The Simpsons

[Ribs]

I still watch semi-regularly but the episode that almost did it for me was the Lady Gaga one. It was a Lisa episode and probably the worst one ever in the series. I like Lady Gaga but the whole thing was a train wreck.

I'm on the opposite side of the fence with the "future" episodes. Almost all of them have heart. Homer has mellowed out, Bart is figuring out life and Lisa finds out that having a great education doesn't automatically bring happiness. Mentioned it before, but the future episode that has Homer and the Bart's kids parody Royal Tenenbaums hit home with me as similar to Homer, my dad has mellowed out with age and having grandkids.

Something I noticed is that seasons have shortened. What used to be 24 episode seasons is now become 18 or less, and now several episodes are Disney+ exclusives. Like that Kerry Washington has become almost a regular with the new teacher that substitute Mrs. Krabbapple. Feel that the show wants to hit season 40 and then see where everyone is to continue maybe for 10 more years. Most of the cast is hitting 60 plus, with some close to their 70's. Several voice actors have passed away or retired, like Pamela Hayden recently did. In Latin America, many of the main characters voice actors have died, making it difficult to find suitable replacements. The moment one of the main cast passes away in the US, I feel that would be the end of the show.

When the American cast threatened to walk during contract renegotiations some years back, Fox apparently did begin the process of auditioning potential replacements. I have no doubt that they have no qualms about continuing it once the core cast has exited/passed away. Matt Groening checked out years ago, and I don’t think James L. Brooks has actively overseen it in quite a long time

I was stunned to read in James L. Brooks’ interview in (I believe THR) for his new film that he thinks the Simpsons very much as his day job and he does go in to the office to oversee parts of production most days of the week. I had long assumed that stopped like, literally before Season 4 or something, but he’s just always been there, giving notes!

The shorter seasons are to accomodate the Disney+ episodes - all of the Fox animation domination series are switching to this model, all greenlit for 4 seasons of 15 new episodes and 4 bonus Disney/Hulu episodes (possibly but not always double length?) each year. The famous gags about overworking the animators are true if they still kept it 22-24 a season on broadcast with exclusives on top. It’s something I wonder about where like, if you already have 790 episodes, how much more money do you possibly get out of having another 3 episodes fo license?

[beamish14]

Fox doesn't own it anymore though. Disney does. And the audition was more of playing a game of chicken than an actual thing. On the other hand, I could easily see a deal struck between the American cast and Disney and continue the show with AI. Many actors are looking at this as a way to secure money for their heirs and to keep their legacy alive. James Earl Jones struck a deal like this to keep his voice as Darth Vader and Mufasa alive for years to come.

Correct, I’d meant to say Disney. Continuing it in perpetuity with the original cast’s voices could definitely work, but at this point, I wonder if its ratings/streaming numbers actually justify creating new episodes

As an aside, I’ve been re-reading my Life in Hell collections, and the pure pleasure of seeing them for the first time in years is wonderful. Groening had so much talent in the early to mid-80’s

[Brian C]

I don’t remember any particular episode standing out for me as the one that got me to give it up, although I remember thinking in real time as early as the NYC episode in season 9 that the show was losing it. Although obviously there were still good episodes after that.

For me, it was more a matter of gradual slippage making it no longer something I needed to watch religiously. Over time, I missed more and more episodes until I just wasn’t watching at all. I know that I hadn’t watched a new one in years by the time the movie came out (which I did go to see and did not convince me to start watching the show again).

Last summer I had a trial for Disney+ so I decided to watch all the Sideshow Bob episodes. I only got to the one in Italy, though, before I decided I had ventured far enough into the later years.

[dx23]

Correct, I’d meant to say Disney. Continuing it in perpetuity with the original cast’s voices could definitely work, but at this point, I wonder if its ratings/streaming numbers actually justify creating new episodes

As an aside, I’ve been re-reading my Life in Hell collections, and the pure pleasure of seeing them for the first time in years is wonderful. Groening had so much talent in the early to mid-80’s

From what I read and some actor friends have told me, The Simpsons bring high streaming numbers to Disney+ and they still bring high ratings to the Fox Sunday night lineup. Same as Family Guy and Bob's Burgers. Now they are bringing back American Dad from TBS, so it seems they are set with 4 fairly popular cartoons on Sunday once again. This reminded me; wasn't The Simpsons supposed to move to Wednesdays this past season?

On a side note, Disney is waiting to see if they are going to renew The Simpsons contract with Universal studios which is set to expire in two years. From what I've read from park bloggers, Disney will most likely not renew the licensing agreement and will probably create a Springfield at Hollywood Studios and start having merchandise at the Disney stores. Another reason as to why Disney wants to keep the Simpsons going for at least 5 more years.

