[TV] Is it time for the Simpsons to go?

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Postby Final Messenger » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:50 am

View Original PostC.A.P. wrote:False alarm everybody: It'll go on for another two seasons.


Well that's nice to hear (although I was looking foward to see how they would end the show)
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Postby MassiveInvader » Fri Mar 01, 2013 8:21 am

View Original PostNemZ wrote:King of the Hill was HORRIBLE. I don't have the slightest idea how anyone can enjoy that.

View Original PostMassiveInvader wrote:I would be Hank hill. He doesn't really have to deal with anything big like huge angels or Ultor or 7 evil exes, he just sells propane and propane accessories while leading a happy marriage, life, and he has 4 loyal friends. The only thing about him I do not like is that he is very conservative.
This is one of the reasons why I like King of the hill so much, I also like it because some of the episodes are really funny(he became a PIMP :lol:) and a lot of the characters are very likable and relatable. There are also very memorable quotes. But I can understand why you don’t like that show. Most of the time, the episodes were really boring, and some of the things really bothered me, like dale getting cheated on and nobody telling him.

The Simpsons should get at least one or two more seasons, then end off with the second movie. Family Guy and The Cleveland show should end AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
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Postby tomrule123 » Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:59 pm

View Original PostMassiveInvader wrote:This is one of the reasons why I like King of the hill so much,

Judging from your avatar, I would think that you hate the show. :tongue: But yeah, Adult Swim's showings made me like KotH more.

The Simpsons should get at least one or two more seasons, then end off with the second movie. Family Guy and The Cleveland show should end AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Simpsons, as I said earlier, should've ended. Family Guy: :shoot1: DIE! DIE! DI-
Cleaveland Show: eh. Wouldn't matter. The show I'd rather not get cancelled right away is American Dad... it's good, everyone should take a look.[/quote]

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Postby Dream » Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:18 pm

Man that show is still on the air?
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Postby Guy Nacks » Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:23 pm

View Original Posttomrule123 wrote:Family Guy: :shoot1: DIE! DIE! DI-


It's amazing how much of a love/hate series Family Guy is. There's like no middle ground. No one says "ehhh, i mean it's ai'ght" They're all either "OMG so fuckin' funny!" or "KILL IT WITH HELLFIRE"
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Postby tomrule123 » Sat Mar 02, 2013 2:08 pm

View Original PostGuy Nacks wrote:It's amazing how much of a love/hate series Family Guy is. There's like no middle ground. No one says "ehhh, i mean it's ai'ght" They're all either "OMG so fuckin' funny!" or "KILL IT WITH HELLFIRE"

Allow me to elaborate:
Old Family Guy (before it got canned for a few years): Watch it! Its a classic! :thumbsup:
New Family Guy (2005-2009): ... it's okay
New Family Guy (2009- Current): YOU ARE NOT FUNNY! SHUT UP AND LEAVE! :shoot1:

Another elaboration:
Before Peter Griffin found out that he's legally retarded: Hot Damn, is this hilarious.
After: ... :facepalm:


P.S.: Their Star Wars satires are generally not funny. Go watch the Robot Chicken Satires.

... I think I just went off-topic there. That's right: we're in a Simpsons post right now! Getting on-track: ... yeah, I don't care anymore if the Simpsons stays on-air or not. Got other shows to watch.

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Postby MassiveInvader » Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:55 pm

View Original Posttomrule123 wrote:Allow me to elaborate:
Old Family Guy (before it got canned for a few years): Watch it! It's a classic! :thumbsup:
New Family Guy (2005-2009): ... it's okay
New Family Guy (2009- Current): YOU ARE NOT FUNNY! SHUT UP AND LEAVE! :shoot1:

P.S.: Their Star Wars satires are generally not funny. Go watch the Robot Chicken Satires.

Thats basically how I feel, but I stopped watching after around the one hundreth episode. I also don't understand why everybody hates Bob's Burgers.
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Postby C.A.P. » Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:47 pm

I'm not sure where to put this, but I recently wrote all of this in the Skype chat we have, and I must as well dump it all here, so it won't go to waste.

So Xard wanted to know "what happened" to the show. I told him it was complicated, saying it was "a case that the circumstances that made the show in the first place was gone by the 9th season". Here's what I mean...

