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Iron Crowned posted:I loving miss the days of the late 90's and early 2000's when The Simpsons were in heavy syndication rotation, and the worst you could do for the 6:00 hour after dinner was catch a season 1 episode. S1 Simpsons is so bad I don't know how it ever got a S2. I guess it says more about everything else that was on TV at the time that The Simpsons looked so good in comparison.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:08
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It was like fox's only show.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:09
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Sweevo posted:S1 Simpsons is so bad I don't know how it ever got a S2. I guess it says more about everything else that was on TV at the time that The Simpsons looked so good in comparison. Eh, I watched it last year after not having seen it in a couple of decades. It's not that bad TBH, it's just that it hadn't found it's footing yet and isn't as good as what would come over the next couple of seasons. I also think that the Simpsons Christmas Special, being most people's first exposure, really brought about a lot of goodwill to it.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:12
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Sweevo posted:S1 Simpsons is so bad I don't know how it ever got a S2. I guess it says more about everything else that was on TV at the time that The Simpsons looked so good in comparison. S1 probably coasted to some extent on the novelty factor - animation for anyone besides young children was just not done in those days on American tv. It’s a credit to the writers that they improved the quality so much each season from 1 to 4
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Dec 30, 2020 15:13
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The Simpsons was also very controversial even before it aired. It probably made a lot of people tune in to see if Bart would make someone eat a shorts
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Dec 30, 2020 15:17
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Sweevo posted:S1 Simpsons is so bad I don't know how it ever got a S2. I guess it says more about everything else that was on TV at the time that The Simpsons looked so good in comparison. Season 1 Simpsons is a really interesting time capsule - the satire is aimed at a slice of pop culture so specific and so long-dead that it doesn't even read as satire any more. Just the basic idea that the father of the household is an idiot drunk rather than a wise patriarch; the son swears, pulls pranks, gets punished but doesn't grow out of it; the mother is an overworked nag out of touch with her family's lives; the daughter is easily the smartest among them but no one knows how to support her - they're all a spit in the face on the classic wholesome family sitcom dynamic that was ubiquitous in the 80's but basically collapsed immediately after The Simpsons came out and showed America that sitcoms could be funny. At least I think that's how it all began? I'm both a bit too young and a lot too British to have seen this culture change unfold myself, but that's how everyone talks about it.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:17
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Cleretic posted:At worst he might see it similar to how the final producer for the original run of Doctor Who did; he had the longest run as producer simply because he felt that the BBC wouldn't replace him and would use it as an excuse to axe the show (which turned out to be true). At least with the end of original Doctor Who they had reason to think it would end when the producer left - no-one at the BBC wanted it, the ratings were plummeting and the fans weren’t too hot on it. With The Simpsons, it’s stop getting good ratings and I assume Fox are still happy enough to want to keep it going (wasn’t the only thing that threatened it a few years ago was the voice actors wanting more money?)
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Dec 30, 2020 15:19
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LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:My favourite tell for spotting a bad writer is when they make "clumsy" a female character's defining trait. Elliott Reid in Scrubs is only like this because they have to differentiate her from the 20 different similar looking Blonde women who are JD's only love interests except for when he dated Kylie for 3 episodes. Tenebrais posted:The Simpsons came out and showed America that sitcoms could be funny. Fox's other show Married with Children is the show that people usually point to as reversing the saccharine trend of sitcoms by being exceedingly and excessively crass and vulgar. BIG FLUFFY DOG has a new favorite as of 15:33 on Dec 30, 2020 |
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Dec 30, 2020 15:30
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I rewatched the first season of the Simpsons a couple of years ago. Prior to that, my impression was that it didn't get good till season two, but actually season one is still a good show - just not as good as later seasons.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:31
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Tenebrais posted:
More or less. Married....with Children debuted two years before The Simpsons but it never had the same cultural impact and was generally not considered by critics at the time to be worthy of real critical analysis. At least that’s how I remember it.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:32
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letthereberock posted:More or less. Married....with Children debuted two years before The Simpsons but it never had the same cultural impact and was generally not considered by critics at the time to be worthy of real critical analysis. At least that’s how I remember it. It had a lot of cultural impact because a super-right-wing Christan woman with focus on the family or something similar started making hay everywhere that Fox was airing this filth nobody was watching thereby making everyone watch it.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:34
