LADIES PINCH, WHORES USE ROUGE: The REAL Simpsons Season 2 Poll

http://images.wikia.com/simpsons/images/a/aa/You_are_lisa_simpson.jpg

First Simpsons episode where I got something in my eye while chopping onions.

So many great episodes in this season - I had no idea most of these were so early.
The title quote is one of my favourite Simpsons lines of all time.

I think I might have to go for Bart The Daredevil though. Not just for Homer's leap, flawless though that whole scene is, but the Truckasaurus voiceover and Lance Murdock's letter to Bart still kill me.

Also, Marge chastising the family for laughing at Ned's heartfelt letter in Dead Putting Society, and then going round the corner to giggle to herself about it is the best.

Tough! Lately I've had a fondness for War of the Simpsons, though I don't know if I could confidently vote for it.

whole Truckasaurus scenario too close to my heart to not vote for that, but jeez almost ALL of these could be argued as the best in one way or another.

Also interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writers_of_The_Simpsons

I was looking at Jay Kogen's page and he only did 10 episodes of The Simpsons which were

"Homer's Odyssey"
"Krusty Gets Busted"
"Treehouse of Horror"
"Bart the Daredevil"
"Old Money"
"Like Father, Like Clown"
"Lisa the Greek"
"Bart's Friend Falls in Love"
"Treehouse of Horror III"
"Last Exit to Springfield"

The leap forward in quality here really is alarming

Lively up yourself, dancin homer

Can't recall which one Blood Feud is...?

Bart donates blood to Mr Burns, Mr Burns sends a thank you card.

Ah yes. "What am I, a doctor?"

didn't grow up seeing much of these after they were initially aired -- don't know if it was different other places but they didn't really run in syndication here. rewatching them all when the dvd came out was pretty mindblowing.

think i might vote for 'three men and a comic book' which captures like nothing else exactly what it's like to be a kid and really, really want something and have no way to get it because you're a kid and don't have money.

http://baseballisms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/BSox.Carl_.Yas_.jpg

"Three Men and a Comic Book" has perhaps my favorite Martin Prince line of all time.

"Tell him what we do to squeakers, Martin."

"I don't know. Is it worse than what you do to people who have to go to the bathroom?"

"Lisa's Substitute", my favorite episode.

This is definitely a step up. But I find it so hard to remember which intro plots, sub-plots, asides go with which 'main' plot, and those bits are where the magic really happens.

Yeah, eg "Bart's Dog Gets an F," which has Homer and the "Assassins" running shoes, Homer's giant cookie, Lisa getting the mumps, the Bouvier family quilt, just so many little peripheral things before you even get to the dog.

Ha, it's funny, I watched "Bart Gets An F" today and was thinking, "Gee, they really made sure to focus on, and develop, a single story."

But yeah, "Bart's Dog Gets an F" has one of my favorite Simpsons moments, the Santa's Little Helper pov of "blah blah blah SIT."

But I find it so hard to remember which intro plots, sub-plots, asides go with which 'main' plot, and those bits are where the magic really happens.

Weird, I always thought that the accumulation of multiple plots in a single episode was more of a recent development!

Caught "Bart's Dog Gets an F" on the bar TV last night! Was great, even in closed-captioned. This morning we watched "Lisa's Substitute" "Principal Charming." The latter is a bit short on laughs but really convincing as a little story, and all three demonstrate, amazingly, the enormous leap between these two seasons - the animation, the voices, the confidence, the number of jokes per minute, the personalities of the characters...everything is much more in focus. Still a ton of heart in the stories, and Homer's not yet just an engine of pure stupidity, but he rides the line. So far, "Lisa's Substitute" is the clear winner, got me all teary-eyed. Great use of the guest star to actually create a worthwhile character who makes sense for what he does in the show, even if he's not especially funny.

Treehouse of Horror was always a favorite, for the Raven and the house

I feel like the Treehouses of Horror are always my automatic favourite of the season, such that I may doubt my confidence in my own voting for future seasons (that said, I wonder why haven't we done a complete, ballot-poll for Simpsons episodes).

I saw 'Principal Charming' on TV today, broadcast immediately after a 2000s/crap Simpsons era episode featuring a flashback to a relationship between Moe and Edna Krabappel. Both the Skinner/Patty and Moe/Edna relationships come across as kind of out of character but 'Principal Charming' really sells the story, 'still a ton of heart in the stories' is otm, the later episode's strategy of acknowledging that the plot is inane just comes across as smug and grating.

