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Mitt Romney scoffs.
Good to hear Sax made good after finally getting out of jail.
Why Canseco? He was known for being a bad boy, not particularly popular among general fans. Plus, the club needed a left-fielder, and Canseco played right. Just poor GMing by Burns on that one. Rickey would have made that episode epic.
A touch a touch, I do confess!
I
And man, am I glad they added the 'Pitt The Elder' vs 'Lord Palmerston' bit. One of my favorite Simpsons moments.
Someday, somewhere, I hope to have a Simpsons internet discussion without hearing 'The Simpsons suck now.'
The Simpsons has a message for them.
I think the show has bounced back a bit the last 2-3 seasons.
They decided that was too silly. So instead, Moe got a talking bar towel.
I'm trying to think of the messages and lessons to be gleaned from my favorite episodes. Don't sell your soul to Millhouse? A monorail is a poor civic investment?
Lisa needs braces?
Was he really the head of the Kwik-E-Mart?
I think the problem might be that the Simpsons (much like Star Trek: The Next Generation) was absolutely awful in its first season, pretty bad with moments of glory in the 2nd. Seasons 3 to...I don't know...9? are some of the best TV that's ever existed.
This is how I view things.
I would propose that seasons 3 to 8 are the best 6 consecutive seasons of sitcom in TV history.
I stopped buying the DVDs after season 10 because they just weren't worth the money at that point.
I had watched it "live" until about season 14 or so, but then various factors made Sunday night viewing difficult, and it was in the time between regular VCR usage and PVRs for me. I've tried to watch it since (like when they switched over to HD), but I can't get back into it. I'm always comparing it to older classic episodes (Monorail, Softball, B-Sharps, etc) and finding it seriously lacking.
Edit at #19: Things aren't as funny on Sunday nights... that's why I rarely laugh during 60 Minutes...
Well kids, you tried and failed spectacularly. The lesson here is - never try.
The season 6 "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" cliffhanger was great, also.
I don't watch the Simpsons any more, but it's a truly great show. It doesn't bother me if you disagree, because I know you're wrong :)
I will say this - FG has absolutely fallen through the floor into non-watchability... just awful. American Dad has become Sunday's most reliable, to me at least.
Cleveland is tepid, at best.
Napoleon Dynamite is surprisingly watchable.
Bob's Burgers is strangely growing on me -- I don't much care for the parents, but the kids (particularly the Kristen Schaal character) are hilarious.
That awful Jonah Hill debacle... Gregory Allen or whatever... well... I sincerely hope we've seen the last of that thing.
I remember when the Simpsons first came out on DVD, I went out and got the first couple of seasons and I found them unwatchable.
I agree with the above posters that you didn't watch the right seasons. Season 1 is very boring, and season 2 isn't that great either with a few exceptions. Seasons 4 and 5 are IMO the greatest two seasons of any show in TV history. If you can watch those and still say you don't like it, well, then I'll concede your point and just say that we have very different tastes on what's funny.
Angels sing... I'm pretty sure that show was a secret CIA project to breed serial killers.
Aren't the dvd's about 10 years behind when the seasons aired? A lot of topical humor can be lost after 10 years.
Surprised it hasn't come up in the Uehara thread since they're discussing terrorists and Canada.
"I'm looking for a terrorist and an ocelot. Not necessarily in that order.'
The problem is more that during the first year or two the show hadn't yet worked out what it was trying to do. It started as a show about a rascally kid and then grew into a show more about the dad. Also, the characters voices and appearances were still in flux. It wasn't sure what it was yet. Still a few great episodes.
Around 1995-97 there was a mediocre Mexican restaurant in my town that had Margarita Wednesdays with pitchers for some ridiculously low price. My girlfriend and I would go and sit at the bar for the hour that one of the local stations showed two consecutive Simpsons reruns (6-7 pm, I think). The place had a bartender with a big stringy Jewfro that he'd shaved on the sides, IOW a Sideshow Bob haircut. It was truly magical when we were a pitcher in and the second episode featured Sideshow Bob and Sideshow Bob's doppelganger brought us nachos.
Also: But I'm using my whole ass!
Haven't seen a new episode in probably 9 years. Haven't enjoyed a new episode since about 1998. Still love anything before then -- Seasons 3-5, especially -- and look back on the first two seasons as awkward but quaint.