[Monterey Jack]

I gave up on The Simpsons shortly after the "Medicinal marijuana" and "Homer gets raped by a panda" episodes (yes, the latter actually happened), and haven't watched since, except for the 2007 movie, which I did think had the sharp with and genuine heart of the 90s salad days of the series. I just find it insane it's still running. The show premiered when I was fifteen, and if I could go back in time and tell my teenage self that The Simpsons would still be producing new episodes until I was fifty-one and beyond, I wouldn't have believed it.

[hearthesilence]

"Homer gets raped by a panda" episodes (yes, the latter actually happened)

Isn't "human being getting raped by a non-human animal" a standard bit in post-Hays comedy?

EDIT: Someone has handily compiled a list of movies with such scenes on imdb.

[domino harvey]

I gave up on The Simpsons shortly after the "Medicinal marijuana" and "Homer gets raped by a panda" episodes (yes, the latter actually happened)

I mean, both of those still have memorable moments and lines though (“My eye! I’m not supposed to get pudding in it!” is like a top 5 Lenny moment). My local syndication sure did love rerunning the latter episode too, so I’ve seen it a lot even though I wouldn’t call it a good episode either

[dx23]

I gave up on The Simpsons shortly after the "Medicinal marijuana" and "Homer gets raped by a panda" episodes (yes, the latter actually happened), and haven't watched since, except for the 2007 movie, which I did think had the sharp with and genuine heart of the 90s salad days of the series. I just find it insane it's still running. The show premiered when I was fifteen, and if I could go back in time and tell my teenage self that The Simpsons would still be producing new episodes until I was fifty-one and beyond, I wouldn't have believed it.

I'm more surprised that Family Guy and American Dad have lasted this long, especially after both have been cancelled at one point or another during their run and their jokes become pretty dated.

[knives]

American Dad’s pretty good and I’ll always love it for introducing me to Wax Fang.

[TechnicolorAcid]

American Dad’s pretty good and I’ll always love it for introducing me to Wax Fang.

I mean it may be pretty good but is it as good as The Cleveland Show was in it’s prime?

[beamish14]

I gave up on The Simpsons shortly after the "Medicinal marijuana" and "Homer gets raped by a panda" episodes (yes, the latter actually happened), and haven't watched since, except for the 2007 movie, which I did think had the sharp with and genuine heart of the 90s salad days of the series. I just find it insane it's still running. The show premiered when I was fifteen, and if I could go back in time and tell my teenage self that The Simpsons would still be producing new episodes until I was fifty-one and beyond, I wouldn't have believed it.

I'm more surprised that Family Guy and American Dad have lasted this long, especially after both have been cancelled at one point or another during their run and their jokes become pretty dated.

Family Guy was officially cancelled TWICE. I think it was brought back in part due to astonishing DVD sales

[knives]

American Dad’s pretty good and I’ll always love it for introducing me to Wax Fang.

I mean it may be pretty good but is it as good as The Cleveland Show was in it’s prime?

I’d say it has at least a higher floor and probably a higher ceiling. Both certainly were shows that were far better than they had any right to be.

[Monterey Jack]

Family Guy was officially cancelled TWICE. I think it was brought back in part due to astonishing DVD sales

The same thing happened to Futurama. This is an aspect of the "aftermarket" of physical media studios thoughtlessly threw away when they got hypnotized by the empty promises of streaming. Half the reason why they made a sequel to Batman Begins wasn't the merely okay box office ($370 million on a $150 mil budget), but the fact that it took in an additional $167 mil in DVD sales, which ended up pushing it over the top. These days a movie essentially stops making money the second it leaves theaters.

[Orlac]

I'd like to give Bob's Burgers a shout-out - it's a wonderful show!

[domino harvey]

Remember the Simpsons? They’re back in embroidery form!

[Farley Flavors]

I'm a bit of a sucker for adult-oriented animated shows, so was pleased to hear that Fox recently renewed American Dad!, Bob's Burgers, The Simpsons and Family Guy for an unprecedented four seasons each. The latter two in particular are going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment.

Any love for Archer around these parts?

[Mr Sausage]

Any love for Archer around these parts?

Like The Simpsons, there are probably more seasons of that I haven't watched by now. It was fun for a bit, but as someone on the internet pointed out, later Archer is exactly what people who hated the show claimed early Archer was. If I were to get back into the show now I'd have to start from the beginning--not to understand the plot or characters, but just to remind myself of all the inside jokes you need to know for anything to make sense.