I think season 4/5 is probably where the series reached it's peak and are amazingly dense and clever, but I'm very fond of some of these earlier more character based,low-key stories as well, I'm thinking maybe series three strikes a nice balance between these two different modes?

Although the nu-Simpsons era episodes where they try and do a story with heart/sincere teary-eyed moments are the absolute worst, thinking about it.

Yeah i was just coming here to say from here on in I'm not sure if I'll just vote TOH each season. They have the unfair advantage of structure and outside-canon playfulness.

really can't understand people saying this season sucks when the Simpsons: Season 26 exists

― 乒乓, Tuesday, October 8, 2013 12:35 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's possible for more than one thing to suck

also i prefer lol-free cheap wisecrackery to lol-free emo bullshit

― Bap & Ounge (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, October 8, 2013 12:45 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^from the season one poll, I'm curious where other people stand on the lol-free cheap wisecrackery v lol-free emo bullshit question? (also want to note that the first line of NV's post is 'posts very much in character' contender material)

Personally, I'd say that season 3 and 4 are the heights of the show, and I'd speculate that consensus will land on 4.

Xpost canon and The Simpsons?? It's not the most continuity-driven show, outside of the Sideshow Bob episodes.

iirc the writers themselves saw season 5 as a "back to story/character" season after the silliness of season 4.

Yes, I think season 4 is the really dense/gag a minute one thinking about it, I've only ever seen these on TV so I'm kind of hazy about which episode belongs to which season.

I all set to vote for 'Mr Lisa goes to Washington' here, but that's season three apparently.

Well ok for "outside canon" at least read "they kill everyone fairly often"

I feel like the Treehouses of Horror are always my automatic favourite of the season, such that I may doubt my confidence in my own voting for future seasons (that said, I wonder why haven't we done a complete, ballot-poll for Simpsons episodes).

― Fiddler on a hot tin roof (ed.b), Saturday, October 12, 2013 11:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These polls would make a nice setup for one actually - getting all the episodes fresher in our minds so they're not just a wallop of forgotten titles.

Feeling really good about watching more Season 2 this week - I was so pleasantly surprised by the ones I've watched so far. So much further along than I remember them being, but not so far into wackyland that they stop working as human stories. (Again, some of my favorite episodes are the most absurd - "Deep Space Homer" and "Marge vs. the Monorail" are hardly quiet character studies in a realistic family setting! But there are different pleasures.)

"One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish"

Oh, I already voted for something else before I noticed this, I didn't realise that this was so early on in the run. I always thought that this would have made a good last episode if they'd cancelled the show, and I think it has the best balance of laughs and pathos of pretty much any episode of the show (and the way the two work together like the bit where the family are waiting for Homer to come back home for dinner, or Grampa wanting to spend time with Homer so he has to miss other things off his list).

Much of high-quality here. "The War of The Simpsons" has my favourite marriage-in-trouble plot, plus that great Virginia Woolf/"Queen of the harpies" bit. "His aroma of gin and sour defeat" is a phrase I think of often, especially since it's one of Julia Kavner's few non-Marge line deliveries.

omg, "queen of the harpies!" I completely forgot about that bit!

Is it accurate to say that a lot of the humour in the Simpsons came from this tension between it being set in a 'realistic' cartoon world where the laws of physics apply/characters don't die and then immediately reappear etc, and the fact that it being a cartoon meant that they could push at the limits of that and do fantastic/wacky stuff, like seeing how far they could take it? And that the point where they took it too far and it became almost a Family Guy type set up where nothing has to make sense is when it stopped being funny?

Yeah, Homer getting dumped out of the back of the ambulance and down into Springfield Gorge a second time is one of those "pushed to the limits" moments.

I often feel with the later episodes it's not just that the individual jokes are unfunny but the tone of the whole thing just feels off and grating.

I think I read somewhere that Groening was originally strongly opposed to the whole falling down the gorge sequence, he was adamant that the show should stay realistic and avoid any hint of loony toons type stuff.

"One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" is iirc right up there with "Lisa's Substitute" among the show's more successful bids for pathos.

Possibly the funniest bit from this season:

Herb: [on phone] Okay, this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna hang up, call me back, and say the exact opposite of everything you just said. Goodbye.

[hangs up]

Herb: Bart, Lisa, come over here.

