I felt like the arrival of Family Guy worsen TheSimpsons, as the latter uped the wackiness to match the former. But that might just have been a coincidence.
Family Guy showed up when The Simpsons was experiencing its first significant decline. I think it was probably a coincidence at the time, but now I think its undeniable that people who grew up watching Family Guy are now in The Simpsons writing room and bringing that mentality to the show.
What interesting is how he doesn't "feel" like a millennial to the writers and most likely to the fans as well, despite the math behind it. Which is connected to biggest problem of the show, that it is too distant from its sources of inspiration, the culture of mid-to-late-20th century America. Which is why it feels so disconnecting and ackward trying to comment on the problems of early 21st century America. It's also a problem that nobody, not even the funniest writers, producers and voice actors, could fix.
Bart is [current generation]. Homer is [[current generation] - 1]. Generational differences tend to be exaggerated. The dynamics of the family haven't changed that much since The Simpsons premiered, so I think its more of a problem of the writers being out-of-touch.
Because its October, I've started rewatching old Halloween specials and such, which of course includes the classic Treehouse of Horror episodes.
I think Treehouse of Horror V is my favorite of the bunch. "The Shinning" is my personal favorite of the short stories that they did, and "Time and Punishment" is probably my second favorite. When "Nightmare Cafeteria", a really solid entry in its own right, is the weakest of the three, you have a pretty strong Halloween special. Using the Willie gag to connect the three stories was also a very nice touch.
A commonality among the fans of this show is that V is the favorite, but I would argue that VIII is my second favorite. Particularly for Fly vs. Fly and Easy Bake Coven. Those segments line up with the greats of TOH III, IV, and V.
To see a reference to earlier seasons of the Simpsons, I wonder if it might be a desesperate sign? I won't be surprised if they do more earlier seasons references even the ill-fated episodes and moments like "Homer vs Dignity", Maude Flanders' death and Skinner being Armin Tamzarian.
No, they have been doing this for a while. The Mayor Marge episode from 2017 opened on the springfield monorail and had it randomly come back to life, killing the old scientist guy from the monorail episode and destroying a memorial to Leonard Nemoy, and there was an episode from a while before that with Mr Bergstrom from Lisa's Substitute showing off for a crappy 5 second bait and switch joke, and those are just the ones I remember.
No, they have been doing this for a while. The Mayor Marge episode from 2017 opened on the springfield monorail and had it randomly come back to life, killing the old scientist guy from the monorail episode and destroying a memorial to Leonard Nemoy, and there was an episode from a while before that with Mr Bergstrom from Lisa's Substitute showing off for a crappy 5 second bait and switch joke, and those are just the ones I remember.
And let’s not forget Kamp Krustier. Maybe the writers think these are fun nods to classic episodes, but in actuality, they come off as desperate and lazy.
Because its October, I've started rewatching old Halloween specials and such, which of course includes the classic Treehouse of Horror episodes.
I think Treehouse of Horror V is my favorite of the bunch. "The Shinning" is my personal favorite of the short stories that they did, and "Time and Punishment" is probably my second favorite. When "Nightmare Cafeteria", a really solid entry in its own right, is the weakest of the three, you have a pretty strong Halloween special. Using the Willie gag to connect the three stories was also a very nice touch.
And let’s not forget Kamp Krustier. Maybe the writers think these are fun nods to classic episodes, but in actuality, they come off as desperate and lazy.
The funny part about that episode is that it was written by the OG writer of Kamp Krusty, David M. Stern. I bet the script may have been decent before the modern writers got their smelly hands on it.
The funny part about that episode is that it was written by the OG writer of Kamp Krusty, David M. Stern. I bet the script may have been decent before the modern writers got their smelly hands on it.
That or Stern didn't give two shits and phoned it in because he knew modern Simpsons is shit. Either way, the episode comes off as no one giving the original episode it's based off of any proper recognition and retconing the whole thing.
New episode today. It kinda sucked...but it definitely wasn't as bad as the premiere, which means it's better, but it's still boring and bland. Basically, Homer ends up demoted after somehow taking advantage of Burns while he's on his med for $5 (more on this below), so now he has to mentor the interns. He gets laughed at, but then defended by some weird guy named Mike (voiced by TDS victim Michael Rapaport), who sees him as an idol because he saved the Plant from meltdown (a "holy shit, what the fuck" reference from Homer Defined, a SEASON 3 episode). His whole gig is speaking fast-paced quips in an Italian accent in sort of a 90's sort of way as well as having a stereotypical slutty Italian girlfriend. His other whole gig is defending anyone who makes fun of Homer Simpson by roasting them out, which he does so to Bart (later Mr. Burns), which gets Marge mad, Homer worried, but still hanging on when Mike proposes a pizza business idea where he only sells slices and not the full pizza...which he pitches to Burns, gets rejected, and then he loans a food truck from Fat Tony and Fat Tony does his mafia shtick when Mike can't pay him back until Fat Tony realizes he can use the food truck as way to sell bets as well as pizza slices...and weed for some reason. Weird shit.
