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PostNouveau posted:Oh hey, tonight was another episode about how millennials suck. What a coincidence. I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2007 but I'm guessing Bart and/or Lisa started hanging out with a bunch of one-off episode throwaway friends who are "millennials" that we'll never see again (how close am I?). But that made me realize that when the show first aired (1989) Bart was firmly in Generation X. Fourth-grade student, 10 years old, supposedly born in 1979.  I'm curious if anybody can give me a perspective: I've got a theory that the stasis of the characters and the inertia of the show (Flanderization aside) has created a 30-year old time capsule. Looking at the earlier seasons whenever they'd have a flashback episode we can see how the writers from two decadess ago reflected upon their childhoods in the 1970s and 80s and what they insert regarding the technology that was prominent, fashions, colors, etc. My understanding is that the original "backstories" of the show have since been retconned so that Homer and Marge met in the 1990s or something, but even that provides a frame of reference to the pop culture of the past. As annoying as the writing is and as much as the show needs to be taken out and shot in the back yard its faults are a treasure trove of commentary and perspective on contemporary society that you can't get through other shows like South Park or Rick and Morty that are just too over-the-top to be satires on everyday American life. I suppose I should watch a new episode sometime just to see how well the argument stands up (and whether or not the formula still holds up despite the Flanderization), but I'm afraid I'll be annoyed at how often all the kids use their smartphones or something.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:59
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The "Maude Death" episode played a few weeks back - caught it having breakfast at my girlfriend's place as I don't bother having a TV. Holy gently caress, that episode is way, WAY worse than I remembered. It is unbelievably clunky, ham-fisted and unnecessarily cruel & heartless. Most of all, it isn't funny. It just makes you groan and all the voice actors sound like they're reading their lines so slowly and obviously, it's like they're trying to make non-english speakers understand them.
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Apr 4, 2017 11:41
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Backweb posted:I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2007 but I'm guessing Bart and/or Lisa started hanging out with a bunch of one-off episode throwaway friends who are "millennials" that we'll never see again (how close am I?). Yeah, there's tonnes of stuff that on rewatching you realise it's the writers drawing on the resources of their own childhoods in the 50s - 70s more than anything, even the non-flashback stuff. Like, one of the most consistent sources of gags in early seasons is 50s/60s-style educational filmstrips that Bart and Lisa are forced to watch in school, which would not be happening in 1990.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:00
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Also Bart's slingshot is a 50s-rear end toy.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:01
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Backweb posted:I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2007 but I'm guessing Bart and/or Lisa started hanging out with a bunch of one-off episode throwaway friends who are "millennials" that we'll never see again (how close am I?). Nice post. Anyway I just remembered the time Weird Al Yankovic was on the show, he reconciled Homer and Marge's marital woes with a parody of Jack and Diane with the lyrics changed to "Ohh yeahh love goes on/Long after the grilled cheese sandwich is gone" Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqD2KF5Bg7k
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Apr 4, 2017 12:01
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frytechnician posted:The "Maude Death" episode played a few weeks back - caught it having breakfast at my girlfriend's place as I don't bother having a TV. Holy gently caress, that episode is way, WAY worse than I remembered. It is unbelievably clunky, ham-fisted and unnecessarily cruel & heartless. Most of all, it isn't funny. It just makes you groan and all the voice actors sound like they're reading their lines so slowly and obviously, it's like they're trying to make non-english speakers understand them. Yeah, it's bad, and it's why I consider that the jumping of the shark.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:24
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Backweb posted:I haven't watched The Simpsons since 2007 but I'm guessing Bart and/or Lisa started hanging out with a bunch of one-off episode throwaway friends who are "millennials" that we'll never see again (how close am I?). You've got some weird timing issues here, in that born in 1979 doesn't make Bart "firmly" in Gen X, the only firmly defined generation are boomers, the rest are just hazy marketing terms. I am the same age that real-time Bart would be by now and the Gen X culture leaders like Kevin Smith and Kurt Cobain and Quentin Tarantino were already pushing 30+ when I (or Bart) was not yet in high school. Millennials are both starting college and almost 40 right now (see these terms are useless?). Also, no one who wrote in the early seasons would have been a child in the 80's, this was apparent watching it at the time. Marge and Homer's childhoods and early married life is the writer's time capsule.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:26
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Scudworth posted:I only know 3 couples my age (mid 30) that still have cable tv, one is just for sports but the other 2... I don't know. It disturbs me. their plan is literally espn like i dont think the scope of the yarn really dawns on most of us but the entirety of cable television is basically a multi tiered racket for ESPN and by extension the NFL. like if they stopped offering espn as a required channel for entry level cable the price of cable would drop drastically which is why their revenues are so fuckin bloated. like there is a reason ESPN sued Verizon when they allowed customers to drop channels they didn't watch
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Apr 4, 2017 12:26
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Scudworth posted:You've got some weird timing issues here, in that born in 1979 doesn't make Bart "firmly" in Gen X, the only firmly defined generation are boomers, the rest are just hazy marketing terms. I am the same age that real-time Bart would be by now and the Gen X culture leaders like Kevin Smith and Kurt Cobain and Quentin Tarantino were already pushing 30+ when I (or Bart) was not yet in high school. Millennials are both starting college and almost 40 right now (see these terms are useless?). people fill in 'what kids these days do' for 'millenials' those drat millenials with their ipads and their texting!!!
