The Simpsons - When Did They Lose it? - Page 5

As much as I agree with those who feel the Arman Tanzarian episode is a bit of a watershed moment for the show, it does have one of my favourite exchanges between a large amount of characters.


Homer: Okay, once more. Where are we going?
Edna: To Capital City.
Homer: And why are you and the old lady in the car?
Agnes: We're gonna talk Armin Tanzarian into coming back.
Homer: And why is Marge here?
Marge: I came up with the idea.
Homer: And why am I here?
Marge: Because the streets of Capital City are no place for three unescorted ladies.
Homer: Why are the kids here?
Marge: Because we couldn't find Grandpa to sit for them.
Homer: Why is Grandpa here?
Abe: Because Jasper didn't want to come by himself!
Homer: Huh, fair enough.

Skinner: "This is Armins bed, Armins apartment, Armins copy of Swank."
Homer: "Can I look at your copy of Swank Armin"

Also Apu berating Skinner for his lack of knowledge of Jurassic Park.

Something else that bugs me a bit. They used to make fun of, or at least mention actual brands (cereal, etc) But now they are just not so clever take offs. That and Homer using Jeebus.

The "Citizen Kang" skit is my favourite.

"Mr President...people are a little confused on why you're constantly holding hands with your opponent."

"We're merely exchanging long protein strings."

Last Exit To Springfield... my favourite episode of all time!

Dr. Woolf (the dentist): Now Lisa, so you don't get scared I'll show you some of the instruments I'll be using... [picks up a scary pointy instrument]... This is the SCRAPER... [picks up an even scarier looking instrument]... This is the POKER ... [picks up a final terrifying instrument that begins to whirr and buzz madly] ... and this happy little fella is the GOUGER! [Dr. Woolf raises the gas-mask to Lisa's face] Now hold still while I gas you!!!


Mr. Burns: We don't have to be adversaries, Homer. We both want a fair union contract.
Homer: [thinking] Why is Mr. Burns being so nice to me?
Mr. Burns: And if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Homer: [thinking] Wait a minute. Is he coming onto me?
Mr. Burns: I mean, if I should slip something into your pocket, what's the harm?
Homer: [thinking] My God! He IS coming onto me!
Mr. Burns: After all, negotiations make strange bedfellows.
[chuckle]
Mr. Burns: [wink]
Homer: [thinking] Aaaaaagh!
Homer: [aloud] Sorry, Mr. Burns, but I don't go in for these backdoor shenanigans. Sure, I'm flattered, maybe even a little curious, but the answer is no!


Mr. Burns: This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters. Soon, they'll have finished the greatest novel known to man.
[reads a page]
Mr. Burns: All right, let's see...”It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?!" You stupid monkey.

Coming up: Charles Bronson in... Death Wish 12.

Cuts to aged Bronson lying in a hospital bed

"I wish I was dead, oy"

That episode also featured "THE BIG BOOK OF BRITISH SMILES".

Truly horrifying.

Love that bit in Whacking Day when Homer is selling parking spaces and is charging per axle, and some guy with a car with like 20 wheels parks up.

WOOHOO!
HOORAY!

The driver's hooray cracks me up every time

Friend of mine and myself refer to anything that ever makes you laugh for a sustained amount of time as a "Monty".

That Hooray sounded Nick Riveria-esque to me. But still, a great random joke.

Another great Barney moment. When he got into that argument with Sugar Ray Leonard about British Prime Ministers. I can't remember what Leonard was saying but Barney kept saying "LORD PALMERSTON!"

Semi-topical, Target is selling 1-9 for $13 each this week. That's the cheapest I've ever seen them before (aside from S1), and and includes pretty much all the good stuff mentioned here, if anyone needs to catch up. I didn't have S9 yet, so I grabbed it last night.

I noticed that S9 has "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," which I'm a big fan of, so I'm happy with it. I'll have to read some episode lists and see how many more I actually want to own.

They are? Holy shit I need to get in on that.

I imagine the commentary on that episode must be very interesting to listen to. Especially since the episode involves the world trade center.

Best moment in that episode. Bart going to the offices of MAD magazine.

Scanning through, I'm surprised there's been no mention of Family Guy, especially concerning the later (post 2000 episodes). I remember the mass exodus of people abandoning the Simpsons for the more "hip, vulgar and funny" Family Guy, and I think that definitely influenced the writers into going for a more "well, this is what the people want" direction.

And the Frank Grimes episode has one of my all time favorite Simpsons' line:

"You live in a palace! I live above a bowling alley...underneath another bowling alley!"

That was in the softball episode and he was arguing with Wade Boggs over greatest British prime ministers. But I can see how you could mistake Wade Boggs for Sugar Ray Leonard.

Burns: I want you to do for me what Spielberg did for Schindler, we both made shells for the Nazi's but mine worked damnit..."
Spielbergo: Senior Schindler es Bueno, Senior Burns es el diablo"

I always liked Homers teen odyssey in NYC set to the music from the Sting. Especially when he's being chased by the pimp.

