The Official Simpsons Griefing Thread

[Trilby]

Canadian flash cartoons look better than this.

Studios like Mercury Filmworks certainly know how to do it.

 

[Baby Pom]

Canadian flash cartoons look better than this.

Marge's fucking head turn in the second one oh my god

 

[vertexwindi]

Marge's fucking head turn in the second one oh my god

As told by the guy who animated that part:

About the Marge turn, I had originally done a version where she did a nice head turn but, again, they didn't want it. "Just have a simple head turn because we want the joke to be Maggie and the unibrow baby," they told me. I didn't know they were going to stiffen it up that much, I'm just defending myself because that seems to be the first thing people mention is Marge.

 

[Trilby]

As told by the guy who animated that part:

Typical.

 

[CWCissey]

I'm surprised there has been no mass Tumblr rage over this episode, it portrayed women coders as more bothered about gender politics shit than actual coding!

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

As told by the guy who animated that part:

I read that. It pains me when that shit happens. More so since the show used to look like it was trying. And now Matt just wants everything to look robotic and stiff.

I'm surprised there has been no mass Tumblr rage over this episode, it portrayed women coders as more bothered about gender politics shit than actual coding!

I noticed that too. Though frankly the episode proved more baffling to me than anything. Seriously, Lisa makes Wheatley 1.0? Homer goes Greek? Interns that are also bodygards/thugs? The fuck were they smoking? That said I did get a chuckle out of Homer's "Science fact into science fiction" line.

 

[CWCissey]

I read that. It pains me when that shit happens. More so since the show used to look like it was trying. And now Matt just wants everything to look robotic and stiff.


I noticed that too. Though frankly the episode proved more baffling to me than anything. Seriously, a sapient app? Homer going Italian? The fuck were they smoking? That said I did get a chuckle out of Homer's "Science fact into science fiction" line.

Greek.

But yeah the episode was rather weird, especially as they had noted Bristolian Stephen Merchant as the voice of Conrad rather than a British dialect that is more recognisable to American audiences. Though I suppose that is progress in some such way.

 

[TheImportantFart]

I haven't been watching the Simpsons lately but I think the absolute worst thing they've ever done was that fucking Ke$ha opening scene. If you haven't seen it I'll spare you the pain. All I'll say is, if you thought the Simpsons had jumped the shark before you ain't seen nothing yet.

Worse still, a whole bunch of brainless critics (who are only now starting to get tired with the show) praised the hell out of that excruciating minute and a half cringefest calling it "inspired" and a load of other moronic buzzwords.

I can't remember who said this but it perfectly sums up not only everything wrong with that sequence but with modern-day Simpsons as a whole. The Simpsons used to satirise pop culture. Now it's just sucking up to it to try and remain relevant.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Oh and let me hammer this point home:

Frequent any Tech/Gaming sites? Don't you fucking DARE criticize the degeneracy of post-1998 Simpsons. Or suffer the ironic consequence of a hundred negative rep ratings.

Retardation is a disease I swear.

 

[Trilby]

I haven't been watching the Simpsons lately but I think the absolute worst thing they've ever done was that fucking Ke$ha opening scene. If you haven't seen it I'll spare you the pain. All I'll say is, if you thought the Simpsons had jumped the shark before you ain't seen nothing yet.

Worse still, a whole bunch of brainless critics (who are only now starting to get tired with the show) praised the hell out of that excruciating minute and a half cringefest calling it "inspired" and a load of other moronic buzzwords.

I can't remember who said this but it perfectly sums up not only everything wrong with that sequence but with modern-day Simpsons as a whole. The Simpsons used to satirise pop culture. Now it's just sucking up to it to try and remain relevant.

The "Couch Gags" have certainly got out of hand in recent years. Gone are the five second ditties in favor of these longer vignettes, sometimes done by guest animators/creators/artists they bring in. I did like Don Hertzfeldt's piece though.

 

[John Titor]

I haven't been watching the Simpsons lately but I think the absolute worst thing they've ever done was that fucking Ke$ha opening scene. If you haven't seen it I'll spare you the pain. All I'll say is, if you thought the Simpsons had jumped the shark before you ain't seen nothing yet.

Worse still, a whole bunch of brainless critics (who are only now starting to get tired with the show) praised the hell out of that excruciating minute and a half cringefest calling it "inspired" and a load of other moronic buzzwords.

I can't remember who said this but it perfectly sums up not only everything wrong with that sequence but with modern-day Simpsons as a whole. The Simpsons used to satirise pop culture. Now it's just sucking up to it to try and remain relevant.

You can blame that on Fox forcing their shows to have a musical element to it (it was for an event, although the writers could have done a musical episode instead). Personally, the Lady Gaga episode was much worse.

Remember when guest stars actually mattered?

The "Couch Gags" have certainly got out of hand in recent years. Gone are the five second ditties in favor of these longer vignettes, sometimes done by guest animators/creators/artists they bring in. I did like Don Hertzfeldt's piece though.