Lisa Simpson: What is it, Unkie Herb?

Herb: I want you to hear what the guys down at the plant think of your old man.

[phone rings]

Herb: Hello?

Engineer: Um, Homer Simpson is a... brilliant man with lots of well thought-out, practical, ideas. He is insuring the financial security of this company for years to come. Oh yes, and his personal hygiene is above reproach.

oh mannn i quote "queen of the harpies" on the regular, had no idea it was this early! That might seal the deal here.

So many of the "Looney Tunes" type gags are just so good is the thing. They had a great sense of timing, good 'acting' in the animation, great voicework... it would be a hard thing to say that the world shouldn't have all these damned funny cartoon bits. Especially because nobody was doing that stuff at all at that point, certainly not doing it well. I think the new show just does this stuff badly and clearly has a different idea about the characters (sock puppets for wackiness and self-commentary), which makes it all just kind of gross.

Like, I'm picturing them trying to do the ambulance/gorge thing now and just not being able to pull it off. It might look a lot better (in the process losing all resemblance to the Coyote cartoon but nevermind) but I guarantee you it'd go fast where it should go slow, the ambulance would drive two feet too short, the stretcher bonking against the cliff wall would be overplayed.

(Also btw I know we're not trying to do these as jump-the-shark threads but mannnn I caught a recent episode the other night and it was amazing how much even the voice actors weren't trying. But who could, twenty-five years into playing the same character? Fucking CATS didn't go on this long!)

(that said, I wonder why haven't we done a complete, ballot-poll for Simpsons episodes).

i participated in one once! and now i'm reading my list and all my little micro-writeups that i posted on my livejournal in 2009.

man, the blowfish episode makes me tear up, every fucking time. i don't know how they did that. even the first time i saw the show when i was like 9 i knew homer probably wasn't really going to die, but seeing him whisper goodbye to everyone and then suddenly slump down in that chair -- jesus.

'blood feud' has the justly famous 'hello, my name is mr burns' bit but it's also got the equally great bit where homer tells the story of 'hercules and the lion' (sic) and bart asks, reasonably, 'how could a lion have riches?' and homer says, smiling as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, 'it was the OLDEN DAYS!'

The olden days! My name is Mister Burns! Jesus, this season is full of riches.

(Again, some of my favorite episodes are the most absurd - "Deep Space Homer" and "Marge vs. the Monorail" are hardly quiet character studies in a realistic family setting! But there are different pleasures.)

when Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were taking over as showrunners James L. Brooks screened 'Deep Space Homer' for them and when it was done said "no more episodes like this". It seems ridiculous but after 15 years of that vibe being extrapolated into worse and worse places I suppose JLB was onto something.

As for s2, aw man it's impossible already. Every episode has a good case for it. Maybe I should remind myself of all of the B-stories and decide based on that.

But..."our insect overlords"!

ikr

best moment ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9lbyM0c51A

"Great plan, Bart." Gets me every time.

Didn't know that about "Deep Space Homer" but it makes a lot of sense. Would never want to give up "insect overlords" or the brilliant James Taylor cameo ("Now I'm gonna play, and you're gonna like it!") but...yeah. It's funny because there are still some out there episodes in season 7, like the stupid Australia one, but generally you are back to some much more ordinary situations. Some of them ("Lisa on Ice") are up there with 2-3 for me...but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

chronologically i think "Dead Putting Society" was the first all-time classic episode. can't beat the touching "let's call it a draw" moment from Bart and Todd being followed by the sight of Homer and Ned in their wives' dresses mowing the lawn.

Just watched "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish." A bit slow in the middle (by later standards) but a few classic moments. Burns's attempts to deal with the plant inspectors are adorable: "Oh, now that shouldn't be!" Also think the conclusion is nicely handled, although as is often the case, it's irritating that Homer doesn't really have to learn a lesson or recant his behavior - Marge just gets one back and that's sort of it.

well, your re-zoom seems in order...

LISA'S SUBSTITUTE

I'm thinking now I might vote for "Bart v. Thanksgiving," which does a really great job of how thoughtless and mean kids can be to each other sometimes, and how much they regret it afterwards. And it's got such great little character moments: Patty and Selma bringing food, Mrs. Bouvier saving her voice only to tell Marge she never does anything right, Bill & Marty's banter about the Bullwinkle balloon, Burns throwing away an entire Thanksgiving feast . . .

