Never saw this episode of Bart sabotaging a cruise ship, but it was one of the best I've seen in a long while.
Funny and with a bittersweet ending. This is how every episode should be.
Yeah, I do remember that being an example of a good later episode. Plus the premise is so remarkable simple it's amazing that they never did it before. Not the cruise ship, but just "Kid sabotages vacation so family can stay on vacation forever." Those are still the best episodes, but it's of course increasingly hard to find premises like that when you've been around for 20 odd years.
I think newer seasons have so many of the topical episodes because it's hard to come up with a normal story that they haven't already done on the show before.
I think newer seasons have so many of the topical episodes because it's hard to come up with a normal story that they haven't already done on the show before.
Theres literally hundreds of ways to fix this. The easiest imo is to age Bart Lisa and maggie and give Marge and homer more to do
Maggie being a understandably world weary 4-5 year old opens up a ton of stories of her as a pessimistic kindergarten student
Lisa and Bart in high school is a chance to introduce new cast members and fix /bus old ones ( maybe kill of Mrs Skinner so Seymour can be reset) and as Teens they wont nessecarily have to act like they used to.
Give Marge a permanent job. why not an Art teacher? Break her thether to the house and the kids
Resetting Homer to well meaning oaf instead of jerkass would be nice.
Families naturally drift apart a bit as time goes on and doing these things would explore that
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I have read that every time someone suggests aging the characters just a little, they are practically tared and feathered from all the disapproving fans.
The writers have always said that if they aged the characters it would only limit their storytelling.
Plus some of the later episodes are already written as if Bart and Lisa were older. Like I remember one that revolved around Bart getting a driver's license and a girlfriend in another town. Or something like that?
Allowing even a little aging would really help, imo, but since they won't do it, they're stuck in a place where the only new ideas are "Simpsons do pop-culture thing X"
Plus some of the later episodes are already written as if Bart and Lisa were older. Like I remember one that revolved around Bart getting a driver's license and a girlfriend in another town. Or something like that?
Allowing even a little aging would really help, imo, but since they won't do it, they're stuck in a place where the only new ideas are "Simpsons do pop-culture thing X"
Speaking of Barts love interests I always hoped they'd bring back the Lovejoy daughter
Plus some of the later episodes are already written as if Bart and Lisa were older. Like I remember one that revolved around Bart getting a driver's license and a girlfriend in another town. Or something like that?
Allowing even a little aging would really help, imo, but since they won't do it, they're stuck in a place where the only new ideas are "Simpsons do pop-culture thing X"
Speaking of Barts love interests I always hoped they'd bring back the Lovejoy daughter
I always got a kick out of the jokes where Homer has those super brief flashes of intelligence.
"Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Along the same lines, it was amusing how the Homer of the early seasons was particularly knowledgeable about the Supreme Court.
Mrs. K: I believe with persistent discipline, even the poorest student can end up becoming, oh, say, Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. Homer: Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. What great men he would join: John Marshall. Charles Evans Hughes. Warren Berger. Hmmmm, Burger...
Marge: Do you want your son to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or a sleazy male stripper? Homer: Can't he be both, like the late Earl Warren?
Lisa: Dad, nerds are nothing to fear. In fact, they've done some pretty memorable things. Some nerds of note include...popcorn magnate Orville Redenbacher, rock star David Byrne, and supreme court justice David Souter. Homer: [gasp] Oh, not Souter!
All conveniently ignore how she's had one friend she constantly hangs out with (Janey).
I was waiting for a reveal episode that Janey was imaginary, but instead it just serves as one of the many forms of inconsistent writing the series takes.
The real hypocrisy is theyve aged Homer and Marge like 3 times
Yea I remember the episode where they were teens in the late 70s and the one where they were in their early 20s in the early 90s... What am I forgetting?
The real hypocrisy is theyve aged Homer and Marge like 3 times
Yea I remember the episode where they were teens in the late 70s and the one where they were in their early 20s in the early 90s... What am I forgetting?
Give it another ten years and we'll have a 2000 episode that makes fun of Homer joining the Y2K scare.
Shit....that's actually going to happen, isn't it?
All conveniently ignore how she's had one friend she constantly hangs out with (Janey).
I was waiting for a reveal episode that Janey was imaginary, but instead it just serves as one of the many forms of inconsistent writing the series takes.
I hate this. They isolate Lisa so her extreme behavior is "justified" by loneliness but she clearly has friends in and out of springfield.
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And it's over. I wonder how many subscribers FXX picked up just for this?
Well, I already had the channel and didn't know it. Apparently they will continue with a syndication episodes of Simpsons five days a week(mon, tue, wed, fri, sun, if I recall correctly). I'm thinking like for a couple hours each day. So they have a better chance now of me having their commercials in the background while I go about my day.