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Casnorf posted:It was like fox's only show. And basically the only one that had anything resembling a guaranteed audience, from the shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show, a few people with established behind-the-scenes cred, and Matt Groening as 'that guy who did some funny comics about rabbits that someone you know probably thought was funny'. That surefire 'at least this will get SOME people watching' scored the Simpsons a deal on creative freedom that they're still coasting on, where the network isn't allowed to give them notes. Which probably gave them the freedom to move they needed to become a success; they started off as a parody of the family sitcom, and got big because of that, so a lack of network notes let them avoid the tropes they'd end up succeeding by making fun of. I've also heard a decent argument that having their first episode be a Christmas episode was maybe one of the best moves they ever made in the first season. That episode's perhaps one of the strongest of the first season, and it let them really stake a claim as an important show that's worth watching. Also, Christmas is often a dead zone for new TV, so it meant they didn't really have competition for audience eyes, especially among the crowd that's not interested in the usual Christmas programming. Zaroff posted:At least with the end of original Doctor Who they had reason to think it would end when the producer left - no-one at the BBC wanted it, the ratings were plummeting and the fans weren’t too hot on it. Yes, you're right on that, but I could also imagine that Al Jean's scared of essentially the opposite fate: that if he steps down they'll replace him with someone worse, who'd actually concede to the things Fox/Disney want that Jean's got the clout to say 'no' to. Or maybe there's fear of a talent exodus if he leaves; Harry Shearer threatening to leave kinda showed that while there's plenty of change that can happen behind the scenes, the Simpsons losing one of the core six or so voice actors would be a BIG problem. If there's some internal knowledge that, like, Yeardley Smith or someone on that level is only there at this point because of Jean's work environment, I can imagine him not wanting to leave.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:41
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I'm not really sure that US sitcoms ever really revolved around a family with a wise patriarch. As an antenna user, I get a lot of subchannels, and even obscure (at least to me) family centered sitcoms from the 70's usually have the male figure being a buffoon in one way or another. I do think that the main difference that the Simpsons or Married with Children had over those is a lot of it was ramped up to 11. I guess if anything go back to that Bush quote about wanting the Waltons and not the Simpsons. It was dramas from the 70's that had the wise patriarch and feelgood endings, See also: Little House on the Prairie
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Dec 30, 2020 15:44
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Fox's other show Married with Children is the show that people usually point to as reversing the saccharine trend of sitcoms by being exceedingly and excessively crass and vulgar. Married With Children wasn't condemned by a sitting president though. I think that gave Simpsons a little more edge.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:46
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Cleretic posted:I've also heard a decent argument that having their first episode be a Christmas episode was maybe one of the best moves they ever made in the first season. That episode's perhaps one of the strongest of the first season, and it let them really stake a claim as an important show that's worth watching. Also, Christmas is often a dead zone for new TV, so it meant they didn't really have competition for audience eyes, especially among the crowd that's not interested in the usual Christmas programming. Considering the last episode aired for the season, Some Enchanted Evening (AKA, the Babysitter Bandit episode) was the actual first episode, it could have played out a hell of a lot differently.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:47
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The 80s had both Cheers and Taxi either of which should be enough to save it from accusations its sitcoms were unfunny or overly saccharine
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Dec 30, 2020 15:47
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I got curious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1980s_American_sitcoms Really makes you think, that there were that many sitcoms during the 80's and just how difficult it is to make one stick past one or two seasons.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:57
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Iron Crowned posted:I'm not really sure that US sitcoms ever really revolved around a family with a wise patriarch. As an antenna user, I get a lot of subchannels, and even obscure (at least to me) family centered sitcoms from the 70's usually have the male figure being a buffoon in one way or another. I do think that the main difference that the Simpsons or Married with Children had over those is a lot of it was ramped up to 11. It’s an oversimplification but there is a narrative that in the 70s, sitcoms got more serious so you had stuff like All in the Family and Maude and Good Times and Barney Miller which all occasionally dealt with some dark poo poo. Then in the 80s it’s Regan’s morning in America blah blah blah and it’s all Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House and poo poo. The 90s I guess split the difference. Like people have mentioned there are exceptions on both sides but it helps to explain the tv environment The Simpsons was coming into at the end of the 80s.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:33