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Apr 4, 2017 12:32
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With their twits and their twats and their instagits
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Apr 4, 2017 12:43
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzhxP-pdoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzhxP-pdos
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Apr 4, 2017 13:02
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Wizard Master posted:Was it: what the gently caress is this
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Apr 4, 2017 13:08
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Apr 4, 2017 13:10
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frytechnician posted:The "Maude Death" episode played a few weeks back - caught it having breakfast at my girlfriend's place as I don't bother having a TV. Holy gently caress, that episode is way, WAY worse than I remembered. It is unbelievably clunky, ham-fisted and unnecessarily cruel & heartless. Most of all, it isn't funny. It just makes you groan and all the voice actors sound like they're reading their lines so slowly and obviously, it's like they're trying to make non-english speakers understand them. I can imagine that the voice actors kinda intentionally tanked their performance in that episode, since the entire plot was done to fire of one of their fellow actors because she got to expensive.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:26
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want to know about how the simpsons is a writing mill filled with hopeful harvard grads plz
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Apr 4, 2017 13:39
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It took me almost three days of pausing and starting but I finally got through Sunday's episode. Pure torture. Probably some of the poorest written/half assed celeb cameos I've ever seen. Neil DeGrassTysen or whatever and a bunch of professors were gathered all gathered together via a dumb plot in order to act poorly.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:47
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Wizard Master posted:Nice post. Thanks! Deffo not clicking that link though. Scudworth posted:You've got some weird timing issues here, in that born in 1979 doesn't make Bart "firmly" in Gen X, the only firmly defined generation are boomers, the rest are just hazy marketing terms. I am the same age that real-time Bart would be by now and the Gen X culture leaders like Kevin Smith and Kurt Cobain and Quentin Tarantino were already pushing 30+ when I (or Bart) was not yet in high school. Millennials are both starting college and almost 40 right now (see these terms are useless?). Fair enough. I suppose 50s-60s childhoods for the writers is more accurate. 70's childhood was probably pushing it for the youngest interns maybe. I'm aware that "millennial" is a dumb marketing term, and I absolutely hate it, but there's nothing better to use to distinguish concepts of a social era than "GenX" and "millennial" because of the technological and social connotations we can put behind them. I think we'll find that the "millennial" generation will fracture right around 2000 between people who only played SNES at their friend's house once a week in elementary school and the kids who were nannied by mom's iPhone. Anyway, let's blame this on PostNouveau's terminology that I was quoting. A big problem with The Simpsons' development after the 90s was that it tried to change with modern society and was attempting to play catch-up. Early Simpsons already knew the established rules: 1980s America, biting sarcasm, miserable denizens, satire, and overturning all the established sitcom rules... a winning formula. But then the world changed around the Simpsons, which was inevitable, and the Simpsons needed to stay relevant and edgy in a time when their form of edgy was becoming commonplace, and so it had to figure out what was new. It's like Abe Simpson telling Homer that he used to be "with it" but then they changed what "it" was. Even 10 years ago it was struggling to find its new legs to stand on, constantly playing catch-up, and I'm sure this is why there are so many celebrity cameos, memes, and one-off plot contrivances incorporated in its current iteration. Combining the argument about staying relevant with the argument about it being a time capsule... The last episode that I remember watching was the one where Patty comes out of the closet and there's some weird dude pretending to be a lesbian who wants to marry her. I think it was in 2006-2007? Marge is angry that her sister is a lesbian, and Jerk Homer is asked to perform the wedding ceremony (because why the hell not, it's the Homer Simpson Show by this point). Gay culture had made serious headway since the 80s and was mainstreaming. Smithers was too established as a character to make closeted jokes about. Gay jokes weren't edgy anymore and frowned upon. The new writers wanted to show that they were progressive and in touch with current events, so they chose a single-episode hamfisted plot contrivance and made a dumb website about it: springfieldisforgayloversofmarriage.com (I can't believe I remember that stupid thing). Apparently 10 years after this plot development occurred they still haven't done anything with it, as the Wikipedia page says her only serious lesbian relationship was with the man in drag from that same episode ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma ).