Also, I think one of the things that really strikes home about how bad the show has gotten is the voice acting has gotten really bad
Compare Homer's voice from seasons 3-9 to that clip above. It sounds like a guy trying really hard to emulate Dan Castelleneta's Homer rather than the actual Dan Castellaneta.
Well, people's voices do tend to change when they get older...which creates this rather unpleasant realization that the show won't end until one of the main actors becomes too old (or worse) to do the voices anymore.
In any event, this super early Simpsons intro is blowing my mind. In other syndicated channels it would always play the revised intro when most of the cast was filled out.
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I just noticed, are they doing the every simpsons ever marathon again? The channel said every simpsons ever, forever! Could it possibly be so? Could my dream be coming true?
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I just noticed, are they doing the every simpsons ever marathon again? The channel said every simpsons ever, forever! Could it possibly be so? Could my dream be coming true?
They're done with the "all the time", but their schedule moving forward is insane:
Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 2, FXX will air nightly blocks of The Simpsons five times a week. On Mondays and Friday, the show will air from 6 p.m.-midnight; on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 p.m.-midnight; and on Sundays from 4 p.m.-midnight.
A lot of the bad episodes follow a story structure where the writers have an idea for the "main attraction" and then throw in a ton of little bullshit plots to get things set up for it. Stuff like the aforementioned Grampa becomes a bullfighter episode, the episode where Homer buys an RV, the episode where Bart becomes a jazz drummer, or the episode where they go to Africa. Under scrutiny you can easily walk back the brainstorming process:
"We want this episode to be about Homer buying an RV, what do we need to do to get him to buy one?"
"How about him and Marge seperating?"
"Okay, what do they seperate over?"
"Homer thinks Marge is cheating on him."
"Okay, who was she cheating on him with?"
"Kirk?"
"Why would she cheat on Homer with Kirk?"
"Well how about she wasn't actually cheating but for some reason Homer thought she was cheating?"
"Well why would Homer think that?"
And so on. The longer the chain the crappier the episode.
I think it's more that none of their ideas can sustain a whole show or they don't know how to make them sustain a whole show.
An old episode of the simpsons would be like:
Lead in plot -> A Plot
with maybe a B Plot on the side
These days they seem like:
Lead in plot -> 1st Plot -> 2nd Plot -> 3rd Plot -> 4th Plot -> 5th Plot -> 6th Plot -> 7th Plot -> 8th Plot
It's an almost random collection of 3 or 4 joke plot 1 after the other after the other. Celebrity cameos become one of those plots where someone just walks on screen, says a few lines and then disappears and the show moves on to the next thing.
Thanks, but I meant as in how many people watched the marathon on a season per season basis.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I wonder how the crossover episode is going to work. Not that canon matters, but they have gone on record multiple times that the shows are actual fictional tv shows in their respective universes, like seeing Bart Simpson dolls in a waste dump on Futurama.
I wonder how the crossover episode is going to work. Not that canon matters, but they have gone on record multiple times that the shows are actual fictional tv shows in their respective universes, like seeing Bart Simpson dolls in a waste dump on Futurama.
A lot of the bad episodes follow a story structure where the writers have an idea for the "main attraction" and then throw in a ton of little bullshit plots to get things set up for it. Stuff like the aforementioned Grampa becomes a bullfighter episode, the episode where Homer buys an RV, the episode where Bart becomes a jazz drummer, or the episode where they go to Africa. Under scrutiny you can easily walk back the brainstorming process:
"We want this episode to be about Homer buying an RV, what do we need to do to get him to buy one?"
"How about him and Marge seperating?"
"Okay, what do they seperate over?"
"Homer thinks Marge is cheating on him."
"Okay, who was she cheating on him with?"
"Kirk?"
"Why would she cheat on Homer with Kirk?"
"Well how about she wasn't actually cheating but for some reason Homer thought she was cheating?"
"Well why would Homer think that?"
And so on. The longer the chain the crappier the episode.
I think it's more that none of their ideas can sustain a whole show or they don't know how to make them sustain a whole show.
An old episode of the simpsons would be like:
Lead in plot -> A Plot
with maybe a B Plot on the side
These days they seem like:
Lead in plot -> 1st Plot -> 2nd Plot -> 3rd Plot -> 4th Plot -> 5th Plot -> 6th Plot -> 7th Plot -> 8th Plot
It's an almost random collection of 3 or 4 joke plot 1 after the other after the other. Celebrity cameos become one of those plots where someone just walks on screen, says a few lines and then disappears and the show moves on to the next thing.
This is actually the biggest complaint I have about the later seasons of the show.
You know how with TV these days, when an episode is either coming up or is on right now, you can hit the little information button on your remote and it gives you a brief primer on the plot of the episode/movie?
