Animation Domination 2011-2012

Sunday was the beginning of Fox' new season of its animation block.  No Bob's Burgers yet (too bad), but The Simpsons; The Cleveland Show; Family Guy and American Dad are all back.

Yes, the heyday of The Simpsons is dead and buried, but I still get excited when a new season is on the horizon.  I wasn't a big fan of season 22 (thought 20 and 21 were decent, though), and I couldn't have cared less about the fan results for Ned and Edna's possible relationship.  Regardless, I though the season opener was pretty solid.  The plot was different (even if Homer's been held hostage before) and I thought the funny was brought consistently.  The Taiwanese news dramatization was especially good.  The "Nedna" (*shudders*) storyline was mostly background noise, which I think was the right choice, even if fans probably chose incorrectly.

The Cleveland Show was awful, which is what I've come to expect from this one.  I almost never watch it, but the Comcast description showed that Ric Flair was going to guest star.  The wrestling fan in me just had to watch.  The Flair parts were the only ones I liked; the "Woo"-off had me laughing.  Flair might as well just be a semi-regular character on the show; he desperately needs the money and it might force me to watch again.

I haven't really cared for Family Guy since its initial run, but the show still gets some laughs out of me here-and-there.  Peter buys a huge vault filled with gold coins (he won the lottery), so he can swim like Scrooge McDuck - things don't go as planned, and it was one of the better jokes from this show in a long time.  I've already forgotten most of the rest. 

American Dad and Bob's Burgers are the two best shows in the block currently.  I'm not sure when Bob comes back, but I'm glad Dad is churning out new stuff in the meantime.  This episode is weirder than usual, which I think says a lot.  Cee-Lo Green narrates the story and voices the manic hot tub, there's plenty of singing and the ending is unexpected.  Not enough Roger, which is a shame.  His rock-solid abs during the music video he did with Steve about Dad being gone are priceless, though.  In the end, the episode could've been better.

Rankings This Week:

1. The Simpsons

2. American Dad

3. Family Guy

4. The Cleveland Show

That "Daddy's Gone" video is excellent - the highlight of the episode for me.

What do you guys think of the possible Simpsons channel? 

I would think that episodes of The Critic, Futurama, King of the Hill and the three MacFarlane shows would have to be included as one big package.  The Simpsons, of course, would be the flagship.  As long as The Simpsons has been on, a channel that played nothing but those episodes would breeze through them in a week's time.

Documentaries about the show would be great additions.  Maybe there'd be specials that looked at the top ten Moe episodes, or whatever.  October marathons that played all the "Treehouse" episodes back-to-back would be cool.  The channel could even debut clips from upcoming episodes (and then air the eps a few days after their initial broadcasts).  I can see myself watching a channel like this.

I only had the time to watch the new "Simpsons" episode this Sunday.  After thinking about it for a bit, I was surprised to realize that Superindentent Chalmers never had his own episode before.  It turned out that he's a somewhat interesting character when given more than just one-liners to spew out.  The episode had some heart too, which was nice.  Reagrdless, some of the jokes fell flat and Bart is now directly or indirectly responsible for the firings of Skinner, Krabappel and Chalmers.  Overall, I'm thinking a "C."  That grade might go lower on repeated viewings. 

A little late to the party here, but I just wanted to say that this year's "Treehouse of Horror" was the worst one ever.  It was slightly worse than the 18th edition.

Too bad.  A few years ago, the show released one of the better "Treehouse" episodes in a long time (the 20th one), but that consistency quickly fell off.

This week's "Simpsons" sort of reminded me of a season 11 episode, thanks to the crazy robotic seal plot.  Sure, I laughed (probably the funniest episode of the short season so far), but this thing was really out there.  Badly edited too.

This week's "Simpsons" was okay.  Matt Selman's not the most consistent writer on the show (J. Stewart Burns is), but he still comes up with some fairly good ideas.  Honestly, I sort of wish Selman would replace Al Jean as the show runner, mostly just to shake things up. 

I only had time for "The Simpsons" and "American Dad" this weekend, but both were good.  The former had its best episode of the season thus far.  It was an Ocean's Eleven spoof centered around tween literature.  That probably doesn't sound too great, but it definitely worked.  Neil Gaiman (playing himself) actually did a great job. 

The "Dad" episode was insane (but in a good way).  The episode could've been better, but Roger's B story made me laugh a lot, and the main story regarding Stan using a girl avatar to maybe have sex with Steve (I don't want to explain anymore, ha) was the sort of craziness I expect. 

J. Stewart Burns, you've done it again!  His "Simpsons" story tonight was really really good.  It almost rivals "Lisa's Wedding" when it comes to the futuristic episodes.