McGwire: You were right Bart, Major League Baseball is watching you pretty much around the clock.
Bart: But why?
McGwire: Well, I could tell you the terrifying truth...or you could all forget about it and watch me hit dingers!
Everyone: DINGERS!!!!
(Mac cherry bombs a ball and blasts it a mile)
I don't remember exactly when this episode aired (I'm guessing 1998 or 1999), but intentional or not, if you substituted spying with PED use, I think this sums up MLB's and the general public's attitudes towards steroids at the time perfectly.
But I don't really care for the Bart-heavy episodes: Bart Gets an F, Bart vs. Thanksgiving, Bart Gets Hit By Car, Bart's Dog Gets an F, nor was I a big fan of Principal Charming or Homer vs. the 8th Commandment.
Bullshit soldier. Look, I love the crazy absurd silliwhacks of season 2-6. But seasons 1 and 2 are _human_ stories. They have far more humanity and empathy than the following seasons; they're actually shows about a family, warts and all, as opposed to shows about Crazy McWhackadoo and his Whackadoo Crew (which I love, but it's a different show). They're funny AND touching, which is something missing from the following seasons.
Eh. To each their own. I personally thought the show became a lot funnier when they stopped trying to moralize and just tried to be witty instead (and when Homer became the main character rather than Bart).
But I agree about the family part. The people who used to criticize the show (like George and Barbara Bush) and say it's about a dysfunctional family and compare it to shows like say, Married With Children, clearly never saw it beyond a few select clips here and there. Aside from the bizarre situations they get in, I always thought it was a pretty acccurate representation of a typical family. They fought a lot (as opposed to unrealistically squeaky clean family shows like Full House), but they still clearly loved each other and they'd always resolve their disagreements by the end.
Yes indeed.
One of my favorite episodes is the "Springshield" one: "I've had a lot of jobs in my day......[endless list of episode themes]"
"Finally a way to combine my love of helping people with my love of hurting people"
"because that's the kind of guy I am this week"
Talk about a show ahead of its times.
Which is why I think the most recent Christmas episode/Lisa and Bart grown-up with kids of their own worked really well... Sure - as with any 'future Simpsons' episode, it's got it's fair bit of 'McWhackadoo' but I think it does have a bit of the touching side to it.
I had a fairly religious friend who said she loved the show because it was the only sitcom on TV that actually showed a family going to church.
The Simpsons were really the anti-"lesson" sitcom pretty early on, although they did have some touching moments here and there. Now that I have kids, I see some of the more subtle touching moments a lot differently. The episode where Mr. Bergstrom hands Lisa the note "YOU ARE LISA SIMPSON", the moment where Homer scoops Lisa up in his arms after she sees her future where future fiancee Hugh is dismissive of her roots, the ending of the tale of when Maggie was born, when Homer has Maggie's pictures strewn about his console - they all offer way more humanity than any cheesy canned family programming from the 50s-'80s.
Why would a career .281 hitter consider this a point of pride? If anything, we should ask him about hitting off Roger Clemens (.357 avg in 44 PA).
Not the funniest episode of the Simpsons, but the one I refer to often as my favourite episode of the Simpsons.
Dustin Hoffman (under the pseudonym "Sam Etic") gave the best performance by a guest star on the Simpsons, ever.
when Homer has Maggie's pictures strewn about his console
Do it for her.
It still makes me teary-eyed.
Archer's second season was pure insane genius from beginning to end. So was its first season, actually.
I'm surprised there's been no mention of Venture Brothers yet. Also fantastic (and also with a near-perfect second season).
edited to add, I agree pretty much with Gamingboy @47. There's no way for The Simpsons to match season 3 / season 4 era greatness, but there are some good moments still. And a lot of not-so-good moments, but even so it's still somehow comforting it's there.
I'm surprised there's been no mention of Venture Brothers yet. Also fantastic (and also with a near-perfect second season).
The growth of Archer is so similar to what the Venture Brothers went through too. I mean, its obvious the creators of Archer watched the Venture Bros, but its interesting to see Archer follow in VBs footsteps in so many ways.
