THUD: IS THE SIMPSONS ABOUT TO CRASH TO AN END?

One can only hope.

The Simpsons are well into it's "Fat Elvis/Memphis Mafia" period & carrying on would only prolong it's inevitable death on the toilet seat that is Fox. Kill it off, keep it on..whatever. It just doesn't matter.

I believe their best years are still to come so fingers crossed they work something out.

As a show, I'm kind of tired it but I would love to see the property live on. It kind of sucks for the actors though. Everyone else will continue to eat handsomely off it while they get screwed.

I came to terms with the declining quality, mostly because the show does still create good/even great episodes each season.  I'd be sad to see it go, but I had a feeling these bitter negotiations would be coming up again.  The actors seem willing to compromise, which is a good sign.

Really. They spend a couple of days in a recording booth a year, and (worst case scenario) they get paid four million dollars per episode to do so?

 

The talent behind the show was always in the writing and animation, and I don't hear any of those people bitching.

When the best part of the show is about alternative artistic impressions of the opening credits, someone's got to finally realize that the product is shite.  The Simpon's are gonna die ugly but that's what happens to strictly commercial product.

If what really brings it to an end are squabbles over money, and not, say, the actors rebelling over a demand for better writers.. then good riddance. I loved the Simpsons as much as anyone, back in the day. Up till season 9, it was some of the best television ever produced. I have all the SONGS IN THE KEY OF SPRINGFIELD CDs and can rattle off countless Simpsons songs and reams of dialog off the top of my head. At this point though, it's continued existence is beginning to endanger the shows legacy. They sold out so deeply and completely that it's nothing less than an embarrassment to the memory of what the show used to be

I get that it's kinda neat that it's almost at 500 episodes, but that's also really not something that shows should be rewarded for doing. Show up, say what you have to say, and walk off the stage when you still have some dignity

The time to leave is now

"Sometimes dead is better."

 

Let it die with what little piece of dignity it has left.

It's actually quite hard these days to try and explain just how good and exciting those first few years of The Simpsons were to people who aren't old enough to remember it. There was simply nothing like it on TV - had never been anything like it on TV. It had a rabid fanbase before the internet made that easy - hell, there used to be nights setup at pubs all over Melbourne while I was at uni where hundreds of students would gather to watch the newest episode air.

 

There's simply nothing like that now - no comparison. The nets fractured audiences too much.

The Simpsons are no no longer relevant; it's like watching Some Kind of Monster and wincing as Metallica desperately tries to force something that simply doesn't matter to anyone but those fans who hang on out of pure nostalgia. For every shit season they rack up, the number of good ones become a fraction of the overall product and retroactively taint the show's legacy. Let it go and move, says I.

You've got a point there RD; to me, the show lost its potency when it started stretching itself to be everything to everyone. It's a byproduct of mass mainstream success IMO  - suddenly you're having to write jokes for an increasingly huge and diverse audience on a global scale, and by trying to be all-inclusive you risk diluting the qualities that made your show so exciting at first. The Simpsons used to be a scathing satire of American suburbia, but in the global mainstream it's felt increasingly like 'Homer's Hijinks. Pt 387'.

 

Which leads into the other big risk for comedy: if your characters become too beloved you have to make sure they stay consistently funny for everyone, which means more pressure to make them broad and avoid edgier stuff that may alienate certain demographics. That leads to Catchphrase Town and predictability - Homer's a great example of this, having become an endless stream of 'Doh's and 'Mmm, (Food product of the week)' - but how often do we see him throttle Bart nowadays?

 

I'm trying not to sound like an elitist dick here as almost 500 episodes is a great achievement, but the mainstream is by definition a fractured audience; you have to appeal to everyone, or at least strive like fuck to. This isn't always healthy for comedy, which often thrives on economy and specificity of  voice. Even shows that attempt to grab mainstream acceptance can fall into the same trap: Red Dwarf, for example, started going downhill from the moment they started blowing out their effects budget and trying to compete with Hollywood sci-fi. 

 

At the end of the day, of course, you can simply go on too long. The Simpsons arguably did everything it was created to achieve in its first nine seasons and has been pulling stuff out of its arse ever since. It's a common mistake comedy shows make, and The Simpsons is just its most extreme example.

Thing is, The Simpsons *did* grow into being everything for everyone, and managed to sustain that successfully for a long time. I don't think there's much point in theorizing on where the show went wrong, it just reached the end of its natural life cycle. Even in the golden years there was sometimes the sense that they were focusing on the supporting cast more and more because the family was getting a bit tired, and later on the plots got more and more broad and wacky because they were clearly running out of ideas. Modern Simpsons is just what inevitably happens when a show exhausts all its creative potential and then keeps on going anyway - it becomes workmanlike and mediocre at best.

 

I remember hearing something about how the 'short stories about springfield' and spin-off showcase episodes were testing the water for a potential 'Springfield' spin off series. In retrospect I wonder if switching the Simpsons for that might've kept the dream alive for a little while longer.

Wrong. Now, maybe. But Seasons 3-8 they were essential. The voice talent gave the heart in the performances. Listen to Homer in Season 4, incredible performance. 

 

Seasons 17 through 19 were lackluster, outside of a few gems scattered throughout (especially "24 Minutes" and "Eternal Moonshine of the Simspon Mind," two of the best episodes ever).  I often find that most people I know bailed during that period.  I stayed on and think the show improved ever since.  Seasons 20 through 22 certainly have clunkers and recycled plotlines, but I think the quality overall hit "average."  Yes, the satire days are mostly over, but anytime the show comes out with a really memorable episode, I find mysellf impressed that a show this old can still hit a homerun.  Even the mediocre/bad episodes will, at the very least, make me laugh.  Perhaps, this accomplishment means little, but the last few seasons all surpassed 11 and 12 in terms of quality.  Hell, we even got a really good Sideshow Bob episode in season 21.   

 

The show's hasn't been relevant in over a decade, but that certainly doesn't mean that it's impossible for the show to still release good/great episodes.

I just don't have it in me to golf clap when a show manages to improve to a level where it's consistently "average"

It's being reported that not only has it been saved, it's going to last two more seasons.

Which means they can at least hit the 25th Anniversary milestone before going off the air.  It will be interesting to see if it survives longer than two more seasons.

 

This is the one series that can actually run until the actors die and maybe beyond and FOX is letting it die over a few millions? I know syndication is king but man.

I hear that Fox wants to make an all Simpsons network that just shows reruns 24 hours a day so I guess getting to 25 seasons is a big deal for that to happen.   The show has officially been bad longer than it's been good for more than 60% of its run.    That's just sad.

The problem with an all-Simpsons network is that they'll just wind up only ever showing the same 50 episodes they repeat ad nauseum already.