The Simpsons

Yeah I mean South Park is also in this situation, it’s on like Season 26 or something but it’s never had an extended run that was particularly good or bad. The problem the Simpsons has is it’s been so mediocre for so long that everything after Season 8 or 9 just doesn’t register, so like if you go on Bortposting it’ll only be references to 25 year old episodes, because they just assume everyone stopped watching after that.

That said if they got a decent writing staff nobody would care but idk how many talented tv writers would want to work on the Simpsons right now

every sitcom writing class ever involves the room collaboratively writing an episode of the simpsons afaict so i think literally anyone could do it

agreed that... why would Fox change the formula now? the ratings have been in slight decline, but to me more remarkably steady for the past 20 years
https://www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/the-simpsons-ratings-3857/

Awesome.

Holy shit, John Swartzwelder has given an actual interview. "Assembling a writing staff for a new show is difficult to do, because you’ve got to find people who are great at their jobs but who can’t find work anywhere.” https://t.co/XiJpzfI6i7

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 2, 2021

Words to live by: "Write what makes you laugh. At least you’ll get a laugh out of it."

would love to read the Swartzwelder Fearless Fosdick script.

prob done on the back of the Dick Tracy movie's success? Yeah, i would've loved to see that too.

the all ighty ollar

we did a mini Treehouse of Horror marathon over the Halloween weekend, some of those were really great!

yea I've been watching them too, I remember them pretty well (I think I had like 6 of them recorded on VHS) but since they aren't in regular rotation during the other 11 months I don't see them often. I'm surprised at how fast paced they are. some of those scripts are super tight almost to the point where the plots make zero sense, not that this really matters

even with the seasons i dont like, i find i can always enjoy the treehouse of horror eps, bc being highly compressed, zany, nonsensical, and meta is part of the blueprint for those vs being an unfunny annoyance in the 'normal' eps

Anyone else kinda weirded out by all the blood and violence at the end of last night's episode? I understood what they were going for, but it really struck me as being wildly off-brand and I was kind of disturbed by it.

"I believe I'll start, as you've so often suggested, by eating your shorts" is one of my favorite line readings in the whole series

Yeah, last night's episode was unnerving with the bloody deaths of major characters not in the context of a treehouse of horrors.

Kudos for trying something new I guess. I’m not really sure who the audience for that was. Stand-off scene was at least pretty funny

i never got into it as it bores the hell out of me!

Cool

I just rewatched "22 Short Films About Springfield" and it's amazing how like half the big Simpsons memes come from that episode alone. way ahead of its time I guess.

alright this show has gone long enough

Homer gets canceled, meets Joe Rogan in new 'Simpsons' episode https://t.co/q5MKNCWVVk pic.twitter.com/77fivcWaUH

— New York Post (@nypost) March 15, 2022

Next episode, Homer gets covid, makes his whole family sick.

Homer got cancelled in Season 6!

Randy Marsh went on the Wheel of Fortune in 2007

haha I love the cut to Stan in the audience in that bit

Cartman was cancelled in 2005.

Not a defence, but it is worth clarifying that Rogan does not actually appear in the episode--something I had to read the article itself to find out.

I continue to pretend the Simpsons has been off the air for 2 decades.

I rewatched season 3 - 7 or thereabouts recently, even though I rewatched the first 9 seasons last year. still one of the most wondrous runs of television we'll ever witness

I went to a friend's for Turning Red on d+ and we followed it with "Bart Sells His Soul" - was surprised to find they'd decropified it. so at least there's that. the last one I saw on there looked ghastly.

There was outrage over the cropping of The Simpsons pretty early on, and Disney responded rather swiftly. I wish they'd do the same for other shows, though; we've been watching Buffy again and, while I can't remember if the series ever switched over to widescreen during its initial run, I highly doubt it was in that format the beginning of its run (again, not sure when widescreen became the norm).

it was post 2000 iirc

The Wire wasn’t widescreen for instance

but it is now on HBOMax

It didn't truly become the standard until the broadcast HD switch-over in 2009, but most TV productions had already switched in the years immediately before then. Some earlier shows/productions were shot "protected for widescreen", meaning they were framed for both full-frame and widescreen, with the latter being insurance for later syndication (and eventually streaming & BluRay). I don't know if Buffy or The Wire were one of those though.

The Wire wasn't, but they went over the cropped version scene-by-scene to make sure everything worked.

http://davidsimon.com/the-wire-hd-with-videos/

on Buffy, they didn't: https://www.themarysue.com/remastered-buffy-is-a-butt/

Did Joss write that url?

I caught a new one a couple weeks ago called 'Pixelated and Afraid' that I thought was pretty good. Bit of a throwback, maybe because of covid that it was pretty much just Homer and Marge with one story line.

growing up I remember that Simpsons arcade game being everywhere we went and I don't think I ever made it past the second level. they have a cabinet at a bar I go to and even with $4 worth of quarters I couldn't get past the graveyard level. well today I went with my son to one of those day-pass arcade places and they had one so I told him, lets go we're beating this game today. there's so much of it I hadn't seen, including a genuinely bizarre dream level which is pretty damn out there by 90s arcade standards. its so freaking hard too. by the end I was using up a credit every minute or so. is anyone actually good at this game?

amusingly my son has a Simpsons chess set and a Simpsons backpack and has now played the Simpsons arcade game, I don't think he knows it's a TV show

Lol dude I get exhausted playing that game at the local free play.

Double Dragon is much, much shorter

touched by your fun dad and son arcade experience, frogbs

he has no idea how good he has it

I wish they let smithers be this evil on the show

https://64.media.tumblr.com/06398f409df0b3f4fa349e3fc66e0a1f/tumblr_oruio8GgKu1qhvf1mo1_1280.jpg

thats what makes the game interesting, it was released in 1991 while Season 2 was still airing, so it was mostly developed before the show started getting good. it's got that early Simpsons bootleg weirdness to it.

When you didn't have cable and your exposure to this show was all the merchandise and the arcade game, you thought it was going to be Bart in blue t-shirts, Bartman this, Bartman that

None of us knew it was actually going to be about the PTA disbanding and such

tbf the show WAS very Bart-focused early on

people had a lot of cows back then

thoughts on the postulated season 33+ "renaissance"? I've seen a few episodes and some of them were actually pretty good considering, you know. others not so much. at least it feels like some people on staff are actually trying for once. on the animation side it's a lot less bland than I remember it being for a couple of decades (the "new" opening is still a disgrace)

people have always blamed new writers for ruining the show but if anything it's the old harvard boys in charge (who haven't been hungry or funny since the 90s) who are holding the simpsons back from becoming something really cool (in a new way, not in a "neoclassical" sort of way). in theory I think they could take it somewhere very interesting (that's if julie kavner's throat holds up, and if disney doesn't keep slashing the budget)

xpost My mother loved that Simpsons game because she was in a bowling league when I was like 9 or 10 and since dad was working she'd bring my bro and I to the alley and that video game kept us pretty much preoccupied for hours

I've seen a few newer episodes that made me chuckle but admittedly haven't given it much of a go yet.

once the show started to be ok with Family Guy-ish gags and 'reference' jokes, though, it wasn't for me.

idk the only reason I know johnny carson is a thing is because of classic simpsons and I'm not sure I ever needed to know

but in general I agree - actually it's shocking how family guy-esque the episodes from just before family guy started already feel. clearly it was the style at the time

This happened last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ZU0fGoQ00