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The Simpsons 600 Marathon |OT| | Starting Thursday at Noon EST / 9am PST on FXX

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This episode has some good jokes (I laughed at the Spice Girls scene), but like most of s10, it's an episode where Homer feels like a zany superhero, rather than the put-upon breadwinner he used to be.
 
A lot of people seem to like this episode but I don't really.

It could've been a touching Bart/Grandpa story, but like most Scully episodes, it instead wasted time on silly antics and one of the lamest guest stars.

Also, Skinner punching Springy-Homer (for what BART did) is really out of character.
 

UberTag

Member
I love the ending of this episode so much.
1315730.gif


That's one chill lion. Doesn't try to maul Jasper Johns or anything.
 
Monty Can't buy Me love, another eh episode.

Luckily, there are two great episodes coming up to wrap the season up nicely.

Then we get to s11, which UberTag claims is an even bigger drop in quality than s10. We'll see.
 

UberTag

Member
Season 12-13+ is going to be "interesting," for me because I've barely seen any of the episodes after.
I do hope you'll stick around and scope out some of the recommended episodes airing during your waking hours.

I wouldn't advocate taking uninterrupted stretches of episodes in as you'll probably just wind up making yourself upset but there are good episodes to be found.

I would guesstimate roughly a full season's worth of post-Classic era standard-def episodes and a full season's worth of HD era episodes are worth recommending.

That might not sound like much seeing how that amounts to one in every 8 or 9 episodes but - taking the entire marathon as a lump-sum - that works out to roughly 50 episodes or thereabouts all being aired over the next week. That's not so bad.
 

ScribbleD

Member
I do hope you'll stick around and scope out some of the recommended episodes airing during your waking hours.

I wouldn't advocate taking uninterrupted stretches of episodes in as you'll probably just wind up making yourself upset but there are good episodes to be found.

I would guesstimate roughly a full season's worth of post-Classic era standard-def episodes and a full season's worth of HD era episodes are worth recommending.

That might not sound like much seeing how that amounts to one in every 8 or 9 episodes but - taking the entire marathon as a lump-sum - that works out to roughly 50 episodes or thereabouts all being aired over the next week. That's not so bad.

I'm going to leave it on as background noise and tune in and out, and then peel myself away from whatever I'm doing to catch the high-bar episodes.
 

UberTag

Member
Is 30 Minutes Over Tokyo the last great episode?
Hardly. There have been great episodes since then. Although, I'm not even sure I would call Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo "great". It does have its moments, though. I enjoy it more for the jokes and parodies that hit than as a cohesive episode. Homer's a real dick in that episode as it suffers from his jerkass tendencies that flourished during the Scully era.
 
Some say that Apu's marriage to Manjula ruined his character, but I'd say it was him having octuplets.
Was Apu even a ruinable character though? I know he had a few good episodes centered on him in the early run, but even then I don't know if there was enough to his personality to ruin him. Even early on he was just kind of a walking immigrant joke.

The only ruined characters really are the Simpson family themselves. Everyone else in the series was just an accessory to their weekly antics. Ned coined the "Flanderization" term but the shift from merely being an obnoxious neighbor to fundamentalist Christian stereotype happened fairly early in the run and was pretty logical.

Well, there is one side character who was ruined by later episodes, Moe. Trying to make him this lovable, sad sack character never really worked, but the post-season 8ish writers really love scraping that barrel. When he's just a side character he's written pretty well, if it's a Moe-centric episode just bail out. They mostly play to the same story beats whenever they do a sympathetic Mr. Burns episode, which also seems to have become more frequent.
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all
Nothing at all
Nothing at all

Stupid sexy Flanders!
 
1315730.gif


That's one chill lion. Doesn't try to maul Jasper Johns or anything.

Is this the episode with "everything's coming up Milhouse!" because I have said that line a disgusting amount of times.

Also, I haven't been watching as much since I had to get back to work yesterday. My wife is also sick of the simpsons.

I think the time I quit watching was in high school. So, somewhere between 2005 and 2008ish. I was checking the fxnow app and that seems to be around season 15 or 16. I only remember a handful of episodes too. I'm sure if I watched them, I might remember. I'm sure they also would be much worse than I remember. I was still just a teenager when I quit and that was mainly because I got too busy. I watched reruns of older episodes all the time on the Canadian channel.
 

UberTag

Member
Recommended Episodes from Season 12

7:30pm Skinner's Sense of Snow - Tim Long
When a large storm snows in Springfield Elementary, the children are trapped inside for the holidays and soon rebel against Principal Skinner - while Homer and Ned try to rescue them, using Ned's car.
8:00pm HOMЯ - Al Jean
An operation to remove a crayon wedged in Homer's brain makes him intelligent.
11:00pm Hungry, Hungry Homer - John Swartzwelder
After Homer discovers that the Springfield Isotopes are being moved to Albuquerque, he stages a hunger strike outside the stadium.
12:30am Trilogy of Error - Matt Selman
Homer's rush to the hospital to reattach his thumb, Lisa's rush to school to win the science fair, and Bart's run-in with an illegal fireworks scheme are interconnected in a parody of Go and Run Lola Run.
 