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Apr 4, 2017 16:07
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Android Blues posted:Yeah, there's tonnes of stuff that on rewatching you realise it's the writers drawing on the resources of their own childhoods in the 50s - 70s more than anything, even the non-flashback stuff. Like, one of the most consistent sources of gags in early seasons is 50s/60s-style educational filmstrips that Bart and Lisa are forced to watch in school, which would not be happening in 1990. Fwiw, I was in elementary school in the early 90's and we definitely did watch film strips, along with the CRT TV and VCR on a wheeled cart. In the commentaries for the old episodes, they mention how everything was supposed to be slightly behind the times, basically how life would be like for small town America in the late 80's/early 90's.
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Apr 4, 2017 16:22
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How can any of the writing staff pull the whole 'status quo maintained, don't take it seriously' if they keep retconning the past? Just seems weird to have them focus so much on making the past seem accurate if the whole thing is a lark by Harvard grads looking to make a break into the industry. Seems like more hard work than is needed. Of course if I ask anybody I'm sure I'll get a Comic Book Guy response so gently caress it. frytechnician posted:The "Maude Death" episode played a few weeks back - caught it having breakfast at my girlfriend's place as I don't bother having a TV. Holy gently caress, that episode is way, WAY worse than I remembered. It is unbelievably clunky, ham-fisted and unnecessarily cruel & heartless. Most of all, it isn't funny. It just makes you groan and all the voice actors sound like they're reading their lines so slowly and obviously, it's like they're trying to make non-english speakers understand them. I want to think this is when the cast members started doing lines over the phone.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:04
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The episode where they go to new york or japan, whichever came first
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Apr 4, 2017 18:38
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Japan, okay. Not liking the New York one is a symptom of bad brain. ...And that's when the CHUDs came at me 
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Apr 4, 2017 18:54
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Backweb posted:The last episode that I remember watching was the one where Patty comes out of the closet and there's some weird dude pretending to be a lesbian who wants to marry her. I think it was in 2006-2007? Marge is angry that her sister is a lesbian, and Jerk Homer is asked to perform the wedding ceremony (because why the hell not, it's the Homer Simpson Show by this point). Gay culture had made serious headway since the 80s and was mainstreaming. Smithers was too established as a character to make closeted jokes about. Gay jokes weren't edgy anymore and frowned upon. The new writers wanted to show that they were progressive and in touch with current events, so they chose a single-episode hamfisted plot contrivance and made a dumb website about it: springfieldisforgayloversofmarriage.com (I can't believe I remember that stupid thing). Apparently 10 years after this plot development occurred they still haven't done anything with it, as the Wikipedia page says her only serious lesbian relationship was with the man in drag from that same episode ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_and_Selma ). Oh man this was one of the few post 12ish episodes ive seen and all i really remember was patty scolding marge "i THOUGHT you were a LIBERAL marge but i guess not" and marge looks sad and guilty and i thought god drat could you make your point any more bluntly
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Apr 4, 2017 19:06
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sweetmercifulcrap posted:Fwiw, I was in elementary school in the early 90's and we definitely did watch film strips, along with the CRT TV and VCR on a wheeled cart. Yeah it's also a running gag on how lovely the school's resources are.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:17
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Irradiation posted:Yeah it's also a running gag on how lovely the school's resources are. I remember watching a few film strips from a projector when I was in elementary school in 93. So my school progressed from old film strips to vcr and laserdisc and to DVDs right before I graduated high school
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Apr 4, 2017 21:23
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Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:I want to think this is when the cast members started doing lines over the phone. That was when they were in the pay dispute. The voice actress for Maude left for 4 years, she does Mrs Lovejoy and Milhouse's mothers too, and they killed off Maude the next season.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:37
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They originally did that big slow voice (the one like, as if they were making sure the audience could hear every word) as a parody of productions that were creatively bankrupt and that had contempt for the audience. Then they did it as a way to poke fun at their own terrible plot choices and dialogue, in a self-referential-though-still-pathetic way. I think that's when I dropped out. From what I gather, they just used that style of speech for years later - everyone having long forgotten that it originally put a spotlight on terrible writing. Or non-ironically using it to mask terrible writing. I don't know if they broke out of that phase eventually. I imagine if they did, they're probably back in it now.