Highlights:
I like the opening plot with Lenny's birthday with Burns ruining the surprise and the card by writing his big-ass signature all over the card and how it really fucks with Homer to the point of having a fantasy where Marge gets stabbed by Burns' signature. Harkens back to the better days of Who Shot Mr. Burns when Homer was really pissed with Burns forgetting his name. Of course, it's not superior to that, and it never will be, but it got a few laughs out of me.
I do think the way they kickstarted the plot was kind of dumb. So Mr. Burns is kind enough to give Homer five bucks for this fund to pay Lenny for his birthday and for some reason Smithers gets mad because Burns is on meds and is usually nice on his meds or shit....I dunno. Weak plot transition.
One thing I have noticed about the recent seasons, via Seasons 23/4 and on, is that more plots take place at the Plant rather than have Homer stay home all the time. At least that means they are trying to bring consistency and some form of logic back into the show, if very little. You don't really see a "Homer Gets A Job" that commonly anymore and they actually bother to make excuse jokes for why Homer isn't at work.
THIS WEEKS HELLO FELLOW KIDS LINE OF THE WEEK IS: "Listen up, millennials. I'm Homer J. Simpson, your new supervisor. So stop snapchatting, fortniting, and swiping right on your Uber Venmo." (implying that Millenials play Fortnite)
The story is well-structured...until the end where we switch to this whole idea of Mike having a pizza slice business...which is where the story loses its base of Homer being a mentor to this guy instead turns into two shmucks escaping the mafia. So meh.
The animation is better than usual because Matthew Faughan is directing it, and that guy is literally David Silverman's assistant for the TOH segments from the Middle Age Simpsons Seasons, so....the animation is better. The character designs don't look well with the animation though. Something about the character designs feels artificial and a bit unfinished and sometimes rough-looking, but I like fluid animation. Particularly on Mike whenever he does hand-movements. Unique.
Fat Tony sounds like shit in this episode. I know Joe Mantegna is 71, but fucking hell man. The raspiness kinda sticks out.
Mike's roasts of Bart and Mr. Burns are the best shit in the episode. Literally just a barrage of insults the writers wrote out. Fucking golden shit, particularly Bart's where Lisa is just cracking up right after Mike is done. Pretty well-timed. Otherwise, Mike is an okay character to watch, but he's kind of boring. They didn't really develop him enough beyond the fact that's he's a loser who needed to get some kind of a job...with anger issues when someone insults a person he looks up to. That's really it. The anger issues could've been a focus of the episode with us, the audience, finding Mike's source of anger, which could possibly make us feel and develop this one-shot character into something finna bigger. But instead, we needed a climax with Mike getting money from Fat Tony and not being able to pay that loan, thus getting Homer and Mike swept up in wacky easygoing mafia shenanigans. They went the low road instead of the high road.
Also, Mike's apparently 35 and looks up to Homer as a mentor...when I believe Homer is canonically 36. Also, it's fucking weird for Homer to be mentoring Millenials when he himself is one now apparently? I dunno.
I'd give this episode a 4/10. It definitely didn't suck as bad as one would think. There are some good moments in here, but it still has the vices of modern Simpsons with it being utterly boring and not that funny.
I don't think they conjugated that verb right. Shouldn't it be "Burns verkauft der Kraftwerk"? Any krauts confirm or is my German just shit?
I think he's just stuck there because Burns keeps forgetting to actually take his final revenge since he only ever remembers Homer exists for a maximum of seven days at a time.
In the DVD commentary Al Jean said they just used a German to English dictionary and weren't even sure they got the name for "plant" (as in nuclear power plant) right.
In the DVD commentary Al Jean said they just used a German to English dictionary and weren't even sure they got the name for "plant" (as in nuclear power plant) right.
Hollywood used to be that way about foreign cultures for decades.
EDIT: I'm sure part of it was merely not wanting to pay for people who ACTUALLY knew just for something as small as a translation. Let alone doing research at libraries or asking universities if it came to that.
I like when Homer reacted like a demon in an exorcism when he took a baptism for Bart, and afterwards felt like "St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion by Ambrose of Milan."
Hollywood used to be that way about foreign cultures for decades.
EDIT: I'm sure part of it was merely not wanting to pay for people who ACTUALLY knew just for something as small as a translation. Let alone doing research at libraries or asking universities if it came to that.