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And since someone mentioned Married... With Children, two big things to remember with it was that it was developed explicitly as the opposite of The Cosby Show, to the point that in development it was called “Not The Cosby Show”. That’s the style of sitcom it directly refuting. The other, which also applies to the early seasons of The Simpsons, is Fox wasn’t available across the entire U.S. until the mid-90’s. Married... With Children regularly made fun of Fox and how it was basically a UHF station you had to do crazy stuff to get in some areas, so it was almost an underground, cult favorite during its early years. The whole controversy that brought it initial attention was during its 3rd season in 1989. It’s not until Fox acquired the NFL in 1994 that large parts of the country got access to the network, by which time Married... With Children was already going into its 9th season and declining, while The Simpsons was just about to start its 6th.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:43
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Call it a day when Season 3 ends, like you would with the Simpsons at Season 8. IIRC Gillian Jacobs had asked for some of the changes to her character so she could actually be funny instead of just being the buzzkill all the time
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Dec 30, 2020 17:33
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Alhazred posted:Married With Children wasn't condemned by a sitting president though. I think that gave Simpsons a little more edge. and, having accomplished everything I wanted in one term, there was no need for a second
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Dec 30, 2020 17:39
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letthereberock posted:It’s an oversimplification but there is a narrative that in the 70s, sitcoms got more serious so you had stuff like All in the Family and Maude and Good Times and Barney Miller which all occasionally dealt with some dark poo poo. Then in the 80s it’s Regan’s morning in America blah blah blah and it’s all Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House and poo poo. The 90s I guess split the difference. This is basically what I was going to say, but you said it better. The 80's also saw the rise of 'very special episodes' which were episodes that dealt with an important social issue in the most trite way possible. 80's family sitcoms were dire.
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Dec 30, 2020 17:43
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Casnorf posted:It was like fox's only show. X-Files, Cops, MWC and the Simpsons. Without those Rupert Murdoch's evil empire would have failed. 9/11 or at least the knee-jerk reaction to it would have failed. Bush II not elected. Trump, dump. I'd trade it all 
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Dec 30, 2020 17:43
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it's it just me or is television getting worse? eh, it's about the same
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Dec 30, 2020 17:44
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letthereberock posted:It’s an oversimplification but there is a narrative that in the 70s, sitcoms got more serious so you had stuff like All in the Family and Maude and Good Times and Barney Miller which all occasionally dealt with some dark poo poo. Then in the 80s it’s Regan’s morning in America blah blah blah and it’s all Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House and poo poo. The 90s I guess split the difference. Also think of how old Matt Greoning was at the time when he made the Simpsons. He came of age during the Leave it to Beaver type of sitcoms and the snap back of super conservative values trying to make its way through the United States. I mean Dan Qualye and the Republicans basically screeched at Murphy Brown and the Simpsons as bad role models for our precious children. That being said Itchy & Scratchy & Marge is cute giving what animated shows would pop up only a few years later, most notably Beavis and Butthead. Also, I think the only episode that i have "liked" past season 15 of the Simpsons is the one where Bart and Homer have to do therapy on a wooden ship. Mainly because its an actual cohesive plot and jokes. The one where Grandpa was a famous wrestler from the 50s could of been a decent premise but they completely botched it.
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Dec 30, 2020 17:52
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sweet geek swag posted:This is basically what I was going to say, but you said it better. The 80's also saw the rise of 'very special episodes' which were episodes that dealt with an important social issue in the most trite way possible. 80's family sitcoms were dire. They might have been dire but they had great theme songs at least. 
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Dec 30, 2020 18:08
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Iron Crowned posted:I also think that the Simpsons Christmas Special, being most people's first exposure, really brought about a lot of goodwill to it. The Christmas episode was heavily promoted, too. I have a small pile of videotapes from my dad recording off the local Fox channel in late 1989 and there are a few commercials for that episode. It took Fox a long time to figure out what it wanted to be. By the end of the '80s, it landed on being something subversive. I have tapes from 1987 as well, which promote a number of Fox shows. They seemed to be really high on The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and Mr. President.
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Dec 30, 2020 18:19
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BaldDwarfOnPCP posted:X-Files, Cops, MWC and the Simpsons. Cops is an interesting one at least as it was a product of the 1988 writer's strike. Can't write new TV? Let's just point some cameras at cops for 30 minutes and call it a day! Hell, I remember it was heavily promoted all the time in the early 90's, "Tonight! COPS! In Indianapolis!" The success of Cops is probably why they had regular "When Animals Attack" specials, that were also just as heavily promoted.