It all started when they wanted bumpers for The Tracey Ullman Show. Although it initially was competing with another bumper, The Simpsons was the winner, after a meeting Matt Groening had with James L Brooks and the bumpers aired as the show went on. They became so popular, it got to the point where, at one point, when an episode of the show was gearing up, a tape full of Simpsons bumpers aired to the audience, and it got bigger laughs that the show itself.That, along with the favorable circumstances the animators worked under (one of them, David Silverman, at a Christmas party, drunk), influenced Brooks and others to make the show--For the upcoming FOX network. Things got heated, but in the end, they got a contract to make 13 episodes.There were problems...the first episode in production had animation problems ("this is shit"), and after the second episode fared better, the show was a go.

Now, the reason I said all this is because of what Groening, Brooks, and eventually, Sam Simon, wanted to do with the show: They wanted to make an animation sitcom that was, well, a sitcom that was animated. Groening, in particular, DID NOT want the rubbery WB animation or the smooth Disney animation--at the same time, he didn't want low budget HB animation. And it was that philosophy, along with being written by sitcom writers who got tired of sitcom traditions at the time, that fueled the first two seasons.

In the 3rd season, a decision was made where two of the writers, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, took over the showrunner position from Sam Simon. By then, while the stories were still solid, it started to get more and more gag oriented. It got to the point where, by season 4, all they focused on were the gags.Why that happened were a few reasons:

1. Some of the writers left (which is how future showrunners Oakley and Weinstein got the job), so new writers like Conan got on

2. They were starting to get much more comfortable working with one another, so things started to slip into sillier territory much more frequently.

3. Al and Mike focused more, as writers, pop culture references than, say, Sam Simon would of used.

At least, whenever they showrun a show.

So for two seasons, the show was starting to become sillier, but never lost focus on what the show was all about. The only difference being that, really, the writers started to become much more comfortable, despite the politics going on behind the scenes with the animation studios and Groening and Simon. Eventually, it got to a point where the contracts for the old writers were starting to run out, so there was a "what are you going to do, fire us" thing in the later season 4/early season 5 episodes. So with a episode like "Cape Feare", they pretty much no longer gave a shit and went nuts.


Once the contract expired, the decision was made to hire an outside writer to take over...e.g. David Mirkin. From there, he pretty much had to rebuilt the show from scratch; hiring writers that were either close to him, or trusting newcomers. For David, he was MUCH more interested in satire and absurd, dark material than the family. But, yeah again, he and his writers never lost focus that the family was the emotional core to the show. Like, as Conan once joked, they're not a family where the father can sell his son for cannibalism or anything. And eventually, it came to a point where the new writers, along with a few that stuck around, were coming up with jokes and stories just as wonderful as the old ones. One team in particular was O&W. They were true blue fans of the show, and Mirkin gave them clot in their episodes than the other writers. In fact, one of them said Mirkin told them on how he showran the show, and how he took care of the nitty gritty aspects of creating the show.

So, once (I think), Mirkin's contract expired, he, Brooks, and others wanted them to take over. When they took over, they were determined to do two sorts of episodes:

1. Create experimental episodes that would polarize the fans

2. Focus it back to the characters, and maybe come up with aspects of them never explored in previous episodes.

And keep in mind, they had the writers that were from the Mirkin era, with barely a few reminding pre-Mirkin.

So throughout their seasons, they create very character based, very polarizing episodes that reflected on how much of fans they were of the show. But after two seasons, they just got too tired:
Thinking they were running out of stories to say. So when their contract expired (I think), a Mirkin writer, Mike Scully, took over. And when he took over, he didn't want to continue what they were doing (i.e. staying up late at night coming up with jokes no general audience will notice). So not only did Mike sorta organize writing sessions (he did keep the idea of two writer rooms from the O&W era), but he was much more relaxed about jokes than the last few showrunners were. So, naturally, the writing started to reflect that...with plotlines and jokes writers all those years ago would never accept outside of the writer's room.

Meanwhile, Al Jean, who by then, was working on shows that were suddenly cancelled, desperately wanted to come back to The Simpsons as a full time writer. He showran and wrote some episodes in the Mirkin era (as he and Mike worked on another show called The Critic), then some after in a period I can't nail down (that later aired during the O&W and Scully era)...but never as a full time writer. So, during the 10th season, he was hired back on a full time basis, and slowly became one of the supervising producers around the 11th season or so. After 4 seasons (instead of the usual two), Mike stepped out of his contract (I think) to go work on some other shows, and it was decided Al would come back as a solo showrunner...With Mike Reiss, meanwhile, being a consultant.

