-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Is/was The Simpsons really that great?
- Thread starter T Dollarz
- Start date
- Status
If only
Yes.
I consider myself a huge Simpsons fan and probably haven't watched regularly for more than half the show's run at this point.
I remember getting into arguments here after lamenting what I felt was the decline of the show ("why are you watching?" Well, because it's one of my favorite shows). I feel like history has been on my side
For my tastes, the show started to falter a bit earlier (I think Who Shot Mr. Burns was hyped and then disappointed on a level approaching the Seinfeld finale)... but about the first eight seasons are, by and large, great.
I'm not sure when it stopped being a must-watch for me, but it was probably somewhere around Season 12 or 13. I would still watch on occasion... though for a long time I haven't really watched it at all.
I consider myself a huge Simpsons fan and probably haven't watched regularly for more than half the show's run at this point.
I remember getting into arguments here after lamenting what I felt was the decline of the show ("why are you watching?" Well, because it's one of my favorite shows). I feel like history has been on my side
For my tastes, the show started to falter a bit earlier (I think Who Shot Mr. Burns was hyped and then disappointed on a level approaching the Seinfeld finale)... but about the first eight seasons are, by and large, great.
I'm not sure when it stopped being a must-watch for me, but it was probably somewhere around Season 12 or 13. I would still watch on occasion... though for a long time I haven't really watched it at all.
Prime Simpsons was god-tier. Bartmania in the very early 90's is something I'll always remember. I was on vacation at Disney World in Orlando and I remember the hotel had a vending machine that dispensed Bart stickers. The machine was swamped by kids my age trying to get stickers.
MarkMclovin
Member
For me, it was OK tier until Family Guy started and that killed it for me.
Bedameister
Member
Yes. Probably the greatest TV show that ever was and maybe ever will be (talking about the good seasons of course)
friskykillface
Banned
Reminds me of that Ocarina thread in gaming side, it'll only get worse
"Mario 64 isn't even that great" is coming up soon
But I suppose there are people who have only been exposed to the newer Simpsons and didn't see the episodes when they premiered so long ago.
The older seasons are so good and to witness them week after week was nuts
mariachi507
Member
I just got mad reading that.
UberTag
Member
These were the iconic images and slogans of the initial Bart Simpson marketing machine for folks who weren't around for it.
manzoman96
Member
As someone who just watched the first 8.5 seasons of the show,yes.
thecouncil
Banned
im speaking strictly about the show in the 90s so please don't get me wrong but it is probably the best tv show of all time if not the greatest thing that ever happened in recorded history.
The simpsons golden age is the funniest stuff on tv. Or at the very least, really goddamned funny.
I think it helped that at their worst most of the main characters weren't terrible human beings. Flawed yes but they had plenty of redeeming qualities.
One of my favorite early episodes of the simpsons is when bart is struggling to do better in... history I think? That whole episode had a lot of heart. It's hard to explain what I mean by heart. I think it's something sentimental without feeling sappy. A good balance of the two.
I think it helped that at their worst most of the main characters weren't terrible human beings. Flawed yes but they had plenty of redeeming qualities.
One of my favorite early episodes of the simpsons is when bart is struggling to do better in... history I think? That whole episode had a lot of heart. It's hard to explain what I mean by heart. I think it's something sentimental without feeling sappy. A good balance of the two.
pizzaparty
Member
Him voting libertarian makes so much sense now
ThePeoplesBureau
Member
These were the iconic images and slogans of the initial Bart Simpson marketing machine for folks who weren't around for it.
Discovering many years later that Bart's shirt was coloured blue on all officially licensed merchandise in order to make it easier to rat out fakes blew my mind.
TheRedSnifit
Member
It's one of the most massive triumphs of the human spirit, ranking up there with landing on the moon, In Search of Lost Time, the cure for polio, and Resident Evil 4.
Yes. There is nothing currently on that can compared to it so it's hard to get a frame of reference if you weren't around. I would almost compare The Simpsons to the internet, almost every kid or young adult I was around liked it to some degree, even people that had quite different ideas of what was funny found something to like.
He may have a point saying Seth MacFarlane is more funny than Matt Groening, but it's an invalid point since neither Matt G or Seth are responsible for their respective shows humor. To say The Simpsons isn't funny, at least the classic seasons, is to say people like Sam Simon aren't funny.
JehutyRunner
Banned
The ironing is delicious.
Season one is great because it's all about the complete deconstruction of what people had come to expect from TV at that point, everything from sitcoms to TV news to even recent hit Fox shows like America's Most Wanted. It took what you thought you knew about TV and flipped it on it's head, then proceeded to ridicule it.
Sapiens
Member
Nope -way before that! think more 1996 with You only move twice being the last great episode - IMO. The show peaked there. It was amazing until then. From 1996 to 2000, it was on the wane and then everything from 2000 onwards was unimportant and arguably unfunny and soulless.
Seasons two to seven were as special as people give them credit for. Season 1 was okay.