I stopped watching a few episodes into at the first Dreamland season. I liked the overall idea in theory, but a noir pastiche written by people who've only ever watched other noir pastiches? Unwatchable.

[hearthesilence]

I went through a few Simpsons DVD's just to see if it was worth keeping them when 90% of the content has remained unwatched in close to 20 years, and one thing I discovered is that season 8 has a shit load of easter eggs, mostly deleted scenes. (I never would've found them, this is a credit to crowdsourced info published in the many years since these were released.)

Fortunately, someone strung the easter eggs together with the other deleted scenes and uploaded them here.

[Farley Flavors]

Any love for Archer around these parts?

Like The Simpsons, there are probably more seasons of that I haven't watched by now. It was fun for a bit, but as someone on the internet pointed out, later Archer is exactly what people who hated the show claimed early Archer was. If I were to get back into the show now I'd have to start from the beginning--not to understand the plot or characters, but just to remind myself of all the inside jokes you need to know for anything to make sense.

I stopped watching a few episodes into at the first Dreamland season. I liked the overall idea in theory, but a noir pastiche written by people who've only ever watched other noir pastiches? Unwatchable.

Not much love, then!

I do know what you mean about the glut of inside jokes, though. I'd never heard of the show before chancing on it a couple of times while holidaying in the States, probably around 2017. It was obvious from those brief encounters that it wasn't a show that could be dipped in an out of, so I waited until it was cancelled before starting on it. Quite a long wait, as it turned out, but it was rewarding in the end.

Care to expand on the "later Archer is exactly what people who hated the show claimed early Archer was" comment?

[Mr Sausage]

People who didn’t like the early seasons tended to describe the show as insular—written to please die hards with endless callbacks, references, and inside jokes that overshadowed plot and character. Which is a pretty good description of later Archer.

[hearthesilence]

I went through a few Simpsons DVD's just to see if it was worth keeping them when 90% of the content has remained unwatched in close to 20 years, and one thing I discovered is that season 8 has a shit load of easter eggs, mostly deleted scenes. (I never would've found them, this is a credit to crowdsourced info published in the many years since these were released.)

Fortunately, someone strung the easter eggs together with the other deleted scenes and uploaded them here.

The two best easter eggs are arguably the bonus commentaries for the Michael Jackson episode and the monorail episode (with Conan O'Brien doing it by phone from NYC). The Michael Jackson commentary is Mike Reiss by himself and he makes it clear it was recorded knowing it would be an easter egg - I'm guessing he wasn't able to record with the others on the main commentary, hence the bonus one, and what's great about it is the revelation that James L. Brooks told the writing staff they should do another episode with Leon Kompowsky, this time impersonating Prince. The inspiration came because Brooks was making I'll Do Anything at the time, the famous ill-fated collaboration with Prince. Long and bizarre story short, Prince apparently mistook some random script some Simpsons fan coincidentally sent him before the real script could make it to him, and when the mix-up was straightened out, he apparently didn't like the real script and said he wouldn't do the show unless they filmed the fake script. Obviously that wasn't going to happen, and it's apparently one of the very few scripts they've written that was never produced. (Very few scripts don't get made due to the laborious process of writing a script for the show.) FWIW, Conan polished a draft for it, but he was not one of the main writers.

The other commentary with Conan possibly got turned into an easter egg due to the explicit nature of the some of the jokes. One hilarious bit is when Groening asks Conan if he has any specialized jargon that's used during the production of Late Night and Conan proceeds to make up fake ones meant to describe the terrible work or guests they have on the show. The one exception is when he "pulls a boner, which is actually just me having an erection."

[domino harvey]

Retweeted by Josh Weinstein

[domino harvey]

Get it before Disney’s lawyers see it

[domino harvey]

Boots Riley will direct a film adaptation of Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, a play in which characters in a post-apocalyptic society retell the plot to the episode “Cape Feare”

[Never Cursed]

Boots Riley will direct a film adaptation of Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, a play in which characters in a post-apocalyptic society retell the plot to the episode “Cape Feare”

I've actually read this! It's a very interesting play, and it depends so much on being a play that I have no idea how it would work as a film. I always figured that there was no possibility of adaptation because of how much it depends on both the IP and viewers' familiarity with it, but I hope Riley sticks it through. It'd probably be worth the time of any Simpsons nuts here to track down a copy of the play and read it and the extensive staging notes that Anne Washburn provides for it. And if anyone does read it, "Matt" was originally played by Matthew Maher, who you have surely seen or heard in something.