Given the excellent start to the third season, I've been having sort of an internal debate as to which show is better. I thought it would be a long time before I considered a new show as coming close to what the Venture Bros. has accomplished. Venture's 3rd season was uneven, but the 4th was something to behold. I sincerely hope that I can have 4, 5, or more seasons of both shows on my DVD (blueray/whatever comes next) shelf before its all over.
The last two seasons of Futurama have been pretty darn good too, although not in Archer territory.
Also, as a side note, last time there was an animation thread that I took part in, someone pointed me in the direction of Trigun (not western, but whatever). I would like to offer them a heart felt THANK YOU!!!
It found its legs again after it, not as a great show, but as an OK show that's a pretty harmless, inoffensively adequate comedy. It's hard to stay on the edge of comedy if you're unwilling to take any real chances or ever tinker with the core concept. At this point, it's pretty much paint-by-numbers: start with the guest voice, build a plot around why the guest voice is there, have Homer do something stupid, have all the stock characters give a variant of their catchphrase that's tailored to the current plot, quickie wrapup and we're done.
Now, a lot of comedies do it this way but it's not something that really gets me all that excited to watch it. It's like white bread in that I'll usually have some white bread around, but I've never come home and thought to myself HOLY #### I CAN BE EATING A SLICE OF WHITE BREAD RIGHT NOW!
Even season 11 had some decent episodes... Tomacco is from 11... "My wife is not a doobie to passed around".... Homer being chased out of the country by PBS collection agents... Bart and Homer contract 'oatmeal leprosy'....
That's a weak crop in comparison, to be sure, but still not bad...
The episode where Homer catches the legendary catfish General Sherman but gives up a shot at fame by throwing it back to save his marriage instead, the one where Bart is racing in the soapbox derby and Homer shows up at the end after their fight to cheer him on, the one where Lisa's friend Bleeding Gums Murphy dies and Bart uses his lawsuit money to buy her his record when she can't afford it, the Grinch parody where Lisa gets braces and the town bands together to sing outside the power plant after Mr. Burns shuts off the electricity - episodes like these choke me up every time I watch them, and I've seen them dozens of times.
You are not alone Bob, you are not alone.
I have to say that this place is one more reminder of how uncool I am in general. I'm pretty generic when it comes to my TV/movie/music tastes.
The first couple of seasons of BBT are very funny, I'll back you up on that - but as with most shows, characters slowly morph into their caricatures, plot lines get recycled, and new characters are brought in that suck time and energy away from the core group. Now it's mildly amusing, but mostly because they just keep going back to the same wells over and over and don't really seem interested in letting any of the core characters grow and develop. (Hi Family Guy, I'm looking at you.)
You can look back at a lot of shows that were surprisingly solid for the first couple of years, then slowly (or rapidly) head downhill as they grow longer in the tooth (and often more popular). Think about something like Everybody Loves Raymond - it's hard to remember that it started out as a critical darling that was tanking in the ratings (ranked in the 80s in its first season), before it finally found an audience around season 3. The first 2-3 seasons of How I Met Your Mother were terrific - then it dropped off quite a bit and finally seems to be righting the ship this season.
You could add other shows to that list - Drew Carey would be one, another might be Mad About You. Married with Children was often spectacularly funny in the first few seasons, but really started to tank once they made Kelly into a total idiot and focused too much on No-Ma'am vs. Marcy.
Point being - it's not easy to be a show that keeps a consistently high quality for its entire run. You're in Cheers and Seinfeld territory at that point (and even then, both shows were definitely showing their age by the end).
Count me in for Archer being the grande.
Also, I very much like Community--and Annie--but it needs to take a friggin' chill pill. Most insecure show on television by a wide margin.
I'd say that Jim Parsons is probably the equivalent of David Hyde-Pierce (Niles, from "Frasier"). Excellent subtle acting for what could be one-note characters.
What the Big Bang Theory writers discovered after a couple of seasons is that they were going to the well too often. There were too many episodes of "Penny vs Sheldon", leaving Leonard (and the others) on the sidelines. Adding in the other two women (Harold's fiance and Sheldon's "girlfriend") let them start mixing things up more. It's reduced the laugh a bit for me, but added more potential for story lines.
That said, I prefer my comedies to NOT have a studio audience, as it slows down the comedic timing and layering.
Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Community, Simpsons, Up All Night, plus a few others, are still more enjoyable to me than my favourite "studio audience/laugh-track" shows (Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother).
The only shows with a studio audience that would be in my top 10 comedies would be "Seinfeld" and "WKRP". In both cases, the ensembles were so strong (and in Seinfeld's case, the writing so amazing), they still were great, even with the laughter interruption.
...the one where Homer thinks he is going to die and has a checklist of things to do with his family before listening to Larry King read the bible on a walkman.
I've actually been reading some fairly in depth reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes (about 2000 words per episode I'd guess) so it's got me thinking a bit more about what I like about TV shows lately. Comedies are a bit tougher to analyze I think. By its nature sometimes the closer you look at comedy the smaller it gets. To paraphrase the great New Yorker adage - "comedies are like gossamer and one doesn't dissect gossamer".
Well, there's a reason! They are freaking hiatus right now. At least they went out with a bang (Yes, I know they've recorded more episodes, I'll believe it when I see it). Thursday night is such a hollow shell without Community. It used to be an EVENT! Now I half heartedly watch Parks and Rec and then drink and smoke until Archer and then try to sober up before I go to bed.
In addition to Greg's mention of Newsradio, the most criminally underrated comedy of all-time, I'd add "Newhart", "Cheers", "The Cosby Show" and "Murphy Brown" as great studio audience comedies. I still find those shows hilarious, and they've aged quite well, whereas a show like "Friends" which I will admit I liked at the time is completely annoying now.
Insecure with a reason of course, given that it's off TV and returning at an uncertain date.
It's the new Arrested Development, which probably means it'll fade away after this season. People will tune in by the millions to watch Ashton Kutcher act like a moron on Two and a Half Men, but challenge them like Community does and they run screaming from the room.
My only real hope is that NBC has nothing right now - they stuck 30 Rock in Community's old timeslot and it did as bad or worse in the ratings. They're more than halfway to syndication with Community, and it's got a critical and internet following unlike any other show on the network. The smart move under the circumstances would be to keep it around but stop trying to anchor 8 PM on Thursdays with it. There's nothing on NBC that's going to do well in that time slot, up against American Idol and Big Bang Theory.
How far NBC has fallen. Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever recover from the Jay Leno at 10 PM debacle, or if they'll ever acknowledge that attempting to placate his ego was probably the single biggest factor in ruining the network.
I kind of like that about it. It's such an incredibly dark show, insular and unwelcoming, a little insecurity only feels right.
I watched every episode when aired, and now..mostly...it bores me to tears. Paradoxically I'm excited as hell about the Blu-Ray release.
Link?
Oddly enough I find it has aged really well. (Well, not season one, which has aged terribly)
Though the fact that I've spent about 7 hours in the past 4 days reading episode reviews suggests that maybe I'm just impervious to boredom when it comes to TNG.
It can also double as a great social activity, as pretty much everyone has all the episodes memorized anyway so you can carry on conversations about it and not miss anything. Also makes for a good drinking game. Drink whenever anyone does anything typical of their character. Picard manouvere, Riker sits or leans on something jauntily, Data gives an ETA, Troi says something pointless, Wesley makes you want to slap him.
He's on to DS9 now...or has completed DS9, I wasn't really paying attention. I'm half way through season 4.
So far he's hit on my major complaint with the show...the whole arrogance of humanity it buys into. He also has an obssesion with gender politics that he harps on at every turn. But he's clearly well versed in plot analysis, something I know nothing about, so I'm finding it enlightening.
Why has this thread vanished from Hot Topics?
I'm most of the way through season 6. Talk about a fulfilling experience. It's just now starting to become inconsistent. Seasons 2-4 were amazing, Season 5 is almost as good. And 6 still has its bright spots.
There's no reason for time slot-based insecurity to seep in via creative neuroticism. It's meta to a fault and, despite very much enjoying the show myself, I can see where several episodes are difficult for casual/first-time viewers. Community does regular stories as good as anybody else; there's no reason to have to rely on gimmicks as much as they do.
I absolutely agree.
It doesn't have the characters to compete with TOS or TNG, though.
I do not agree with this, but if it is true its because 90% of TNG is character development issues while Deep Space Nine actually has a compelling story to move forward and can't dedicate as much time to holosuite adventures.