And this, which is like a perfect Bart moment.

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

Jim Reardon mentions this on the commentary track for Itchy and Scratchy and Marge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A15v4tTab0Y

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted for uncle herb

OMG. No time, no time!

The blowfish one and the one with Herb did nooooothing for me, couldn't even finish the latter. Was bummed, as I was hoping it just bored me as a kid but would connect better now. Blowfish one had a few good moments, I'll admit. "The Way We Was" had a few good gags but also felt a little too heavy on plot and character, though without question I love the fix it puts on the Simpsons timeline. The idea that Homer and Marge are anything other than last-wave baby boomers will never fly with me.

Right now I would have to vote "Blood Feud" for lols and "Lisa's Substitute" for heart. "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" and "Bart's Dog Gets an F" also great I think."

Considering for rewatch: "Brush with Greatness," "War of the Simpsons" (just for the queen of the harpies bit), "Three Men and a Comic Book" (for reasons given on this thread, though I will say I started it and wasn't really drawn in), and "Bart Gets Hit By a Car" for Lionel Hutz and Doctor Nick. Not sure if time will allow. I've never really liked the "Treehouse of Horrors" but looking at the summary I do think the non-Raven bits of this one have some laughs...

Made a game time decision to vote for One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish just cause, y'know, satire at its finest, whether the bureaucrats in the state capital like it or not.

tossed a million coins and have settled on 'Blood Feud'.

Made a game time decision to vote for One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish just cause, y'know, satire at its finest, whether the bureaucrats in the state capital like it or not.

― Fiddler on a hot tin roof (ed.b), Sunday, October 20, 2013 8:48 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ but this is the "homer eats a poison blowfish" episode... the one with Burns's gubernatorial bid is "Two Cars In Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish."

I love Blowfish if only for the line "poison... poison... tastyfish!" which I employ while cooking on occasion.

...er, the line, that is. I dont employ poison.

The idea that Homer and Marge are anything other than last-wave baby boomers will never fly with me.

I don't think "lol 70s nostalgia!" was even a thing in movies/tv/music at the time, at least not that I'd encountered. This episode, Lenny Kravitz's clavinet-funk, a jumpsuit-dressing bar band I saw performing Kool/KC numbers, Axl's "Vanishing Point" monologue on Use Your Illusion...1991 really feels like the year of the great "Two Decades behind" nostalgia-shift from that of regular boomers to the late-period ones

xpost today the writers would try to shoehorn in a poisson-poison Homer miscomprehension joke

prior to this i think it would've been the domain or yr redd kross types. for example this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e4e1LIsv6E

- probably came out a couple of years too early

xxpost: Ahhh! I tricked myself into some sort of "one fish, two fish, three eyed fish" logic. Ahh, what the hell, that's a good episode too (if only for the Richard Sakai karaoke).

re: 70s, I remember being baffled by the references as a kid but absorbing that there had to be something significant about "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The flashback episodes also do important work of establishing how young the characters are meant to be, which the animation (and Homer's premature baldness) can sort of obscure. Homer's about eighteen in 1974, right? If Bart's a ten-year-old in 1990, then they had him when Homer was maybe twenty-four, twenty-five...just kinda changes how I think about them and their little family unit.

Arrrgh everytime someone says "as a kid" in ref to the Simpsons I have this dreadful cognitive dissonance.

Esp because I think I tend to think of most ILXors as being 35+ for some odd reason.

just rewatched 'lisa's substitute' and uh yeah, that's getting my vote. even apart from all the obvious stuff it's got martin's awesome moment of supreme SF snobbiness ("what about ray bradbury?" "i'm AWARE of his work.")

tbh i love all of these episodes except 'simpson and delilah' (feels like a first season leftover) and 'dancin homer' (ditto). one that ought to get more love is 'homer vs. lisa and the 8th commandment.' kind of astonishing how much lisa changed over the years, no sign of the cynical atheist she'd become by, uh, whenever that stupid angel episode aired. plus it features my all-time favorite mr burns line, where he imagines what it must be like at homer simpson's house:

"oh, i can picture it now...the screen door rusting off its filthy hinges...mangy dog staggering about, looking vainly for a place to die!"

one cool thing about these early episodes is how often it basically is a (really great) show about what it's like to be a kid -- feel like they never really recaptured that in later episodes, except in the lemon tree episode.

i think simpson and delilah might've been the first Simpsons I ever saw (it debuted on satellite TV in the UK, and we never had it), and it blew my mind. on reflection, though, I'm voting Blowfish.