Writers came and go with Al, but generally, once Al came back, he started to take his episodes more seriously than Scully. But eventually, there came a point where he and the writers were starting to get really comfortable working with one another. Once they worked under a groove (once again, using two different writer's rooms), they just kept going, not seeing any reason why they should stop. Unlike the gang from the first season, where they had a summer job that wanted to say F.U. to sitcoms around them, they, in returned, became a sitcom that was comfortable with the position they were under: writers who really don't want to search around for other jobs, maturing in some way.

So what's there to say about the writing of The Simpsons? Simple: They all just grew up.

In the beginning, while the individuals who showrun the show have the final say of the show, the content reflects what they, and the writers, wanted out of the show, and the showrunner would just control their shows to reveal what kind of humor, characterization, etc. they prefer to work under. The writers would work on the show now prefer to be comfortable with the notion of throwing jokes on the wall to see what works, instead of telling a story that'll stick with viewers. Once in a while, they'll get ambitious with the plotline, but generally, it's not the same show as it was two decades ago.

And if you ask me, it was bound to happen. It happened to the old cartoons I grew up on (Daffy evolved as a character for a reason) It happened to the sitcoms/animated show we loved or the books we read, it was going to happen with The Simpsosn sooner or later.

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Postby Sgt. Griff » Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:49 pm

Yes. It is.
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Postby caragnafog dog » Wed Jul 17, 2013 8:09 pm

I haven't watched a new episode of The Simpsons for years, but I will watch the last season. I grew up on it, have seen every episode of seasons 1-16 (it peaked at season 9, yes, but I thought it stayed funny through 16) multiple times, and will probably never tire of it. I always just assumed it would go on forever.
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Thu May 14, 2015 12:24 pm

Harry Shearer (Flanders, Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Rev. Lovejoy, etc) is leaving the series.

Frighteningly accurate, the show really knows just what jokes to make before they become topical:

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Postby Shinoyami65 » Thu May 14, 2015 7:26 pm

Well without those 5 characters (or a different voice) the show will probably slip even further into the sinkhole. Sometimes you have to put an old dog to sleep.
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Postby cyharding » Fri May 15, 2015 12:03 am

Yeah, with a solid chunk of the first tier side characters now gone, they either have to write episodes using some of the lesser known characters or create new characters and hope the fans like them. Maybe it's best that the show quits after Season 28. At the very least, the most recent episode did put a period to Homer and Ned's shared character arc in a way.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Fri May 15, 2015 8:30 am

Every long running series either ends at the appropriate time - Parks & Recreations is a solid recent example - or it ultimately reaches that moment where it tips over, stops being relevant & becomes a pale imitation of it's former self - think the American version of The Office circa season 8.

The crazy thing is The Simpsons hit that moment sometime in the mid 90s.

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Fri May 15, 2015 10:10 am

I'd rather the plan of attack is: End it sooner than later (that bookend idea of the Christmas play would be a wonderful send-off!), do a Movie 2* as they planned whenever the TV series would end, then let the series quietly die off/fellow Simpsons nerds nerd out on it on their own time.

Honestly, just end it this season since Shearer's not around. What's the point of dragging it out as long as Fox wants to, when things can't always be about dollar signs?

*Though, would Shearer return for a Movie 2 is a good question. Either way, if the Simpsons staff can keep the writing and humor as good as Movie 1 (I enjoyed it, was fresh but still reminded me of the 90's episodes), fans would love it, IMO.
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Postby Ray » Fri May 15, 2015 2:05 pm

The last episode of the Simpsons I watched was the Treehouse of Horror episode directed by Guillermo Del Toro about a year ago, and I hadn't watched an episode before that since about 2008.

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:07 pm

So uh, Harry Shearer isn't leaving after all? Guess they got contract/$$$ stuff squared away, but...just let the show die peacefully then give us a "send-off" ala Movie 2. Please.
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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:31 pm

Shearer probably just did what most people in pop culture are doing now. They're using social media & peer pressure coming from their lemming like fans to coerce the money man into meeting their demands.

I'm sure Shearer wanted more money per episode - let's say enough to pay off 5 Ivy League college degrees per episode to his current 3 - & Fox wasn't going to meet. He made a tiff online & said he's out. Fans (does The Simpsons really still have fans? Wow) complained, made a stink & put Fox into the position where even they did find someone who could perfectly imitate all of Shearer voices - which wouldn't be all that hard I imagine - all people would talk about is how Fox "cheaped out" on an actor. Fox was put in the position where to keep the show going they just gave in & gave Shearer if not exactly what he wanted then something very VERY close.

At the moment each of the voice actors is making $300,000 an episode. Shearer probably just got a nice pay raise.

I'm still amazed people watch The Simpsons though. Astonished even!


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