It Comes With A Slice Of Canteloupe At The End: THE SIMPSONS SEASON 1 POLL

I think that's the only pre-crapulence Simpsons episode I've only seen twice. And I don't mind if I never see it again.

I think one of my favorite quotes when I first started watching these is from There's No Disgrace Like Home:

Homer: I'm sorry, Marge, but sometimes I think we're the worst family in town.
Marge: Maybe we should move to a larger community.

Kind of weird how different the characters were back in season 1.

i watched these episodes then they originally aired, i was 7 years old!!

jesus fuck I'm old

Yup. I was 20 when these first aired.

10, and I feel old now too.

(I mean, given we're on season 25.)

I was 17. I loved Life In Hell, but somehow missed the Ullman shorts.

Fortunately, my high school did not ban the "Bart Simpson: Underachiever And Proud Of It" t-shirts, and man, those things were fucking everywhere.

Ever see any of those bootleg "Simpsons Go Funky Reggae" shirts? With them all rasta-fied?

everyone saw those everywhere, they were more prevalent than licensed merchandise

^^^ GIS reveals dozens of variations.

I'm having such a hard time choosing in this poll. I don't love any of them, haven't rewatched any in ages, and I tend to think of Season 1 primarily as the era of writers retooling standard ancient sitcom plots, and actors not quite finding the voices yet. (And Moe's hair color changing!)

season premiere of bob's burgers seemed like a bit of an homage to 'call of the simpsons.'

okay fine I watched 'There's No Disgrace Like Home' again and it was very enjoyable.

Fortunately, my high school did not ban the "Bart Simpson: Underachiever And Proud Of It" t-shirts, and man, those things were fucking everywhere.

― hopping and bopping to the krokodil rot (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, October 4, 2013 2:41 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This happened other places too?! My grade 6 teacher, also the school's VP, made kids wear them inside out for the rest of the day if he saw 'em.

season premiere of bob's burgers seemed like a bit of an homage to 'call of the simpsons.'

yeah I saw a still of that on the BB's facebook page recently and had the same thought.

tempted to vote Bart the Genius cuz of the two characters in the history of The Simpsons to share my name one is one of Bart's gifted classmates and one... is one of Cletus' children, but I think I'm now leaning towards Bart the General. Bonus points for iirc being my childhood fave.

No love for "Moaning Lisa" here? Marge's climactic pep talk to Lisa still gets me choked up like very few of genuinely poignant moments from the series (and there are many).

Have been enjoying taking a peek at some of these, though I don't see myself getting to all of them before the poll's up. "Bart the Genius" was tough going in places - some long scenes with few jokes, but also so much heart (the game of catch! what the heck?!). What's amazing is how many things are already basically fully formed - the voices of Krabappel and Skinner, for example.

Just watched "Krusty Gets Busted" and was outright impressed. The "kids solve a mystery" plot is way funnier now that I get that it's a deliberately ridiculous version of that trope, rather than a straight-faced series of clues being discovered. And Sideshow Bob is pure genius - the idea of the villain being the guy who wants to turn kids' programming highbrow is just funny all by itself, even without the notion that it's actually a wildly successful venture. Also Kelsey Grammer's acting is perfect. And Homer's scene looking at the lineup of the clowns is totally classic Homer, paced and acted almost exactly like you'd expect the same scene to be in Season 4.

i polled two or three of the classic simpsons seasons like three years ago fwiw

anyway the only joke i can really remember from any of these is 'bart, youre just like chilly, the elf who cannot love' which makes me smile even typing it out. actually that and the rd/rr one in 'bart the genius' so i dont really have any opinion abt the thread qn. just wanted to reminisce about the simpsons smurfs parody and stake my claim

loved Moaning Lisa bitd. first ep i ever saw.

jesus "Moaning Lisa" is the worst

series 1 too shit to vote for tbh, sort Homer's voice out, stop trying to make me feel shit

last 2 or 3 eps aren't terrible, i guess

good lord this season is the fucken worst

Has to be Crepes of Wrath for the Adil b-story mostly and because French-bashing in The Simpsons is never not funny in the first ten seasons.