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Dec 30, 2020 18:39
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Elliott Reid in Scrubs is only like this because they have to differentiate her from the 20 different similar looking Blonde women who are JD's only love interests except for when he dated Kylie for 3 episodes. Iirc JD dates a women later one who’s literally whole storyline is that she’s clumsy.
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Dec 30, 2020 19:16
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I believe When Planes Go Down was hosted by Gillian Anderson. And of course the series of specials revealing magic tricks was hosted by and extremely reluctant Assistant Director Skinner.
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Dec 30, 2020 19:19
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Iron Crowned posted:Cops is an interesting one at least as it was a product of the 1988 writer's strike. Can't write new TV? Let's just point some cameras at cops for 30 minutes and call it a day! It was also interesting that they did crossovers with Mulder and Scully on the Simpsons and an X-Files episode shot like Cops. They were desperate for material. Oh and I guess Futurama kind of counts since Leela met Al Bundy(ish)
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Dec 30, 2020 19:24
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Annabel Pee posted:Iirc JD dates a women later one who’s literally whole storyline is that she’s clumsy. I think that was Mandy Moore
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Dec 30, 2020 19:37
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Ravenfood posted:Hence why Michael somehow becomes an off screen sales savant.
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Dec 30, 2020 19:41
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RC and Moon Pie posted:It took Fox a long time to figure out what it wanted to be. By the end of the '80s, it landed on being something subversive. I have tapes from 1987 as well, which promote a number of Fox shows. They seemed to be really high on The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and Mr. President. Fox only started in April 1987, so it makes sense they had all sorts of crazy poo poo. Married... With Childen and The Tracey Ullman Show were literally the first two shows they aired, and IIRC those two and 21 Jump Street were the only shows from that first year that actually lasted multiple seasons or had any real impact. BaldDwarfOnPCP posted:Oh and I guess Futurama kind of counts since Leela met Al Bundy(ish) I mean,  being Katey Sagal.
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Dec 30, 2020 19:42
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poo poo in the 90s and 00s sure made fun of nam vets having ptsd a lot
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Dec 30, 2020 20:06
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DaysBefore posted:Jenna Fischer said in that rewatch podcast she does that Ricky Gervais told them to make Michael very good at some small part of his job in order to make him more relatable to American audiences. Something about how it would hard for Americans to accept that someone that incompetent still had a job, let alone a promotion. I remembered reading something like this before. Turns out it was in Time several years ago. https://time.com/3720218/difference-between-american-british-humour/ quote:It’s often dangerous to generalize, but under threat, I would say that Americans are more “down the line.” They don’t hide their hopes and fears. They applaud ambition and openly reward success. Brits are more comfortable with life’s losers. We embrace the underdog until it’s no longer the underdog. We like to bring authority down a peg or two. Just for the hell of it. Americans say, “have a nice day” whether they mean it or not. Brits are terrified to say this. We tell ourselves it’s because we don’t want to sound insincere but I think it might be for the opposite reason. We don’t want to celebrate anything too soon. Failure and disappointment lurk around every corner. This is due to our upbringing. Americans are brought up to believe they can be the next president of the United States. Brits are told, “It won’t happen for you.” Then he goes on to Gervais the rest of the article about his philosphy on comedy. For the record I don't know if this is as true as he claims. People loved Seinfeld and none of the characters were particularly likable. Same goes for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
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Dec 30, 2020 20:14
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christmas boots posted:For the record I don't know if this is as true as he claims. People loved Seinfeld and none of the characters were particularly likable. Same goes for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I would have hung out with all the characters in Seinfeld, whereas I would run away as fast as I could if I ran into the Always Sunny crew (maybe not Charlie).
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Dec 30, 2020 20:20
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Michael Scott is a living example of the Peter Principle. He was clearly a talented salesperson who then got promoted to manager, which he sucks at.
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Dec 30, 2020 20:21
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Iron Crowned posted:I would have hung out with all the characters in Seinfeld, whereas I would run away as fast as I could if I ran into the Always Sunny crew (maybe not Charlie). The nice thing about George is that you always feel good about yourself and where you are in life after hanging out with him.
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Dec 30, 2020 20:23
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verbal enema posted:I think that was Mandy Moore That's so funny!
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Dec 30, 2020 20:23
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