Different type of show. Deep Space Nine ranged from noir serial to Shakespearean history when at its most inspired. The Next Generation was more Carl Sagan: The Fictionalization.
My feelings on comparing TNG/DS9 is the closest I've come to understanding the mythical Star Wars vs. Star Trek nerd war I've read about. (I don't know anyone that doesn't think both Wars and Trek are great and totally uncomparable). Though it's not quite as far as that since I do quite enjoy DS9. I am very much a TNG booster though. I'm curious to do some reading on DS9 though because I think a lot of my preference comes down to familiarity. DS9 does have the advantage of featuring one of my all time favourite characters...Gul Dukat.
The episode where Homer buys Lisa the pony is beautiful and touching. You'd have to be a cold hearted cynic to think otherwise.
Definitely. Forgot about those ones.
Have you tried plexing?
I still watch Family Guy too, but it's not special any more either. Agreed that American Dad is the one of the cartoons that can still hit the A+ notes.
The Comedy Central revival of Futurama has been spectacular. That "season" of four chopped-up movies was uneven, but the two half-seasons starting in 2010 are amazing. Original Futurama fell into a dullness trap: the characters would do wacky stuff but it felt like the writers literally forgot to include jokes. (King of the Hill is the very embodiment of that trap, Napoleon Dynamite is currently reincarnating it, and it was the sour distaste of Allen Gregory.) The Simpsons alone among animated shows can make up for flat jokes with characters we genuinely sentimentally care about. Futurama and Family Guy can't; we don't care about Fry-Leela "will they" or the Amy-Kif relationship or whether anyone will ever respect Meg.
But after the first couple episodes of the new CC run (which felt like leftover material), Futurama took off to amazing new heights again. Every episode is full of rapid-fire jokes that land, but it's brainy stuff and not Family Guy's shock value that takes you out of the moment. Most episodes have a serious bit of science or math going on. There's still fresh character pairings to give us new interactions, the Bender-Hermes episode being one of my favorites. They've figured out what's annoying and stay away from it, like anything with Zapp Brannigan, or plotlines constructed around Fry being dumb. It's totally worth watching.
I thought everyone loved Zapp Brannigan!
Well that made my day. Thanks.
Whenever someone on FB tries to justify current US politics, I link the great speech Picard has in The Drumhead.
Wesley never did a damn thing to make me mad*, and just to be contrary to knee-jerkiness, I probably spent more time defending him than I should. Mostly along the lines of there's a great deal of untapped dynamic between him and Picard, as seen in his last regular appearance.
*All the usual complaints just made me mad at writers and producers. Never the actor nor even really the character.
Without The Simpsons, there is no Seth MacFarlane cartoons, no Adult Swim, no South Park, etc.
(Interestingly, the most daring prime-time cartoon before the Simpsons was probably the Flintstones. And now Seth MacFarlane is doing a Flintstones show. It all comes full circle.)
Well... at least he's been tolerably funny in his couple BBT guest spots, and I suppose without that, we don't get Sheldon's Wheaton nemesis...
I think this is spot-on -- although, one thing that really annoys me about CC's Futurama handling is that they seem to be in the habit of doing oddball start times, which freaks out/confuses my DVR.
I still enjoy The Family Guy and found Bob's Burgers to be rather funny. I have no idea if they'll be able to maintain that funny but I would bet they don't.
On a sidenote, Eastbound and Down is back on.
Each season seems to have gotten better. The 4th season had half a dozen episodes that were just incredible.
I do not agree with this, but if it is true its because 90% of TNG is character development issues while Deep Space Nine actually has a compelling story to move forward and can't dedicate as much time to holosuite adventures.
TOS and TNG has more iconic characters, but I agree that DS9 matches up very well as far as having good characters. Not to mention the fact that the acting of the total ensemble was a full grade better on DS9 than TNG, which had the saving grace of Patrick Stewart carrying the load.
I think the counter-argument is - that's what makes shows that are able to do that so great...it's no easy feat.
I may be in a minority in seeing it this way, but that's why I love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's impossible not to empathize with Charlie and when he invariably loses my investment in his character just makes it all the more hilarious/soul wrenching.
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