OH yeah, big similarity between the two

I think I mixed it with another episode where Homer was given $2,000 was when Barney got into a fist fight with Joe Frazier. That's the one.

And another moment with young Homer. "And then the CHUDs came after me"

Another great Barney moment. When he's awarded the grand prize at the Springfield Film festival and given a lifetime supply of Duff beer.

"JUST HOOK IT TO MY VEINS!"

"Of course you'll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the C.H.U.D.s."

Homer yelling at some random guy. "I'M ON TO YOU!"

Good thing we got rid of all of that pesky discussion and turned this into a quote thread.

Well ya only can go so far.

Yeah, good point. That episode was actually removed from syndication for a while after 9/11. I remember a couple of my nerdier friends and I worrying that we'd never see it again, but they eventually put it back into rotation, and it's on the DVD, obviously.

The thing is that if you actually watch any of the newer episodes they seem to be hyper-aware of the fact that they've strayed completely off the track. There's a real sneery, cynical element to a lot of the episodes which when combined with a constant push/pull relationship between the show trying to get back to its roots and keeping up the wacky humour makes it almost pitiable.

I remember a few years back they even started doing these weird 'how to draw the Simpsons' segments with the animators at the end of episodes which always seemed way to earnest to be jokes.

I've noticed that. There's a certain mean spiritedness to it that isn't funny.

Also the show became way more self-referential as time went on. Which I admit is obvious, but it still seems like a crutch.

And I think that not having the characters develop further puts them into "So and So gets a new job" every third episode.

Season 9 also has "The Cartridge Family" when Homer buys a gun. One of the last episodes that I think were made at the genius level.

"Woah, careful there, Annie Oakley."
"I don't need to be careful. I got a gun."
"Well, you'll probably want the accessory kit, the holster..."
"Oh, yeah."
"Bandolier..."
"Oh, baby."
"Silencer..."
"Mmmm."
"Loudener..."
"Aaaah."
"Speed Cocker..."
"Ooooo, I like the sound of that."
"And this is for shooting down police helicopters."
"Oh, I don't need anything like that... yet."

After watching the new episode about crossword puzzle it reminded me of the time Homer used Lisa to bet on football. Now all my Simpson love is dead

They never lost it. You just aged.

Ooh, good call. So, S9 was DEFINITELY still great at times.

Looks like the highlights of S10 were CANYONERO and maybe the one where Homer and Bart steal grease. MY highlights, anyway...

I'm watching the episode "Catch 'Em If You Can" from 2004 and it's absolutely amazing.

"You know I'm always good for a XXX-throwdown..."

"Oh yeah. Brideshead's gonna get revisited tonight, baby!"

"All I wanted was a second honeymoon, and now the floor is made of lava."

No I'm sorry but that award has to go to:

"Pick a Bar? WHAT THE HELL IS PICK A BAR?"

For almost 20 years that lines been making me laugh so hard I want to be sick.

I'd say the Garbage Inspector episode was the last great episode in the Seasons 3-9 greatness streak. All the good episodes afterward were exceptions within their seasons. I don't think there was a truly great episode after season 9. The movement of the town at the end of the episode was tragic foreshadowing.

Well, The Simpsons have finally lost the syndicated Atlanta market.

I flipped by channel 13 at 6:00 to see if the episode might be worth watching only to find The Dr. Oz Show.

So, I searched through the cable guide and it seems the show has disappeared from the schedule.

I'm not too torn up about it because they used to only show episodes from 2003 to the present day. But it still kinda sucks.

Simpsons "lost it" after the end of Season Eight. In season eight itself, the show was changing and not as strong, but I'd mark it as the last point the Simpsons was watchable or funny.

To me the show became undead since the "The principal and the pauper" episode; still, most episodes still have at least one great moment in them that makes them worthwhile.
Amazing how watching "The Simpsons" here in Chile its like playing reverse russian roulette...three or four episodes in a row, and you pray for at least one of them being a "good one".
I also still cant believe the local channel still airs censored episodes.

To this day, nothing makes me laugh as hard as the bit on "Homer and Apu" where Homer pretty much owns Apu on his karmic realignment offer.
The "smart" homer moemnt is so out of the blue, it cracks me up every single time.
The last "chuckle" I had with an episode was with Alan Moore's and the other independent comic book guys cameos.
And I love "viva Ned flanders", dammit! the end bit with the prize car is gold.
The last season was pure, unfiltered bore...the "da Vinci code" episode was one of the most boring things i've seen in ages.
Hell, i wouldnt be surprised if they actually outed Smithers in the near future.

Actually the more I think about it, the episode where the Simpsons go to Japan was the last good episode. I think that is the last episode of Season 9.

"The Land of Wind and Ghosts" hahaha.. still cracks me up. And Homer eating at "America Town" every night.


Homer getting a gun was also a classic, so whoever pointed that episode out earlier was correct.

