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GoldSoundz
Joined: 12 Jun 2008
Location: Pohang
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 Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:17 am Post subject: |
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The guy who mentioned the "Gospel According to The Simpsons" beat me to it. I remember quote-dropping The Simpsons with my friends who were in seminary and loving it. Most of my most devout Christian friends tend to be the biggest Simpsons fans. These are more liberal than most, though, like myself.
That said, the National Review once christened it the most conservative show on TV, heaping praise on it's values. They conceded that most of the jokes are pro-liberal, but they still had a lot of conservative jokes. They mentioned (correctly) that there are no other shows that have such frequent church attendance depicted. Things are pretty satirical, but things tend to work out for the devout (as in the end of the episode when Ned's wife died and for Marge) and not so well for the foolish (Homer, Bart, Moe). Christians do like poking fun at themselves (www.wittenburgdoor.com), at least many do.
So I thought Season 20 has been pretty good so far. I am not writing it off yet. I will still take a bad Simpsons over most anything else. |
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greedy_bones
Joined: 01 Jul 2007
Location: not quite sure anymore
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| R-Seoul wrote: |
A Simpsons thread 
You're really on the ball Hank; The Simpsons was last funny in 1997. |
Yeah, I'd agree with you there. I remember loving the Simpsons until the episode where Lisa rides a bus came on. Then it began to suck terribly. I would have to say that the early Simpsons is better than Futurama, but Futurama is way way better than the last 11-12 years of the Simpsons.
The best animated show, in my opinion, is Home Movies. |
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Perceptioncheck
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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| greedy_bones wrote: |
| R-Seoul wrote: |
A Simpsons thread
You're really on the ball Hank; The Simpsons was last funny in 1997. |
Yeah, I'd agree with you there. I remember loving the Simpsons until the episode where Lisa rides a bus came on. Then it began to suck terribly. I would have to say that the early Simpsons is better than Futurama, but Futurama is way way better than the last 11-12 years of the Simpsons.
The best animated show, in my opinion, is Home Movies. |
To be honest, I prefer the more recent series. The Simpsons is, after all, a show that involves a lot of social commentary and I find the more recent episodes are more relevant (to me, anyway).
I know plenty of people say that the early days were the best or that the show peaked in the 1990s but what I don't understand is WHY. Why do you guys think the new shows "suck"?
I'm not asking to start a fight as I understand everyone's opinions are different but I'm just curious as to how you came to yours.  |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| My girlfriend downloaded season 17 and it's definitely a mishmash of sporadic funny moments and lots of lameness. They seem to have adopted Family Guy's long, awkward pauses (which routinely fail to be entertaining in any way), and it's random plot structure. The pop culture references used to be intelligent, but now try way too hard to be hip. The show has pretty much become Family Guy Lite, and it's Family Guy's crass moments that make it entertaining at all. |
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movybuf
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Location: Mokdong
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Perceptioncheck wrote: |
To be honest, I prefer the more recent series. The Simpsons is, after all, a show that involves a lot of social commentary and I find the more recent episodes are more relevant (to me, anyway).
I know plenty of people say that the early days were the best or that the show peaked in the 1990s but what I don't understand is WHY. Why do you guys think the new shows "suck"?
I'm not asking to start a fight as I understand everyone's opinions are different but I'm just curious as to how you came to yours. |
I think that the older episodes used the references in a more subliminal way. So, there were those who "got it" and those who didn't. There were references to movies, TV, and books but somehow many of them were not so in-your-face. Now, it seems that the references are more obvious and more toward the "pop culture" side. Everybody "gets it" now, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. |
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greedy_bones
Joined: 01 Jul 2007
Location: not quite sure anymore
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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| movybuf wrote: |
| Perceptioncheck wrote: |
To be honest, I prefer the more recent series. The Simpsons is, after all, a show that involves a lot of social commentary and I find the more recent episodes are more relevant (to me, anyway).
I know plenty of people say that the early days were the best or that the show peaked in the 1990s but what I don't understand is WHY. Why do you guys think the new shows "suck"?
I'm not asking to start a fight as I understand everyone's opinions are different but I'm just curious as to how you came to yours. |
I think that the older episodes used the references in a more subliminal way. So, there were those who "got it" and those who didn't. There were references to movies, TV, and books but somehow many of them were not so in-your-face. Now, it seems that the references are more obvious and more toward the "pop culture" side. Everybody "gets it" now, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. |
Pretty much nailed it there. Also, the characters were much more real in the early seasons. Moe was kind of a jerk who liked Marge, now he's a psycho pervert. Homer was stupid and lazy. Now he's just Peter from Family guy. What were once characters are now caricatures.
The show always had celebrity cameos, but now the cameos are excessive. In the early series, they would have several episodes with the normal characters and on occasion, a celebrity would pop up. Now, it's this week Tony Hawk, next week 50cent.
Finally, there's nowhere the show can really go anymore. Aside from making more money, there's no reason to keep making episodes. Consider a show like Arrested Development. Why was the show great? They had an overarching story line, they went into all of the characters backgrounds, the story developed and after three years, it finished. The Simpsons has already given us the characters backgrounds and had many stories, but what else can it do? I don't really want to know about Gil's background, he's just a mediocre replacement for the Phil Hartman characters. |
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movybuf
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Location: Mokdong
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| Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:20 am Post subject: |
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| greedy_bones wrote: |
| The show always had celebrity cameos, but now the cameos are excessive. In the early series, they would have several episodes with the normal characters and on occasion, a celebrity would pop up. Now, it's this week Tony Hawk, next week 50cent. |
YES!!!! In the earlier seasons the celebrity cameos were there, but they weren't the focus of the story. Most of the time the celebrity wasn't even playing him or herself but just a character in the story.
Now, the celebrity cameos have become the story. They build an episode around some celebrity personality and forget about making a funny story. Those kinds of episodes will loose their reference point once the celebrity is gone and forgotten. The older episodes will remain timeless. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:55 pm Post subject: |
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I think the more recent seasons are not as good as the older ones. Part of that is just history, like time making something good, and familiarity with the show. They still do a good job though I think, and some newer episodes are great. But when I see seasons 3 to 10 or whatever I think most of them are fantastic. I think they still do what they've always done, poke fun at culture and make some interesting stories. I think it is best.show.ever.
Maybe.
Simpsons and Twilight Zone
Did I say "I think" enough? |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:52 am Post subject: |
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Simpsons are good and were great.
BUT right now, South Park is better. It actually addresses what is going on in the world now. