What is the Nadir of the Simpsons?

[SecretAsianMan]

Comparing When Flanders Failed and Homer's Enemy is interesting to me.  In the beginning of When Flanders Failed, Homer can almost be seen as a pseudo-Frank Grimes.  He's jealous of the success and happiness of one of his peers.  He feels its not deserved and wishes misfortune upon him.  Unlike Frank Grimes, Homer enjoys a period of triumph over his foe before coming to his senses.  Also unlike Frank, Home isn't at all justified in his feelings.  Although in Homer's defense, it is unreasonable to expect that one person would be able to send enough business to the store to save it.  That of course gets subverted in the episode's conclusion.  And in both episodes, Homer is ultimately triumphant.  He gets to be the one that saves Flanders' store (and Flanders has no knowledge that Homer was the "cause" of his failure) and he continues his blessed life while Grimes perishes doing a very Homer-like thing and is ultimately remembered by no one (not counting the minor follow up with Frank Grimes Jr.).

 

As an aside to that, my favorite part of When Flanders Failed is the end of Bart's side story when he fails to recover Lisa's sax and Lisa remarks that sometimes two wrongs do make a right.

[tberton]

That episode is called "When Flanders Failed"? I never knew that. What a subtle, brilliant pun that doesn't loop back to the episode at all. Weird.

[Ben X]

What a subtle, brilliant pun that doesn't loop back to the episode at all.

Sorry to needle over minutiae, but I don't see how that's a brilliant pun - they've just found something else that had the name Flanders in it and wrangled it to fit the episode, despite the poem having nothing to do with the episode. It's about as clever as "Insane Clown Poppy". Actually, looking briefly over a list of season one Simpsons titles, they're all pretty lame.

[Griddlelol]

The image of Homer laughing with a mouthful of turkey in When Flanders Failed has stuck with me since my childhood. It occasionally pops into my head causing me to chuckle to the confusion of those around me.

[syntheticgerbil]

I've been slowly going through Season 9 the last few months and listening to the commentary. I think this is the last one for me. One thing that really sucks about all of these DVD sets is Matt Groening sure loves telling the same stories 10-20 times about various origins of The Simpsons. I'm not even joking with that number range.

 

I think that's it for me though. I can definitely see where the stories got really bland and out of hand on various parts of Season 8 and definitely 9 here. I haven't seen a couple of these as a kid actually so I must have dropped off somewhere in Season 10 after intermittently watching Season 9. Apparently Brad Bird stopped animating/consulting/boarding about four episodes into Season 9 and left to do Iron Giant, but honestly besides the camera angles he pushed, I haven't really seen the touches of great animation since season 6 it feels. It's all been pretty stiff except for a few choice parts.

 

I guess I will end up getting the blu-ray for Season 16 just because of the Ricky Gervais episode and the commentary/extras that go with it, but I doubt I will like any of the season, all of which I have never laid eyes on before.

 

One thing I'm thinking is maybe I should give Wreck-It-Ralph a shot despite how much the premise and art direction makes me cringe. I've really enjoyed listening to Jim Reardon talk about all of the episodes he has directed and he seems like a pretty cool animator, having previous worked under John K. as well. He's credited for story and storyboards for Wreck-It-Ralph.

 

Also the last episode I watched was that Lord of the Flies one. God that was dumb, far fetched, and not funny. It should theoretically be a classic since it's a John Schwartzwelder script but maybe it's just bad execution with ugly backgrounds.

[tegan]

I can't remember his name right now, but there's one guy on every one of those commentaries who talks like John Lasseter and explains every goddamn joke just in case you didn't get it.

[tberton]

Sorry to needle over minutiae, but I don't see how that's a brilliant pun - they've just found something else that had the name Flanders in it and wrangled it to fit the episode, despite the poem having nothing to do with the episode. It's about as clever as "Insane Clown Poppy". Actually, looking briefly over a list of season one Simpsons titles, they're all pretty lame.

 

Fair enough. I guess I just like it because it's such a tenuous connection.

[syntheticgerbil]

I can't remember his name right now, but there's one guy on every one of those commentaries who talks like John Lasseter and explains every goddamn joke just in case you didn't get it.

Is it one of the show runners? Possibly David Mirkin? He was super obnoxious.

 

I liked listening ot Al Jean in the earlier seasons but there was multiple episodes where he'd ask the animators how they got that lighting effect for neon signs and such. Not sure why he kept forgetting.

[tegan]

David Mirkin! Yes! That guy does some terrible commentary.

[Ben X]

I was looking forward to watching the commentaries because you lot had spoken fondly of them, now you're putting me off!

[Merus]

I was looking forward to watching the commentaries because you lot had spoken fondly of them, now you're putting me off!

 

They're probably still better than most commentaries. I finished The Wire recently, went back to listen to the commentary, and they hadn't actually watched the episode before they recorded so there's a lot of dead air where they're enjoying watching the thing they made. I can understand that! That's why I watched it first.

[syntheticgerbil]

Sorry, yeah I mean there's some annoying people and a lot of repetition by a few staff members that seem to forget what they have said previous, but the Simpsons commentaries tend to be pretty above average. You could also just pick out your favorite episodes. Really what they suffer from is the decision to have commentary for every single episode and therefore end up with a lot of time to fill. Most shows have selected episodes, which probably would have been the better route for them.

[SecretAsianMan]

So Harry Shearer, aka the voice of many characters such as Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, etc., may be not be on the show anymore.  He tweeted this out

 

 

 

The 27th and 28th seasons of the show were being held up by a key actor who had not yet signed, and it was reported that Harry Shearer was the one.  The reported reason wasn't a pay increase, but the back end and merchandising.  From the sound of things, it looks like they might have just decided to drop him altogether.

 

I'd probably be more upset about this if I cared about the show at all in the last decade.

[Problem Machine]

Man, it's just getting zombier and zombier at this point.

Oh, I saw an episode yesterday where Homer was betting on football games based on someone's predictions, and Lisa said "that's impossible, no one can consistently predict the outcome of football games." I just thought it was interesting as a particularly brazen ignorance of Simpsons continuity, considering there was an entire episode based around Lisa being able to do just that.

[Ben X]

Surely that was a knowing joke! Am I overestimating Zombie Simpsons?

 

Going back to the discussion about changes in the main characters, I recently watched Colonel Homer (is that the right title?) and thought it was pretty interesting for showing Marge as (imo) very unreasonable and standing in the way of success for the Simpson family, while Homer is acting above reproach.

 

Re. Shearer, I always thought they'd pretty much have to throw in the towel if a big hitter like him went, no matter how much they might want to keep the cash cow going. I guess we'll see...

[Problem Machine]

Surely that was a knowing joke! Am I overestimating Zombie Simpsons?

I'd like to think so, but it didn't seem to be framed that way and I'm not sure what the joke would be in that case: "hey, a character known for being generally on top of things can't remember something that's happened and no one commented on it"?

 

I do like the earlier episodes tendency to portray all of the Simpsons as essentially weirdos, instead of making Marge and Lisa straightlaced if slightly neurotic overachievers and Homer and Bart lazy dummies. Stuff like Lisa's tendency to lose her shit around cute animals and boys overpowering her attempts at social justice, Marge's addictive personality, Bart's fascination with Dickensian stories, and Homer's desperate desire to have the things other families have (which is why he and Flanders were originally foils) made the characters a lot deeper than the generally one-note personalities they have now.

[Ben X]

I'd like to think so, but it didn't seem to be framed that way and I'm not sure what the joke would be in that case: "hey, a character known for being generally on top of things can't remember something that's happened and no one commented on it"?

 

I assume it would be more of a joke directly from the writers to the fans - "1) yes, we're recycling plots and 2) stop worrying about continuity, nerds", in a similar vein to the Principal And Pauper episode (or the Frank Grimes episode etc - just more of the writers showing their frustration at still writing this damn show).

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, except in this case they're not even trying to make a joke out of not giving a shit, they're just not giving a shit.

[Ben X]

Well, I haven't seen the episode but I would read having Lisa say that, and so bluntly, as a joke. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

[Merus]

A comment I saw on Twitter is that Billy West probably has like 57 missed calls.

[tegan]

With regard to Shearer leaving: I always figured that someone at Fox probably has contact info for the best known imitators of every character just in case a major cast member quit or died and they couldn't write them out of the show like they did with Maude and Mrs. Krabapple. I also expect that Shearer's replacements will be unlikely to insert themselves into a cast that's been performing together for nearly three decades without some serious tension, which could very easily tear the show apart from the inside.

[tegan]

[Twig]

omg there's new rick and morty on the way?!

[James]

My entire knowledge of Rick and Morty is that a clip from the end of an episode of that show comes up if you search for For the Damaged Coda by Blonde Redhead on YouTube.

[tegan]

Hey look, they found John Schwartzwelder's lost pilot for a comedy western.