Not surprising considering the Simpsons responded to the "Apu is racist" claims by just making him a background character with no speaking lines.
What they didn't do is listen to the fans who are from those groups, Apu was loved by a majority or Indians - they didn't care about the voice actor they like the humor and that they showed them as a normal fallible person even if it was a bit absurd at times. The arranged Marriage episode was considered ground breaking in those communities because while he went through with it in the end it implied he had a choice in it etc.
Just based on what I've seen of the Simpsons (in the various clips people have sent me in the last year or so) all the voices seem uncanny and fucked up now, whether because of recasting, or voice actors hitting like 90 years old and needing to just move on already.
Most of the actors can't even do the fucking voices any more.
One thing the VA's well the original VA's have had is vocal stress, like legitimately needed medical help vocal stress from some of the voices IRC Nancy Cartwright who voices Bart nearly had to have surgical intervention because of it and as they have gotten older there voices are naturally more mellowed and have had to work harder to keep it close to the expected range for the part or parts they are playing - apparently the worst is Lisa's voice and where / when they can they use older recordings.
It's a juggernaut culturally.
A Zoomer another Smith I work with has an Apprentice who has a reprint of a Bart Simpson T-Shirt I first saw on TV during the Gulf War the first one, and had no idea that the shirt would be old enough to have been his Dad.
Apparently the number one "Millennial trying to parent young kids and not swear around them" version of FUCK is Doh! and a lot of older think Boomer parents of Millennials tend to say "Okilidokily" copying Ned even if they somehow haven't seen the Simpsons, let alone the kids who may never seen a full original episode use memes from the Simpsons regularly.
That's not saying very much at all. Network television in general is fucking dead and The Simpsons, which used to have viewers in the 20-30 million range, is now lucky to get about 4 million viewers. That, for comparison, is about the same number of people who still watch SNL or Colbert and the other late night show hacks.
To be fair that's about normal now, and global - TV as a medium we'd recognise from the 70's to early 00's is dead an dieing, even a lot of the Boomers are starting to switch to online content without realising (they mentally separate scary internet from internet on TV in weird ways) it's getting that bad the BBC in the UK is trying to get a "Digital levy" when the licence fee gets killed off in the next 5 - 10 years put on all fixed internet connections because less an less people are watching the TV in real hard numbers they can measure via the licence fee.
My Mrs Old Boy "uncle" is in his 90's and I set up a few streaming services for him and said to me "I don't miss Aunty at all" meaning the BBC, and he is someone who can recall Early TV broadcasts and TV's having to be retuned by men in brown coats who came to your house, Turns out he's a Big Sci-Fi fan and has been watching lots of Trek an anything else that catches his fancy.
Simpsons just needs to die already. It hasn't been funny for decades at this point and even the rare above average episode isn't that funny.
It does need to end, but I honestly don't like the past season * it's not funny it still manages to have its moments just less of them an many of them unplanned as the episode Gag.I read a thing around the time of the films rating EVERYONE Character the Simpsons had and Lisa focused episodes where consistently voted the lowest with the word used to dislike her was "Preachy" I think the end total was Homer, Bart, Maggie, Grandpa, Marge, Lisa.
Oddly Hank Scorpio ranked higher as a favourite villain than side show bob but that was chalked upto Hank being so memorable.
The Simpsons voice cast is aging, so I hope for the sake of everyone who loved the classic Simpsons they stop the series soon instead of recasting the voices.
Depending on Fox I can see them killing it an then going for a Digial reboot and using AI or replacement voices.
Yep, Fox kneecapped Futurama and has kept the Simpsons on the air over a decade after it should have ended.
The Simpsons should have ended 100% after the Movie in....2009 I think. Voice cast wasn't ancient and the creators and cast were set for life with residuals.
I liked Futurama, I really did and there was legitimate Gold there - Jurassic Bark is one of the finest bits of emotional story telling I have ever seen, but the execs didn't know how to handle it for a whole host of reasons, It looked like the Simpsons, By the Simpsons studio an a lot of the cast but wasn't quite the same enough for them to understand as an IP so it got dicked with a lot, the one thing I heard from I think Hank Azara was "It was a show for Simpsons Kids for the new era but the guys in charge watched nothing but Gilligan's island an I Love Lucy reruns". they could sorta get the simpsons if not understand it but Futurama was outside anything they could mentally frame so played with it to much.
South Park is slowly getting wound down, the seasons are shorter and while Season 30 is locked on, that's in 2027 and that'll probably be it besides a few specials
I can see Tray an Matt dragging it out, they have more games in the works apparently but I have also heard they are fed up with southpark but are now ironically hamstrung because it's so long lived they can't tell any really wild story's they want to do and Comedy Central gives them a LOT of leway that they wont give other studios when it comes to story telling or pushing the edge, but are now locked in to the point they cant go outside it because they are a X'er Simpsons.
I can seeing them being the first more modern show out of the "Adult" animations to go totally online, apparently Tray an Matt own the IP outright or to such a degree they can out vote and go online / digital only but at the moment its safe for a while an funded they are building plans for expanding the universe or moving away from SouthPark as a focus of the animation studio, I have heard they want to do a Puppet based Political satire show styled like sesimi street, but that's been rumoured for a while an possibly an American take on the failed spitting image reboot from a few years back.
One thing I have been told and I belive is Seth McFarlin HATES the whole Family Guy universe now, it was his cash cow but it's worn out its welcome and he'd like it to drop off in popularity so he can move on but because his name is so attached to it he can't and there is also some contractual lock in for his voice or writing he signed up for early on he cant get out of unless viewership % drops or something, and apparently he did have a legal option he was going to use but they offerd him a few films an he snapped it up.