I ended up voting for "Bart's Dog Gets an F." Boy-and-his-dog stories tend to get to me (See also Futurama's "Jurassic Bark"), and Nancy Cartwright achieves some real pathos, from back in the day when the voice actors could really bring it.

("what about ray bradbury?" "i'm AWARE of his work.")

Wasn't that "I'm AWARE of the works of Pablo Neruda" or was that joke rehashed?

The latter was from "Bart Sells His Soul":

Bart: I know that's funny, but I'm just not laughing. [taps head]
Lisa: Hmm. Pablo Neruda said, "Laughter is the language of the soul."
Bart: I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.

JD and everyone OTM about ''what it's like to be a kid.'' My favorite gag in ''Lemon Tree'' is Milhouse imagining how a camouflage outfit will make him invisible. Not OTT funny but just so, so, true.

Re: being a kid, I turn 32 next month so yeah, I was basically Bart's age when the show debuted. It was HUGE in the lunchroom.

Another similar gag in the lemon tree one: "I thought you could read lips?" "I assumed I could!"

And the ''spray cans as jetpacks'' logic!

Crammed in "Bart the Daredevil" and "Treehouse of Horror" last night. The latter had more laughs than I remember - the Raven bit in particular is legitimately cute and funny, with Castellaneta's and Jones's deliveries of the poem getting increasingly disconnected from each other. Could do without the framing stuff and the idea that Homer is actually scared to death by these cute little fanfics (though Marge's intro is worth a couple chuckles).

"Bart the Daredevil" is a solid episode front to back. I'd rank it alongside "8th Commandment." Favorite gag: "Don't miss it unless you're DEEEEAD or in JAIIIL, and if you're in jail, break OUUUUT." Also great how the daredevil just flagrantly encourages everything. I'd also totally forgotten Homer's logic in getting on the skateboard in the first place, which is exactly the kind of big-hearted, underthought thing that makes him work as a character: he's not just a temperamental moron, he's a temperamental moron trying to be a good father and deliver actually worthwhile life lessons.

Still down to "Lisa's Substitute" and "Blood Feud." I think the former is going to do pretty well regardless so I'm going to throw another one in for "Blood Feud."

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

surprised Principal Charming got no votes.

Bart Gets an F, too. If nothing else I'd figure someone would vote for SNOW DAY, THE FUNNEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD!

Season 3 is up now: WE'RE SENDING OUR LOVE DOWN THE WELL: The Simpsons Season 3 Poll

Might've thrown my vote to "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" instead of "Lisa's Substitute" had I known the latter would get so few votes. But the same could possibly be said for everything that received zero votes, with the exception of "Dancin Homer'" which I'd argue is the only real dud in this bunch.

only 2 for 3 men and a comic gtfo

Shit I forgot to vote after all that! hahaha. I would ave voted for "Blowfish" I think, but it was hard to decide.

Suprsed at the no love for Simpson and Delilah tho! The whole weird sub-story with the Carl character! The strange homosexual subtext. HE KISSES HOMER.

yeah Bart Gets An F is incredible no question.

Not one person mentioned "Old Money" in this thread, which is a shame. Its an important epiode, because its where Grandpa comes into all that money and uses it to have the nursing home upgraded from the a shithole to the decent place it goes on to be from then on. And it was so sad!

Damn, now I wish I HAD voted for Bart Gets an F, because I just remembered a) the permanent contribution to my vocabulary of "amoria phlebitis" and b) my second-favorite Martin line: "Who would have thought that pushing a boy into the girls' lavatory could be such a thrill? The screams! The humiliation! The fact that it wasn't me!"

Voted Blowfish but am fine with this result. Delilah would have been my second choice. So many good episodes but only one single vote to share amongst them!

"It looks like Bullwinkle got a taste of his own medicine!" *laughs*

*laughs* "He sure did, Bill!"

"Did what I said make sense?"

"No, not really Bill!"

"Now I know how the Pilgrims felt" *laughs*

"What are you talking about, Bill?"

"Hello, my name is Mr. Burns. I believe you have a letter for me."

"Okay, Mr. Burns. What's your first name?

"I...don't know."

The delivery on the last line is sooo good.

Totally. The "great plan, Bart" afterwards a nice victory lap