The Official Simpsons Griefing Thread

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So slight case of the Mandela effect but does anyone remember a couch gag where there is no couch gag? And no I'm not talking about the two instances were the family runs in sits on the couch and nothing happens. Which official happened twice once in season 1 and again years later only for Lisa to say "what? Can't we sit on the couch without something happening?" Filled by a javelin hitting homer in the gut as if to say no.


I mean was there ever reruns of the show where all that happened with the couch gag was the family runs in sits on the couch and homer pulls out the TV remote to turn it on and that's it? I feel like that's something they'd do to reruns especially in the later 90s early 2000s when the show had less air time due to commercials or some bs like that. Similar to why the chalkboard gag and shots of Springfield got shortened to just the family coming home for the couch gag
 
Dom Cruise said:
1999 is considered "zombie Simpsons" era? I definitely don't agree with that, keep in mind I'm not an expert and haven't seen even close to every episode, but it seems pretty clear to me that the zombie era doesn't really started until maybe 2002 or 2003.
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1999 was like the preamble to modern Zombie Simpsons. There's no specific flashpoint (like a de facto shark jumping episode), but the show took a steep decline in humor and style around season 9, so by the new millennium it was going into freefall to what we'd consider Zombie Simpsons. I wouldn't consider the Principal & the Pauper or the panda rape episodes to be jumping the shark, but they contributed to the cringe factor of the era right before the Zombie episodes for sure. Regardless if 1999 can be classified as Zombie era, it's definitely not Golden Era which can universally agreed to be seasons 3-7.
 
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Jasonfan89 said:
So slight case of the Mandela effect but does anyone remember a couch gag where there is no couch gag? And no I'm not talking about the two instances were the family runs in sits on the couch and nothing happens. Which official happened twice once in season 1 and again years later only for Lisa to say "what? Can't we sit on the couch without something happening?" Filled by a javelin hitting homer in the gut as if to say no.


I mean was there ever reruns of the show where all that happened with the couch gag was the family runs in sits on the couch and homer pulls out the TV remote to turn it on and that's it? I feel like that's something they'd do to reruns especially in the later 90s early 2000s when the show had less air time due to commercials or some bs like that. Similar to why the chalkboard gag and shots of Springfield got shortened to just the family coming home for the couch gag
Click to expand...
I think that might have been in a promo or two, but the one I remember being used most often is the one where the family meets their duplicates already sitting there.
 
Jasonfan89 said:
So slight case of the Mandela effect but does anyone remember a couch gag where there is no couch gag? And no I'm not talking about the two instances were the family runs in sits on the couch and nothing happens. Which official happened twice once in season 1 and again years later only for Lisa to say "what? Can't we sit on the couch without something happening?" Filled by a javelin hitting homer in the gut as if to say no.


I mean was there ever reruns of the show where all that happened with the couch gag was the family runs in sits on the couch and homer pulls out the TV remote to turn it on and that's it? I feel like that's something they'd do to reruns especially in the later 90s early 2000s when the show had less air time due to commercials or some bs like that. Similar to why the chalkboard gag and shots of Springfield got shortened to just the family coming home for the couch gag
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, I do remember there being more than a few episodes that didn't have a couch gag. Probably spliced in due to time restraints. I also remember some couch gags getting re-used.... or maybe that's just because they used to re-air the same episodes over and over again. (At one point in the late '90s, CBC was airing the Mr. Burns' son episode at least twice a week.)

Also, have you noticed that when you watch it on DVD, every episode is sprinkled with scenes that you've never seen before because they always got cut from TV? They're often really funny and catch me by surprise.... and that makes me wish there were episodes (from the first 10 seasons) that I've never seen, just so I can re-experience watching an episode from the good seasons for the first time.

I can't think of any other show that I've seen on TV and DVD, where they would cut so many scenes out.
 
Jewelsmakerguy said:
I think that might have been in a promo or two, but the one I remember being used most often is the one where the family meets their duplicates already sitting there.
Click to expand...

Oh my god, I forgot about that one! I remember that one showing up in damn well every syndicated episode at one point instead of the real episode's gag!
 
Jasonfan89 said:
So slight case of the Mandela effect but does anyone remember a couch gag where there is no couch gag? And no I'm not talking about the two instances were the family runs in sits on the couch and nothing happens. Which official happened twice once in season 1 and again years later only for Lisa to say "what? Can't we sit on the couch without something happening?" Filled by a javelin hitting homer in the gut as if to say no.


I mean was there ever reruns of the show where all that happened with the couch gag was the family runs in sits on the couch and homer pulls out the TV remote to turn it on and that's it? I feel like that's something they'd do to reruns especially in the later 90s early 2000s when the show had less air time due to commercials or some bs like that. Similar to why the chalkboard gag and shots of Springfield got shortened to just the family coming home for the couch gag
Click to expand...

I think for some reruns of certain Golden Age episodes they'd alter the couch gags in syndication for whatever reason. Usually it was the one where the family meets their duplicates, but there's probably a few where they used the original couch gag from Some Enchanted Evening.