Zombie James
Banned
No, the decline started happening after Who Shot Mr. Burns.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
Seasons 4-8 are probably the most consistently hilarious seasons of any show ever made.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Yes. At its peak it was one of the greatest television shows of all time, and it had an astonishingly long peak. For a good five years there was nothing that could touch it on television.
1997 was the last good year, until The Principal and the Pauper aired in September.
1997 was the last good year, until The Principal and the Pauper aired in September.
Every classic Simpsons fan should do themselves a favor and check out the Lasertime podcast Talking Simpsons. It's a chronological breakdown of every eposode on a weekly basis. It's a great and quick way to relive some of the best moments on the go plus the Lasertime crew usually has some interesting tidbits that I never knew about it. It's perfect for my commute to work. I'll edit in a link in a few. But if you just look up Talking Simpsons on any podcast player it should pop up.
Edit: here's a link to the site
http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/category/talking-simpsons/
Enjoy!
Edit: here's a link to the site
http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/category/talking-simpsons/
Enjoy!
Here's the essay on The Simpsons by Sepinwall and Seitz from TV: The Book if anyone's interested, I think it's really good (as is the whole book). http://www.vulture.com/2016/09/tv-the-book-simpsons-best-television-show.html
ramoisdead
Member
There's a Simpsons gif for everything, so what do you think?
Astral Dog
Member
yep, its easier to rewatch the Simpsons more than South Park or Family Guy or even Futurama and i love those,the Simpsons are a true classic :,)
ViewtifulJC
Banned
There was a time during the mid-90s where it was absolutely, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, the best show on American television. The most creative, the most funny, the most compelling, the most visually interesting, just the best.
I mean, back when the show was at its peak you got an episode of that quality week after week. Everybody watched it, and as you got older you started to understand it more. I didn't understand A Streetcar Named Marge when I was 7 or 8. I liked it because it has funny jokes, but it was like a completely new thing watching it on DVD when I was 19.
I might be labelled hyperbollic for this, but i think the simpsons likely the most singularly influentual cultual artifact of my lifetime. The first ten seasons were sublime, absurd, amazing and beamed into peoples home at prime time to almost everywhere in the world someplaces repeated everyday.
I belive it changed, not just entertainment but the way humour is percieved culturally, the way we think about a major part of human interaction has been influenced.
I mean i cant prove it or anything. But i know my sense of humour (and a huge portion of those around me) while not being defined by the simpsons have been heavily influenced.
I belive it changed, not just entertainment but the way humour is percieved culturally, the way we think about a major part of human interaction has been influenced.
I mean i cant prove it or anything. But i know my sense of humour (and a huge portion of those around me) while not being defined by the simpsons have been heavily influenced.
QuantumZebra
Member
This.
There are legit legendary episodes... and it was the first "cartoon" to be geared towards adults mainly and tackle a lot of social themes.
I mean... compare it to current sitcoms like Big Bang Theory, HIMYM, etc...
It's still light-years ahead.
You have to understand that at the time, limited animation was mostly noteworthy for selling toys to kids, and for the first season of so, that's what The Simpsons looked like it was going to be about (experience, if you dare, the top-40 single Do the Bartman). Eventually the staff was cut some slack, and they came up with the "classic" formula:
-ludicrously fast pacing and editing
-visual gags that would have been impossible to pull off on "adult" sitcoms
-jokes that went way over the heads of the show's target audience, just because
-shit-talking anyone and anything, even Fox and/or the Catholic Church
-freeze-frame-friendly subliminal jokes
-with a closing hit of embittered cynicism right before the credits
..and every conventional sitcom suddenly looked like a dinosaur. A dinosaur that had to stop every thirty seconds for a laugh track.
QuantumZebra
Member
I love(d) Podcast Beyond and some of his work, but he is wrong... a lot
Is it wrong to hate someone based on their opinion of a cartoon?
I think in the end that was it's downfall.
It became the show everyone wanted to be a part of which is how y ou ended up with the "celebrity of the week" style format of the later seasons.
The Albatross
Member
Simpsons was brilliant. It was an excellently written cartoon, with clever jokes that appealed to young people and old, something that had basically never existed on television.
I had started to think that the show was getting worse around the episode where Homer & Marge re-invigorate their sex lives, and then the Tomacco episode was basically where I gave up on the show. Still may be some good ones here or there, but I wasn't interested anymore. I also thought that those episodes in particular were guilty of only focusing on a narrow plot and using other characters just to provide jokes, where as most of the episodes I really enjoyed had multiple running story lines around one central story line, and the story lines would weave together towards the end of the episode.
I had started to think that the show was getting worse around the episode where Homer & Marge re-invigorate their sex lives, and then the Tomacco episode was basically where I gave up on the show. Still may be some good ones here or there, but I wasn't interested anymore. I also thought that those episodes in particular were guilty of only focusing on a narrow plot and using other characters just to provide jokes, where as most of the episodes I really enjoyed had multiple running story lines around one central story line, and the story lines would weave together towards the end of the episode.
- Status