 of this thread. I'll be getting to it soon, so I'll be able to reappraise.

 

Btw, you never answered: do you have a link to those Brad Bird style guides you mentioned ages ago?

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WELL?!

 

So it turns out I don't think I've actually ever watched Homer Goes To College before. To quote the episode, "why does it have to be zany?" Pretty directionless collection of wacky gags and Homer being more oafish than usual. I quite liked the nerds with their nose bleeds and ear medicine and the bit with the car prank was good, but not much else clicked. The best bits were the School Of Hard Knockers and the credit stills from imaginary Animal House style scenes. The Bobo and Treehouse 4 eps were much better than I remembered though!

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It's funny how The Simpsons and Futurama college episodes gave me a genre appreciation for campy college comedies despite having never actually seen them. That's probably not that anomalous, I guess.

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