There are plenty of reasons why the couch gags are long. Mainly because the actual episode was too short.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

You can blame that on Fox forcing their shows to have a musical element to it (it was for an event, although the writers could have done a musical episode instead). Personally, the Lady Gaga episode was much worse.

Remember when guest stars actually mattered?

There are plenty of reasons why the couch gags are long. Mainly because the actual episode was too short.

This was actually true of some of the older ones too. It's also why some episodes air the full opening and why others just skip to the end scene/couch gag.

 

[TheImportantFart]

Another thing about the Simpsons which I've never been comfortable with (and this has been a problem throughout its run) is that I rarely see a show where the production staff have such a virulent, all-consuming disdain for their fanbase. I know fans can be extremely annoying and irrational sometimes, but I've never seen a show go out of its way to insult and shit on them quite like the Simpsons has.

There was a writer for the show called Ian Maxtone Graham who gave an interview to the Independent where he dedicated a whole section to bashing fans who criticized the show. He also made some comments about female writers which, had they been made today, would likely have got him thrown off the show due to the Armageddon-like tantrum Tumblr would throw over them. I'm not a radical feminist and even I thought his comments were pretty out of line.

However, that interview occurred around the time of the eighth season when the show was still widely considered to be good. Nowadays this behaviour continues despite the fact it's not just fanatical fans saying the show sucks anymore, it's everyone.

And what's funnier is that the writers claim again and again that they don't care how much people say the show sucks, they don't listen or pay any attention to it... even though they bring it up in multiple episodes, wheel Comic Book Guy out as a strawman of fans whenever the opportunity arises and Matt Groening confessed he felt like "knocking their electronic noggins together" in regards to one newsgroup which criticized the show.

It's never nice to have people criticize you or your work, but the way the Simpsons staff react to criticism just comes off as petty and bitter.

 

[Chicken Dippers]

Absolutely. I saw a recent episode a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty dumb how they outright state the show's well past its date.

 

[AnOminous]

Another thing about the Simpsons which I've never been comfortable with (and this has been a problem throughout its run) is that I rarely see a show where the production staff have such a virulent, all-consuming disdain for their fanbase. I know fans can be extremely annoying and irrational sometimes, but I've never seen a show go out of its way to insult and shit on them quite like the Simpsons has.

Animaniacs once devoted the centerpiece of an episode to mocking how spergy its fans were. The Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation.

Of course, they'd had to put up with a LOT of shit by that point.

It's never nice to have people criticize you or your work, but the way the Simpsons staff react to criticism just comes off as petty and bitter.

It's one thing to have a shitty arrogant attitude when you're making what was generally considered one of the best animated shows of its time, and entirely another when you're apathetically going through the motions of shoveling shit to make another dull, incestuously derivative mockery of itself in a show that should have died decades ago.

 

[TheImportantFart]

Animaniacs once devoted the centerpiece of an episode to mocking how spergy its fans were. The Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation.

Of course, they'd had to put up with a LOT of shit by that point.

Animaniacs fans are the frozen limit. I've run into them on YouTube and they're some of the most arrogant, smug cartoon fans I've ever come across. They act like they're part of some intellectual elite core (speaking down to other people commenting on Animaniacs videos) and spend all their time analysing the deep and meaningful social commentary... in a show for fucking elementary schoolers.

I don't think even the spergiest Simpsons fans ever acted like that, at least not in so far as acting like they were intellectually superior for liking the show. I remember reading a blog post about the worst Futurama episodes written by some autist who said that if you disagreed with his choices you weren't evolved enough to engage with him but that's about it.

 

[Trilby]

Animaniacs fans are the frozen limit. I've run into them on YouTube and they're some of the most arrogant, smug cartoon fans I've ever come across. They act like they're part of some intellectual elite core (speaking down to other people commenting on Animaniacs videos) and spend all their time analysing the deep and meaningful social commentary... in a show for fucking elementary schoolers.

I don't think even the spergiest Simpsons fans ever acted like that, at least not in so far as acting like they were intellectually superior for liking the show. I remember reading a blog post about the worst Futurama episodes written by some autist who said that if you disagreed with his choices you weren't evolved enough to engage with him but that's about it.

Oh, those were the days!

 

[*Asterisk*]

Another infuriating thing about The Simpsons is that the show has less excuses for being bad than almost every other show on the air. It has a great cast, a great animation budget, and enough connections to bring in anybody they want. People with actual creative integrity -- like Charles Schulz, Matt Stone, and Trey Parker -- have shown that amazing things and new directions can be done with even the oldest properties.

But every time someone points this out, the Simpsons crew treats them like they're this guy:

 

[Fallensaint]

I still like the Simpsons, I think a lot of the new stuff has been clever after a dire few seasons in the middle there.

 

[UglyOldJafar]

am I the only one who thought the last episode (Lisa creates an artificial AI with a british accent) sounded more like something out of an okay Futurama episode than Simpsons?