The Simpsons

A recent-ish episode that takes off 'Goodfellas' (including Homer quoting 'I get to live the rest of my life as a shnook...' at the end) was pretty good, but yeah, pretty terrible overall.

Although searching for that ep found this, which is kinda brilliant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RyqtrGnicc

Ugh, hated that episode, which tried to pull an Armin Tamzarian with Fat Tony, only stupider. I think the only joke I laughed at was Homer's camera wig bursting into flames.

Only family trip ep. that I recall being any good is Australia. Brazil sucks, Africa sucks, China sucks. Japan sucks.

The NYC one is when I started to tune out. Also recall getting off the boat after the Johnny Cash/chili trip ep, which may also be the one with Bart shoveling mini-pony poop and commenting "how can all this come out of such a small horse?" or something like that. I was, like, poop jokes? Really?

Ha, the NYC and chili trip ones are two of my all-time Top 10. So quotable.

otm both in my top 10 no doubt

Yeah, the chili thing is all-time.

chili one is 'tv as work of art' territory

it's "maybe if you didn't go to the bathroom so much you wouldn't be so small"

which is in the upper echelons of 'clever' as poop jokes so I think

Do you think poop jokes have to do more with laziness or this point that I made: "I especially hate when it seems like they've done market research to appeal to younger demographics with hip references or unsubtle physical comedy."?

Maybe both.

I mean, the whole trip thing aside, there's

Hello? Is this... [reads his paper] GBM? Uh, yeah. I read in the personals that you were seeking a soulmate. Well, I also like rainy days and movies. Uh-huh... [apprehensively] Uh, no, I don't like that... Or that... No, it's not that I'm afraid. [very quickly] I'm going to hang up now, bye-bye.

looking at snpp.com -

Gradually, alt.tv.simpsons and Simpsons-L became more and more quiet. Additionally, the number of the kind of Simpsons fans who love the show enough to find a place to discuss it has decreased in general.

horse poop is from the carnie episode, isn't it?

Do you think poop jokes have to do more with laziness or this point that I made: "I especially hate when it seems like they've done market research to appeal to younger demographics with hip references or unsubtle physical comedy."?

Maybe both.

― Evan, Thursday, February 10, 2011 10:43 AM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how i yearn for the more sophisticated "eat my shorts" era

They certainly didn't depend on those things in the earlier ones.

Only family trip ep. that I recall being any good is Australia. Brazil sucks, Africa sucks, China sucks. Japan sucks.

Their trip to England sucks too - a parade of poor gags about British celebs, and the stereotypes didn't have the surreal OTTness which made the Australia one funny.

Japan had the odd funny bit as I recall.

I like the japan one

England one is especially terrible I thought, it doesn't even pretend to have a storyline for the majority of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuNahIa2Gxo

Blair guesting on the British episode is an all time low for me

The one Simpsons quote that will always make me laugh, no matter what is going on in my life: "It feels like I'm wearing nothing at all! Nothing at all!! Nothing at aaaallll!!!"

I like how there's a joke about the simpsons going to too many stupid places in the behind the music ep but then, no, they just keep on making those eps after that.

haha yeah that's classic. stupid sexy flanders. (xpost)

Simpsons go to Australia and Homer goes to NY are all-time classic eps imho

stupid sexy flanders is one of the best/most quoted 00s jokes (and it's from the 99/00 season right?)

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stupid_sexy_flanders.jpg

My biggest gripe about the newer episodes is that they started turning the characters into stereotypes, I mean Flanders at one point was really a pretty complex character, at one point even having a full blown crisis of faith; I can't imagine they'd ever do anything like that now. He's now just another Family Guy-type character whose only purpose is to make fun of the Catholic church with dumb, broad stereotype humor. The great part about the character through the good seasons is that I knew people like that, always thought they were a bit crazy or weird but they were super nice and welcoming so you'd never say anything bad about them. Now he doesn't really resemble a real person. The show went downhill around the time they killed off Maude, which I always thought was senseless. Yep, it's all about Flanders.