I still watch actually but yeah it's nowhere near as funny as it was up until about 2001.

How many of you who quit watching saw the actual movie? I liked it.

You know what show I really loved from the '90s? The Critic. I didn't really get into it until Comedy Central started airing reruns around '00/'01 but I can't say there was a bad show in that whole series.

I always loved The Critic from when it was on ABC and then later moved to Fox.

They've made an interesting announcement regarding the DVDs in the last week. We're up to S12 so far, and I think S13 comes out later this year. After that, though, they're releasing S20 (last season) as a 20th Anniversary set, and the first set that'll be on Blu-ray.


(image thanks to TVShowsOnDVD.com)

I'd guess they'll keep putting out maybe one back-season a year, and continue putting out the new seasons, as well.

I keep asking myself how long I'll keep buying the DVDs, but it basically comes down to price-- when I eventually find the most recent season at $15 or less, I'll always pick it up-- quality be damned! At least the commentaries and other features are nicely done.

It's a shame the show took the nosedive it did, I don't care for trying to wrench pathos out of every last peripheral character in the city, I don't need Gill crashing on the Simpsons couch.

I can't fault the staff for craving a new direction in life (Be it Late night television, Pixar studios or directing Heartbreakers), but I sense that the writers handling the show now lack the inspirations they did. It's not hard to go back and find moments of reverence for Mad Magazine and it's use of satire and subversion, a torch the show proudly carried to great effect (Homer Badman for instance).

So what about the writers today? When I watched a recent episode with the family perusing a mapple store (!), Bart tells the crowd their computers just cost a lot (!!) before running off and dropping this:

I have no idea what the chronology is at this point. I remember catching the end of some episode a few years ago that had Cletus' slack-jawed wife cooking up a miscarried baby for dinner. Jesus Christ what an awful and mean-spirited thing for a show that used to be really rather optimistic. I haven't followed it since then, really. I saw one re-hashed episode where Bart abandons Milhouse for some girl. It wasn't as offensively bad as a lot of the later episodes; if anything, it seemed disproportionate how inoffensive it seemed in comparison. Nothing to see there.

If I was in charge of that shit, I would move the final season forward a couple years (with Bart and Lisa graduating High School) and play the whole thing out from there. That would be something worth watching, I think.

I still watch The Simpsons every now and then but it really is painful at some points. I'm mostly bothered by too much of a reliance on overused character gimmicks that aren't really that funny to begin with. The Texan who keeps firing guns in the air immediatly comes to mind. Then there's the whole "Let's Make Fun of Modern Techonolgy" stuff that just needs to end. Anything with either Bart or Marge or Lisa getting some new IPod or cell phone (complete with boring new name) is always guaranteed to be a chore to watch. And I'm really, really tired of the Marge and Homer's marriage conflict episodes. After they used that storyline in the movie, they should have retired it for a good, long while.

But my biggest pet-peeve would be the previously-discussed "flashback" episodes of the last few years where Homer and Marge have now apparently started dating in the late 90's. Don't like them at all.

There's obviously loads of signs the show sucks (lack of relatable character drama, heavy focus on zany antics, increasingly making each episode adhere to the "this week, Bart... becomes a rapper! becomes a girl! goes back in time!", making background characters central to the stories, celebrity cameos, etc), but one of my most hated is the way they keep finding ways to put small spins on the old jokes and catchphrases. It's just so fucking lazy.

Like in 15x11, when Bart (as Mozart) says "eat my pantaloons", or every time they find a new way for Homer to strangle Bart, or a new way for Homer to say "mmmm...", it's just this horrible over reliance on wringing the last drops of humour from the golden age. It feels so forced and sloppy.

Seasons 6-9 represent the peak of the series for me. Homer's become more and more annoying as Seasons go. The show has lost that witty edge that I once loved.

 

How are the ratings for The Simpsons these days? 

I haven't actively watched The Simpsons for so long that I had no idea they had Homer and Marge start dating in the 90s.  That's just so weeeeeeeeird!

Yeah...that was a pretty low point. I mean the whole thing was just really bad. And it exposes the fatal flaw of the show. The carachters have never aged, the show has never changed. I mean holy shit Maggie has been a baby for 22 years.
 

That actually used to be one of its strengths. I considered it to be a part of their rubber-band reality! Who knew that the show would just go on and on and on like this!? Kill it! Chop off its head!

 

You know, I actually wondered just how much Simpsons merchandise could still be selling that would keep the show running so long. Then very recently, I went to the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios. It made a little more sense. (the ride is pretty cool, by the way)

 

There was a time when people found the Simpsons' content to be vulgar. Now people laugh and reminisce waiting in line for the ride as monitors play back classic moments filled with blood and violence. It was strange to witness. And it wasn't until reading this thread that I realized that for as long as I HAVEN'T been watching The Simpsons, the clips they played back on those monitors (aside from the stuff specifically produced for the ride) were all from episodes I've seen and think of fondly. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think that speaks volumes.