Yeah, well. With the Simpons, it's never accurate, because there's like 10 different links in the plot chain going on, the episode summary only focuses on say, the first one, which is quickly done away with in the first couple of minutes and then the episode goes off the rails. This is to the point where I can't succinctly explain the plot of any of the more recent episodes except for a couple of obvious ones like "The Simpsons went to China because Aunt Selma didn't want to just get a cat".
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Funny and with a bittersweet ending. This is how every episode should be.
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Yeah, I do remember that being an example of a good later episode. Plus the premise is so remarkable simple it's amazing that they never did it before. Not the cruise ship, but just "Kid sabotages vacation so family can stay on vacation forever." Those are still the best episodes, but it's of course increasingly hard to find premises like that when you've been around for 20 odd years.
"Avatar is a big thing, how do we fit that into The Simpsons?"
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For example, does it matter which politician did the "Abortions for some, miniature american flags for all" joke?
Theres literally hundreds of ways to fix this. The easiest imo is to age Bart Lisa and maggie and give Marge and homer more to do
Maggie being a understandably world weary 4-5 year old opens up a ton of stories of her as a pessimistic kindergarten student
Lisa and Bart in high school is a chance to introduce new cast members and fix /bus old ones ( maybe kill of Mrs Skinner so Seymour can be reset) and as Teens they wont nessecarily have to act like they used to.
Give Marge a permanent job. why not an Art teacher? Break her thether to the house and the kids
Resetting Homer to well meaning oaf instead of jerkass would be nice.
Families naturally drift apart a bit as time goes on and doing these things would explore that
The writers have always said that if they aged the characters it would only limit their storytelling.
No, dammit, that would be the opposite.
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Allowing even a little aging would really help, imo, but since they won't do it, they're stuck in a place where the only new ideas are "Simpsons do pop-culture thing X"
Speaking of Barts love interests I always hoped they'd bring back the Lovejoy daughter
That episode had the best joke ever:
When Homer gets cold and methodical, it works.
Homer to Bart: Why you little...(choke hold)
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"Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Along the same lines, it was amusing how the Homer of the early seasons was particularly knowledgeable about the Supreme Court.
All conveniently ignore how she's had one friend she constantly hangs out with (Janey).
I was waiting for a reveal episode that Janey was imaginary, but instead it just serves as one of the many forms of inconsistent writing the series takes.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
Yea I remember the episode where they were teens in the late 70s and the one where they were in their early 20s in the early 90s... What am I forgetting?
Give it another ten years and we'll have a 2000 episode that makes fun of Homer joining the Y2K scare.
Shit....that's actually going to happen, isn't it?
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Except that Lisa one where
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I hate this. They isolate Lisa so her extreme behavior is "justified" by loneliness but she clearly has friends in and out of springfield.
Well, I already had the channel and didn't know it. Apparently they will continue with a syndication episodes of Simpsons five days a week(mon, tue, wed, fri, sun, if I recall correctly). I'm thinking like for a couple hours each day. So they have a better chance now of me having their commercials in the background while I go about my day.
I didn't even know FXX existed before all this Simpsons talk.
The joke about Obama promising death panels but Grandpa still being alive was pretty good, at least
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Compare Homer's voice from seasons 3-9 to that clip above. It sounds like a guy trying really hard to emulate Dan Castelleneta's Homer rather than the actual Dan Castellaneta.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
In any event, this super early Simpsons intro is blowing my mind. In other syndicated channels it would always play the revised intro when most of the cast was filled out.
Blog||Tumblr|Steam|Twitter|FFXIV|Twitch|YouTube|Podcast|PSN|XBL|DarkZero
They're done with the "all the time", but their schedule moving forward is insane:
Apparently they're doing a crossover ep where bender is a terminator sent to kill Bart
I think it's more that none of their ideas can sustain a whole show or they don't know how to make them sustain a whole show.
An old episode of the simpsons would be like:
Lead in plot -> A Plot
with maybe a B Plot on the side
These days they seem like:
Lead in plot -> 1st Plot -> 2nd Plot -> 3rd Plot -> 4th Plot -> 5th Plot -> 6th Plot -> 7th Plot -> 8th Plot
It's an almost random collection of 3 or 4 joke plot 1 after the other after the other. Celebrity cameos become one of those plots where someone just walks on screen, says a few lines and then disappears and the show moves on to the next thing.
Pish posh, Jay Sherman visited Springfield and there's Simpsons junk in Jay's New York.
This is actually the biggest complaint I have about the later seasons of the show.
You know how with TV these days, when an episode is either coming up or is on right now, you can hit the little information button on your remote and it gives you a brief primer on the plot of the episode/movie?
Yeah, well. With the Simpons, it's never accurate, because there's like 10 different links in the plot chain going on, the episode summary only focuses on say, the first one, which is quickly done away with in the first couple of minutes and then the episode goes off the rails. This is to the point where I can't succinctly explain the plot of any of the more recent episodes except for a couple of obvious ones like "The Simpsons went to China because Aunt Selma didn't want to just get a cat".
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