Jewelsmakerguy said:
I think that might have been in a promo or two, but the one I remember being used most often is the one where the family meets their duplicates already sitting there.
Click to expand...

True. That one pops up a lot because it was used a lot in the original run and sometimes it would replace the couch gags of other episodes in syndication for whatever reason.

Seriously, syndication edits are some of the weirdest at times.
 
Michael Jacks0n said:
1999 was like the preamble to modern Zombie Simpsons. There's no specific flashpoint (like a de facto shark jumping episode), but the show took a steep decline in humor and style around season 9, so by the new millennium it was going into freefall to what we'd consider Zombie Simpsons. I wouldn't consider the Principal & the Pauper or the panda rape episodes to be jumping the shark, but they contributed to the cringe factor of the era right before the Zombie episodes for sure. Regardless if 1999 can be classified as Zombie era, it's definitely not Golden Era which can universally agreed to be seasons 3-7.
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The way I look at it is simply when was the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s? I would consider the 90s to have been history by 2003, that's when the Simpsons staying around made it a "zombie" because it was past the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s.

Other 90s mainstay X-Files ended in 2002, which I think should have been a hint that it was time to end The Simpsons as well.
 
Dom Cruise said:
The way I look at it is simply when was the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s? I would consider the 90s to have been history by 2003, that's when the Simpsons staying around made it a "zombie" because it was past the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s.

Other 90s mainstay X-Files ended in 2002, which I think should have been a hint that it was time to end The Simpsons as well.
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Oh, for sure. I was in my teens around the time it entered bonafide zombie era in like 2003-2004, and even then I was able to consciously realize that the episodes had been unwatchable and shitty since the ones from the 90's. I was only a little kid back then, but my older brothers were huge into the classic Simpsons, and we'd watch it together, and they'd explain some of the more cerebral jokes to me. So by the time 2000's rolled around, I certainly saw a radical change in quality, and I just stopped watching altogether. Then once they came out on DVD several years later, I binged them all from seasons 1-15, and had to ragequit most of the episodes from the latter eras. I distinctly remember seeing them new on TV back in the early 2000's, but even then just thinking they lame, and my older brothers straight up hated them.
 
Dom Cruise said:
The way I look at it is simply when was the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s? I would consider the 90s to have been history by 2003, that's when the Simpsons staying around made it a "zombie" because it was past the cultural zeitgeist of the 90s.

Other 90s mainstay X-Files ended in 2002, which I think should have been a hint that it was time to end The Simpsons as well.
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Agreed for the most part, although I do think there were just enough good episodes in 2004 and 2005 where it wasn't total "Zombie Simpsons" since you still had Swartzwelder and some of the other old guard writers in Season 15 and 16 but 2004 is the first year where the "meh" and "bad" episodes outweighed the good and then 2006 is the point where the signs of zombification are too big to ignore.

By 2007, that's when it was truly Zombie Simpsons. The Simpsons was very much part of the 90's cultural zeitgeist but it was still somewhat relevant to the zeitgeist of the pre-Great Recession 2000's to some extent
 
One problem with them is trying to stay relevant. They will have an episode or scene revolve around something that happened recently. The problem is that episodes usually take 6 months to a year to make. It has to be proposed, written, possibly written, voices recorded again and again, animated and maybe reanimated, an other polishing, etc. By that time the thing they're talking about has long since faded away. Once they made a reference to Pokémon Go a year after it came out. Yes, people were still playing it but the hype had died down.
 
Mr. ShadowCreek said:
One problem with them is trying to stay relevant. They will have an episode or scene revolve around something that happened recently. The problem is that episodes usually take 6 months to a year to make. It has to be proposed, written, possibly written, voices recorded again and again, animated and maybe reanimated, an other polishing, etc. By that time the thing they're talking about has long since faded away. Once they made a reference to Pokémon Go a year after it came out. Yes, people were still playing it but the hype had died down.
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The problem is also that the Simpsons writers are insanely out of touch even by writers standards.
 
Mr. ShadowCreek said:
One problem with them is trying to stay relevant. They will have an episode or scene revolve around something that happened recently. The problem is that episodes usually take 6 months to a year to make. It has to be proposed, written, possibly written, voices recorded again and again, animated and maybe reanimated, an other polishing, etc. By that time the thing they're talking about has long since faded away. Once they made a reference to Pokémon Go a year after it came out. Yes, people were still playing it but the hype had died down.
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It got a lot more noticeable as South Park rose to prominence having episodes referencing things from the previous week.
 
Jozef said:
Also, have you noticed that when you watch it on DVD, every episode is sprinkled with scenes that you've never seen before because they always got cut from TV? They're often really funny and catch me by surprise.... and that makes me wish there were episodes (from the first 10 seasons) that I've never seen, just so I can re-experience watching an episode from the good seasons for the first time.

I can't think of any other show that I've seen on TV and DVD, where they would cut so many scenes out.
Click to expand...

Weirdly, I remember the U2 episode wasn't censored for UK TV (it contains the "wanker" insult, which probably doesn't mean much in the US but is still considered pretty offensive here)
 
Willie.jpg

"I'll kill that Mr. Burns! And, uh, wound that Mr. Smithers!"
 
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