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Apr 5, 2017 02:30
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Backweb posted:I'm curious if anybody can give me a perspective: I've got a theory that the stasis of the characters and the inertia of the show (Flanderization aside) has created a 30-year old time capsule. Looking at the earlier seasons whenever they'd have a flashback episode we can see how the writers from two decadess ago reflected upon their childhoods in the 1970s and 80s and what they insert regarding the technology that was prominent, fashions, colors, etc. My understanding is that the original "backstories" of the show have since been retconned so that Homer and Marge met in the 1990s or something, but even that provides a frame of reference to the pop culture of the past. As annoying as the writing is and as much as the show needs to be taken out and shot in the back yard its faults are a treasure trove of commentary and perspective on contemporary society that you can't get through other shows like South Park or Rick and Morty that are just too over-the-top to be satires on everyday American life. I suppose I should watch a new episode sometime just to see how well the argument stands up (and whether or not the formula still holds up despite the Flanderization), but I'm afraid I'll be annoyed at how often all the kids use their smartphones or something. I still wonder if Simpsons just needed semi-routine 'reboots' about every 7-10 years to mark a sort of clear delineation between eras and maybe give them some excuse to go full out instead of going with half-measures with trying to update and keep the nostalgic aspects and modern aspects in line. Keep the established characters, but take it as a chance to set up a new standard for the next half-dozen years to give new clothing, hairstyles, etc. Granted, I know it's just a cartoon and you can't put too much on that, but this way at least you sort of could have set eras of the tone and style of the show, the stories told, establish some different nuances with the characters that would be the new norm to reflect new social norms or the eras they grew up in, etc.
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Apr 5, 2017 08:18
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This would have worked if they didn't treat every season like it would finally get the show cancelled for two decades.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:43
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Having deliberate eras of the show with different flavors would have been an incredible idea (I'd still only watch the first couple but whatever). There's a British show that did that, Blackadder, right? It actually would have fixed every continuity problem and gave them a stupid but not insulting route for Homer to invent grunge and meet and fall in love with Marge eighty different times. And in fact, it would work forever, get everyone used to spinoffs and alternate shows with the Simpsons name, and even let them keep making episodes at reduced popularity if a major voice actor quits or dies. Almost seems like Ivy League writers should have been able to conceptualize and float it. Too late now lol
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Apr 5, 2017 20:13
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Cobweb Heart posted:Having deliberate eras of the show with different flavors would have been an incredible idea (I'd still only watch the first couple but whatever). There's a British show that did that, Blackadder, right? It actually would have fixed every continuity problem and gave them a stupid but not insulting route for Homer to invent grunge and meet and fall in love with Marge eighty different times. And in fact, it would work forever, get everyone used to spinoffs and alternate shows with the Simpsons name, and even let them keep making episodes at reduced popularity if a major voice actor quits or dies. Almost seems like Ivy League writers should have been able to conceptualize and float it. Too late now lol Yeah, they should have run with the Simpsons Spinoff Spectacular
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Apr 5, 2017 20:18
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Exactly! a season of wiggum pi would have cleaned the clock of any given season of zombie simpsons. I liked how that episode made the spinoffs increasingly dumb and senseless instead of finishing on the strong one.
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Apr 5, 2017 20:37
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I've got to say, though, I don't really care all that much about continuity in a show like this. It's just a cartoon. In theory stuff like the 90's retcon work just fine for me, all I ask is that they make it funny.
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Apr 5, 2017 20:54
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Did they? (Really, I didn't watch it)
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Apr 5, 2017 21:02
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Cobweb Heart posted:Did they? (Really, I didn't watch it) Mildly in the eyes of some, not at all in the eyes of most.
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Apr 5, 2017 21:04
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Cobweb Heart posted:Did they? (Really, I didn't watch it) We all know the Simpsons hasn't been funny since 1999
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Apr 5, 2017 21:06
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I just tried watching the one about Bart dissecting frogs and I turned it off after five minutes. How the gently caress do you get a job writing for an enormously well-known, highly-rated, culturally significant show like The Simpsons and write humor so infuriatingly half-assed? I have to imagine there are tons of legit talented, funny comedians out there that would probably kill for a chance to be on the writing staff for a show like this and make it funny again. Certainly Fox can afford to pay actual talent for it. Why does everything play like some hungover screenwriting student whipped something up the night before a due date?
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Apr 5, 2017 21:07
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Orkin Mang posted:what the gently caress is this they forgot the jokes
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Apr 5, 2017 21:08
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A modern Simpsons reboot would probably flip the Bart/Lisa dynamic by keeping their basic traits in place but changing their social status a bit. Lisa is a super popular with fellow students and teachers as being musically-talented and academically-successful overachiever who is also a hardcore gamer and into Asian media like K-pop and untranslated manga. Bart, on the other hand, is the unpopular one, being not really good enough at anything to to make him stand out in a positive way and the reason he hangs out with Milhouse is because they're both sort of in the same boat.
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Apr 5, 2017 23:06
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have they done an episode where Homer becomes a famous lets player yet
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Apr 5, 2017 23:19
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Ein cooler Typ posted:have they done an episode where Homer becomes a famous lets player yet The writers are probably still a couple of years away from figuring this one out
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Apr 5, 2017 23:21
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