Richie

Member
Recommended Episodes from Season 12

7:30pm Skinner's Sense of Snow - Tim Long

8:00pm HOMЯ - Al Jean

11:00pm Hungry, Hungry Homer - John Swartzwelder

12:30am Trilogy of Error - Matt Selman

Hungry Hungry Homer is a very enjoyable post-classic episode alright. You can actually fully sympathize with Homer in that one, which is far from a guarantee in the typical Scully episode.

I applaud your disposition toward GAF in recommending the hidden gems among the trash (or, the flower that grew out of a pot of dirt.) I know you said you weren't going to highlight airing hours for any Season 11 episodes, but I think Behind The Laughter deserves a mention. (Not on the US so it may have aired already for all I know...)
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
"They tend to use lowbrow expressions like 'oh yeah' and 'come here a minute'"

"Oh yeah, they think they're better than us? Bart, come here a minute!" "You come here a minute!" "Oh yeah?"
 

DarkKyo

Member
"Dad is building a giant ladder, but it is of poor quality."
I honestly wish half the episode were dedicated to Homer building this ladder.
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
Apparently the episode had a different ending where Homer was the one tossing fish guts, crying as he did. But Matt Groening vetoed it.
... Yet he was okay with the panda rape.

Reading into it, there were many different endings. Including the throwing of gravy instead of fish guts.
 

UberTag

Member
Apparently the episode had a different ending where Homer was the one tossing fish guts, crying as he did. But Matt Groening vetoed it.
... Yet he was okay with the panda rape.

Reading into it, there were many different endings. Including the throwing of gravy instead of fish guts.
I'm not sure there was any ending that could have salvaged that episode... outside of the script getting tossed into a fire. That might have done it.

Recommended Episodes from Season 13

7:00am Half-Decent Proposal - Tim Long
Homer develops a snoring problem, so Marge decides to spend a night with her sisters Patty and Selma. After a night of drinking, Marge sees a news report about her ex-prom date Artie Ziff, who is now very wealthy, and decides to send him an e-mail. Artie is still obsessed with Marge, so he offers the Simpsons $1 million in exchange for Marge spending a weekend with him.
11:00am I Am Furious (Yellow) - John Swartzwelder
Bart is inspired by one of the school's motivational speakers to become a cartoonist, in which he creates a popular comic and later internet series titled "Angry Dad", which is based on Homer's anger problems. Homer becomes the town's laughing stock, and decides to give up anger completely.
12:00pm Little Girl in the Big Ten - Jon Vitti
In order to avoid a failing grade in gym, Lisa takes up gymnastics, which she uses to pose as a college student. Meanwhile, Bart is diagnosed with "Panda" virus and is forced to spend a week living in a plastic bubble.
1:00pm Papa's Got a Brand New Badge - Dana Gould
Homer accidentally causes an electrical blackout in Springfield, and the residents begin looting the town's businesses. Chief Wiggum is useless at restoring order, so Homer takes the law into his own hands, starting a private police force, and becoming 'chief of police'.
 

ScribbleD

Member
That was really good.

Side note, UberTag deserves more thanks for sifting through all the garbage to find the jewels and sharing his recommendations. Thanks, Uber.
 

vypek

Member
That was really good.

Side note, UberTag deserves more thanks for sifting through all the garbage to find the jewels and sharing his recommendations. Thanks, Uber.

Yes. Thanks UberTag. :)

I think he should get a GAF tag like "Living Simpsons Database"
 

UberTag

Member
"Now, chew through my ballsack!"

Line is so dumb but always makes me laugh. Forgot how good that episode was.
It's easily Tim Long's finest episode... although he fell quite hard in the HD era where he brought us trainwrecks like Lisa Goes Gaga and Moe Goes from Rags to Riches.

Skinner's Sense of Snow feels like a winter counterpart to Kamp Krusty in a number of ways. It boasts a lot of jokes that just work out of sheer absurdity and it never ceases to be fun on rewatch.
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
In 30 minutes they're showing "Worst Episode Ever". The Bart and Milhouse part I like, the CBG and Agnes part I don't.

It's like the Season 19 episode Husbands & Knives, the first part with the comic book stuff is great, the part with Marge opening up Curves is really dreadful.
 

UberTag

Member
In 30 minutes they're showing "Worst Episode Ever". The Bart and Milhouse part I like, the CBG and Agnes part I don't.

It's like the Season 19 episode Husbands & Knives, the first part with the comic book stuff is great, the part with Marge opening up Curves is really dreadful.
Yeah, it's not unusual to have bipolar episodes like those two that work effectively on one level but fail terribly on another - most often due to an inane subplot.
The worst part about Husbands and Knives was Homer getting all self-conscious about his physique and getting his stomach stapled. That came off so out-of-character.
 

Dishwalla

Banned
The human chess board is the best in Hit and Run, love going through there and running them all over. It's even more fun on the little blue ATV from the trailer park.
 
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