I wish we could just let entertainment brands die. How many other opportunities were denied to other creators so the Simpsons could keep its budget over the decades.
I don't care about Fox's profits, it doesn't help me in my personal life or make new better shows.
Let stories have endings again.
Classic TV shows never had endings. They were always ridden into the ground before being surprise-cancelled.
It was rare that a show would have an actual last episode like MASH or Cheers. Those too went far longer than they should have.
I remember the cast of Friends wanted to stop after season 8 I think.
Then they got offered $1 million per episode along with residuals.
It's not just corporations that want to keep things going. The actors actually "unionized" (so they all got paid the same amount) and agreed that they wouldn't continue the show unless they all wanted to.
How I Met Your Mother got to the point that Jason Segal wanted to leave. The last season was just awful and you could tell that he was phoning it in.
Unfortunately as long as there's a profit to be made, some corpos will always buy your favorite IP out and wear it like a skin suit.
I wish the corpos were less Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs and more like Xipe Totec.
I haven't watched a new episode of the show in over ten years. It's one of my favorite shows of all time.
Same. I don’t hate the new episodes. I was saying boo-urns.
this is me. What I have seen more recently has been fine but streaming has made watching episodes more problematic.
Not even a Halloween special?
The last Halloween episode I watched was the one where Maggie was a witch and turned everyone into pacifiers. I looked it up.
The recent seasons are . . . fine. They're not terrible. I'm not a big fan of changing the voices out but obviously Fox (or Disney, now) will never let it die so we'll have Simpsons for the rest of time.
HOWEVER. What it is now, is a pale shadow of it's groundbreaking, culture-changing self that broke into mass consciousness with such wit and charm that fans can, and do, engage in entire conversations based solely on the show's quotes and contexts.
Those first few years were stunning in the quality of humor they provided. The fact that it kept going - for years afterwards - was no less amazing. When it began to falter, people were not just annoyed or bored with it - they were alarmed.
Of course that in itself was a long time ago. All that's over now. It's just a glow in the rearview mirror for most of us, but I say unto thee - in all seriousness - it's the cultural equivalent of Shakespeare and will be taught for generations.
The first 8 or so seasons, anyway. It's not Batman.
...fans can, and do, engage in entire conversations based solely on the show's quotes and contexts.
Skinner and Chalmers at luncheon.
Seymour, his house on fire.
During the pandemic, I bored-watched the past few seasons. Like everything after 2018.
There's a lot of really good episodes. Every season, at least 2-3 episodes are really standout. The most recent one with Conan O'Brien was solid.
The writers know what they're writing. And there's less milking of relevance, and more just trying to tell a fun story.
There's a lot of really good episodes. Every season, at least 2-3 episodes are really standout.
OK, but out of a 22 to 23 episodes a season, that means at best...what, around 9 to 13% of episodes are really good? I think I'd rather just watch Bob's Burgers than watch the Simpsons and hope every 7th or 8th episode approaches its former glory.
If I did want to drop back in, b/c I saw the sharp slope down after s09 or so, where would you recommend.
Someone should come up with a curated list of episodes that us "pre S9, yelling at clouds, grouchy old" fans would enjoy
I went to a random "Best episodes of the Simpsons season X" and did that. If I liked that episode, I'd play the whole season.
New Simpsons is fine for what it is. I find if you accept that it's changed over the years, borrowed concepts and writers from other animated series, etc., and the four-quadrant audience it tries to appeal to is vastly different than it was in it's heyday, it's watchable (though admittedly with a much different clunker:classic ratio).
Still though:
Does the shirt say anything?
" I will not zoom in on memes."
Nice.
It says "I will not instigate revolution".
If you Google image search "bart Simpson chalkboard" then that is the first image that has that pattern of the chalkboard fading away without showing the boarders of the chalkboard, and the shapes of the outside edge matches this blurry image.
And that imagine is also from a T-shirt website so whoever edited this meme probably just grabbed the first "bart Simpson chalkboard T-shirt" result they could find.
Seasons 33 and 34 and 35 are pretty good, no seriously, they're highly regarded as a minor renaissance in quality.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Simpsons+season+33+return+of+quality
"I used to be a Simpsons fan"
I tried watching a newer one a while back, and was really troubled by how old the voice actors are. Lisa sounds like an old lady.
Just turned 40, still watching. I've seen every episode so far, may as well keep up with it (... which I've been saying to myself for 20 years)
Fox killed dozens, possibly hundreds of shows, because they weren't as good as peak Simpsons. They were wrong to expect everything to be that good... but it was that good.
Nowadays it's just kinda there.
Does the new stuff entertain me as much as the old stuff? No. And honestly I cant say if that's me or the show. But I it's still entertaining. My only real gripe with the newer stuff is how many jokes depend on me speed reading or pausing to read a block of text.
Ouch. Right in the feels, man.
There is no correct way to be a fan of something.
Just because somebody likes more of a franchise by volume does not make them more of a true fan. Equally, just because people like new entries that you reject does not make you more of a true fan.
Critiquing and discussing the content of a franchise is something to be encouraged. Making personal judgements about other people and posing your view of a franchise as the true one is completely petty, stupid, and unproductive.
Season 8 is my favorite
It says "I will not instigate revolution".
If you Google image search "bart Simpson chalkboard" then that is the first image that has that pattern of the chalkboard fading away without showing the boarders of the chalkboard, and the shapes of the outside edge matches this blurry image.
And that imagine is also from a T-shirt website so whoever edited this meme probably just grabbed the first "bart Simpson chalkboard T-shirt" result they could find.
The Simpsons went from genius to garbage really quickly somewhere between Seasons 8 and 10. The only reason it survived as long as it did was that there were always new viewers who didn't remember how good it used to be.
