The Official Simpsons Griefing Thread

Jewelsmakerguy said:
As I stated previously, the whole episode felt less like a (half-hearted) puff piece of SJW commentary and more like the writers finally went insane.
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I think they went insane around last season already when they did an episode about the Simpsons traveling to the planet of Kang and Kodos. I was seriously baffled about the murder joke in none-Disneyland, as it felt like something Family Guy would rather do.
 
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All this Dobson talk got me thinking: Has anyone bothered to ask what would happen if Chris were writing for this show? Or am I just asking a stupid question?
 
*Asterisk* said:
Have you heard of a character called "Reginald Sneazle?"
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Either he's that killjoy character no one cared to remember in one episode - or it was an idea Chris thought up as a character for his defunct comic to suggest inserting into something else, like that of The Simpsons. Fuck me if it's the latter, because I've seen what you're talking about and hoping it ain't true.
 
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TheImportantFart said:
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.
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God, what a gasbag. He took on the job without watching the show beforehand; suddenly the shift in the series's tone makes sense. I'm torn though. He wrote some good episodes but on the other hand, a lot of bad ones too.

And this week's episode was pretty meh. Some funny lines but nothing really memorable.
 
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John Titor said:
And this week's episode was pretty meh. Some funny lines but nothing really memorable.
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Stuff like that makes me wonder what is worse:
Episodes like that one with Homer getting raped by a Panda, which many people despise, but will at least live on in infamy...
or episodes as they are done for the past three till five years, which are so mediocre or bad, people deliberately forget all about them almost instantly.
I at least doubt anyone will remember the episode about Bart getting a new teacher and hormones containing milk by the time the next season comes along.
 
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CWCissey said:
I did like the couch gag this week. I thought it was pretty cool.
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I kinda agree on that one. But the moment when Maggie then drives by on her couch is kind of weird. Something in the way these few seconds are animated looks extremely stiff. Especially in how the other characters move their eyes.
It just highlights some issues people have with the animation quality of the Simpsons as of nowadays.
 
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One of the worst episodes of The Simspons I've ever seen (maybe even the worst) was "Treehouse of Horror XXII". This episode aired when The Simpsons had just barely escaped cancellation (the cast had to take a pay cut to keep it on the air). Now, The Simpsons has passed the point where it could possibly prove it's worth keeping on the air several times over, but this episode only served to show how much further the show could fall and coming on the heels of a near-miss cancellation just made it worse.

Of course every "Treehouse of Horror" is usually made up of three segments and the first segment is probably the worst five minutes The Simpsons has ever produced (and there's some stiff competition). Titled "The Diving Bell and the Butterball" the plot is that Homer gets paralyzed and... can only communicate by farting.

In case you haven't guessed by my username/avatar I'm pretty accepting of fart humour. Hell, when it's done properly I think fart/toilet humour can be extremely funny. Thing is, if there's one show that definitely can't do fart humour it's The Simpsons. Sure, they've done the odd fart joke but generally The Simpsons shies away from that kind of thing, so to have an entire five minutes dedicated to farting is sort of like that Futurama episode where they start randomly swearing. It's so outside the show's usual sensibilities it doesn't work on any level. In fact, in this case, not only was it painfully unfunny it also came across as hopelessly desperate.

If this wasn't bad enough, the episode then segways into an out-of-nowhere Spiderman parody which only exists so they could give a topical nod to the musical Spiderman: Turn off the Dark. Bleh, moving on.

The next segment, "Dial D for Diddily" was so boring I don't remember anything about it. I have a very good memory when it comes to things I've watched and even when I watch a bad episode of The Simpsons I remember something about it. This is one of the few cases where my mind draws a complete blank. I looked up a plot synopsis for the segment and I still don't remember watching anything resembling what was described.

The final segment is "In the Na'vi" and we know we're in trouble when the title's the cleverest part of it. As you've probably guessed, this segment consists of a by-the-numbers, far-too-late Avatar parody. The Simpsons has parodied old movies before, but Avatar's just recent enough that you could tell they were trying to be topical in parodying it. South Park had drunk that particular well dry before the film was even released so how The Simpsons thought they had a chance I'll never know. Al Jean tried to excuse this by saying a "Treehouse of Horror" episode takes a year to produce, but there's a very simple solution if this is the case - don't try and be topical. You can be funny without trying (and failing) to be topical.

Sorry, I don't want this thread to devolve into dissecting individual episodes, I just wanted to take the time to point out this one cos I think it's a good microcosm of a lot of the problems the modern-day Simpsons has.
 
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TheImportantFart said:
One of the worst episodes of The Simspons I've ever seen (maybe even the worst) was "Treehouse of Horror XXII". This episode aired when The Simpsons had just barely escaped cancellation (the cast had to take a pay cut to keep it on the air). Now, The Simpsons has passed the point where it could possibly prove it's worth keeping on the air several times over, but this episode only served to show how much further the show could fall and coming on the heels of a near-miss cancellation just made it worse.

Of course every "Treehouse of Horror" is usually made up of three segments and the first segment is probably the worst five minutes The Simpsons has ever produced (and there's some stiff competition). Titled "The Diving Bell and the Butterball" the plot is that Homer gets paralyzed and... can only communicate by farting.

In case you haven't guessed by my username/avatar I'm pretty accepting of fart humour. Hell, when it's done properly I think fart/toilet humour can be extremely funny. Thing is, if there's one show that definitely can't do fart humour it's The Simpsons. Sure, they've done the odd fart joke but generally The Simpsons shies away from that kind of thing, so to have an entire five minutes dedicated to farting is sort of like that Futurama episode where they start randomly swearing. It's so outside the show's usual sensibilities it doesn't work on any level. In fact, in this case, not only was it painfully unfunny it also came across as hopelessly desperate.

If this wasn't bad enough, the episode then segways into an out-of-nowhere Spiderman parody which only exists so they could give a topical nod to the musical Spiderman: Turn off the Dark. Bleh, moving on.

The next segment, "Dial D for Diddily" was so boring I don't remember anything about it. I have a very good memory when it comes to things I've watched and even when I watch a bad episode of The Simpsons I remember something about it. This is one of the few cases where my mind draws a complete blank. I looked up a plot synopsis for the segment and I still don't remember watching anything resembling what was described.

The final segment is "In the Na'vi" and we know we're in trouble when the title's the cleverest part of it. As you've probably guessed, this segment consists of a by-the-numbers, far-too-late Avatar parody. The Simpsons has parodied old movies before, but Avatar's just recent enough that you could tell they were trying to be topical in parodying it. South Park had drunk that particular well dry before the film was even released so how The Simpsons thought they had a chance I'll never know. Al Jean tried to excuse this by saying a "Treehouse of Horror" episode takes a year to produce, but there's a very simple solution if this is the case - don't try and be topical. You can be funny without being trying (and failing) to be topical.

Sorry, I don't want this thread to devolve into dissecting individual episodes, I just wanted to take the time to point out this one cos I think it's a good microcosm of a lot of the problems the modern-day Simpsons has.
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Plus that farting segment was based on someone's real life memoirs, which makes the whole thing kind of sick if you ask me.
 
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Uncanny Valley said:
Plus that farting segment was based on someone's real life memoirs, which makes the whole thing kind of sick if you ask me.
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Wouldn't have been so bad if it was actually funny. I've said elsewhere the only jokes I find offensive are ones that aren't funny and that definitely fit the criteria.
 
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