Actually, I just realised the best scene in Season One is the clown line-up in Krusty Gets Busted.

really can't understand people saying this season sucks when the Simpsons: Season 26 exists

it's possible for more than one thing to suck

also i prefer lol-free cheap wisecrackery to lol-free emo bullshit

what season has the sexual harassment episode? because that's the all time best simpsons episode ever IMO

6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Badman

Telltale Head for Jebediah killing the bear. "We've recently uncovered evidence that the bear probably killed him."

The show really should have been retitled ''The New Simpsons Adventures'' some time in the late 90s, so you could more cleanly say ''every episode of the simpsons is at least PRETTY funny'' as well as ''...except the ones with Bleeding Gums Murphy.''

xxp I'll save my Jebediah love for a future episode. You know the one I mean.

"I did not tame the wild buffalo. It was already tamed! I merely shot it!"

NV you're just like Chili, the elf who cannot love

Which is the one that ended with the premiere of "Do the Bartman"?

I think that was somewhere in the first half of season 2. The Simpsons Sing The Blues was released in December of 1990.

Which is the one that ended with the premiere of "Do the Bartman"?

this was never in the show

MJ contractual stuff probably

how comes that when MJ appeared in the show they didn't use his real name in the credits, but they used his real *voice* but they used a soundalike for the songs he sang??

lol have you ever seen a licensing/performing contract

i guess.. not.

according to the commentary for that episode MJ asked that a soundalike be used because he wanted to play a joke on his brothers -- to see if they could tell if it was him singing, i guess.

kinda lol-worthy in itself that the very same episodes of the show that made it into The Show That Is Corrupting America's Youth and drew the ire of president bush would one day be dismissed as "emo bullshit."

episodes from this season that are as good as anything the simpsons ever did: simpsons roasting on an open fire, bart the general, krusty gets busted.

adam you're probably thinking of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep,_Deep_Trouble

i remember watching this when it aired! kinda still prefer it to 'do the bartman.'

For some reason, I remembered "Do The Bartman" getting a similar post-show airing. But I guess I confused it with "Deep, Deep Trouble" and probably also this:

Following the death of Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009, the music video was broadcast by the Fox network on June 28, 2009—ahead of a rerun of the episode "Wedding for Disaster"—and featured a title card paying tribute to Jackson.[27]

There is an ep where Bart does a little riff of Do the Bartman on the bus, complete with hip thrusts, but that was way later on and presumably meant to be lame attention grabbing.

That was in "Bart Gets Famous," yeah?

^^^That one opens with him whistling the theme song, to Marge's annoyance

Yes and revolves around his fame over a catchphrase of "I didnt do it" which was a nice self-mockery (along with the Bartman and whistling theme tune pisstaking)

Does "Bart the General" contain the series' first self-referential moment? I'm thinking of when Grandpa is writing his (hilarious) letter to a TV network in which, among other things, he lists a bunch of words that he requests never be mentioned on television again, including "family jewels" (referring back to earlier in the episode when Homer told Bart to "go for the family jewels" when fighting Nelson). Maybe not a proper self-referential moment in that its referencing something from the same episode, but the moment nevertheless feels conscious of the influence that the show was starting/about to have on the culture (definitely in retrospect, if not so much at the time).

First self-referential moment I can recall (noticed it at the time, "Oh wow!") is in the season two episode where Burns runs for Governor - Bart gets his picture in the paper for catching a three-eyed fish, and cuts out the newspaper clipping to paste it in a scrapbook next to another clipping about the decapitation of the Jeremiah Springfield statue.

Season One seems full of pokes at the show's supposed negative influence on kids - Krusty Gets Busted is basically all about it! I don't know how much lead time they had; they might have just been guessing that they'd get pushback from parent groups and such. But the 'family jewels' callback is a different kind of gag, I guess.

I'm amazed those are callbacks I never noticed before! And I watch my DVDs all the damn time.

Just watched "Bart the General." Not seeing why it's gotten so much attention here. A few good sight gags (Bart rolling home in the trash can) and a couple of moments of sparkle in the script, but overall a bit rote. Like a Dennis the Menace episode with a few attempts at real jokes. Herman really doesn't add much, either - easy to see why they didn't use him much again. A more intense, OTT version of that concept (like the 'Nam vet history teacher on Daria) could have taken them places. Abe, at least, has a little of what would later make him so great.