XP So what season was that from?? Like 10/11? That episode was great. South Park also had a great skiing episode; "if you french fry instead of pizza, you're gonna have a bad time". Classic

"I wash myself with a rag on a stick."

Marge's line about "pimps and CHUDs" in the NY episode is like GOAT territory. And Homer's whole phone call to the NY police department, too. "Your plea has been . . . REJECTED. Please wait by your car for Detective Steve . . . GRABOWSKI." And the street vendor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skurheg3P6I&feature=related

xxp He's now just another Family Guy-type character whose only purpose is to make fun of the Catholic church with dumb, broad stereotype humor.

Uh, of all the things Flanders is, "Catholic" is not one of them.

Yeah I probably should have put "Christian" there but he typically stands with them on a lot of hot-button issues

lol yeah as soon as someone mentioned the nyc one, i immediately thought of the street vendor bit

man it'd be so awesome if someone or some group of people came up with a really discriminating guide to later seasons of the Simpsons or picked the very best episodes of those years. it'd be great to just have all those occasional great ones collected and never play rerun roulette with random shitty/forgettable episodes.

― some dude, Thursday, 10 February 2011 02:12 (14 hours ago) Bookmark

challenge accepted

clam juice

http://twitter.com/#!/simpsonsguide

as you can tell i am going to be spending the next six months poor and need cheap ways to kill time. could be worse ways than watching the simpsons and listening to wu-tang. also learning how to draw.

clam juice

that's how i remembered it, but it's actually crab juice!

lol whoops

The Japan episode has this exchange I loved:

Marge: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon.
Homer: That's not how *I* remember it.

And FWIW, one of the last recent eps I remember finding super-funny was "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story," which was 2006.

There's this brief reaction of stammering existential crisis when Homer encounters Mr. Spakeru for the first time that's hard to encapsulate as a joke or catchphrase, but it's just tops!

What are more bits like that?

"Marge vs. The Monorail" is just breathtaking for the sheer quantity & quality of jokes, all from so many different angles. I'd start a poll but narrowing it down to 50 gags would be difficult enough.

the cosmic ballet... goes on

it's an excellent episode but you can see the beginnings of bad use of celebrities in the nimoy-quimby exchange.
"you don't know who I am, do you?" is the joke! Then he beams out, breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

weirdly the later seasons handled the rock camp cameos fairly OK, and Ludacris nails the "you'll be hearing from my lawyer, Ms. Melissa BurlinGAME" line.

breaking a long-standing "no cartoon logic" rule.

this was a rule? seems like this gets violated pretty often

it's called "flexible reality"

they used to go out of their way to have fun with it -- like when bart and lisa get surprised by their news and their caps fly vertically off their heads, and they pull back to reveal it's because of some faulty ceiling fan.

there's some scene really early on where Bart and Lisa are talking about how cartoons are unrealistic and you see Homer walk by a window outside, even though he was just inside a couple frames ago or something like that

I know there's more this is jsut the first one that springs to mind

Top 50 Marge vs. the Monorail gags, go!

1. "Homer, I've brought someone who can help you?"
"Is it Batman?"
"No, it's a scientist."
"Batman's a scientist."
"It's not Batman!"

2. "I call the big one 'Bitey.'"

3. "I shouldn't have stopped for that haircut."

I call animals Bitey all the time. there's a Life in Hell series of strips where Groening has some pet ducks that uses the same gag

Another one of my favorites, taken from SNPP:

Taylor: Hi, Lisa, I'm Alison's father, Professor Taylor. I've heard
great things about you.
Lisa: Oh, really? I --
Taylor: Oh, don't be modest. I'm glad we have someone who can join us
in our anagram game.
Alison: We take proper names and rearrange the letters to form a
description of that person.
Taylor: Like, er...oh, I don't know, uh...Alec Guinness.
Alison: Genuine class.
Taylor: Ho ho, very good. All right, Lisa, um...Jeremy Irons.
Lisa: [looks with consternation] Jeremy's...iron.
Taylor: Mm hmm, well that's...very good...for a first try. You know
what? I have a ball. [pulls one from his pocket] Perhaps you'd
like to bounce it?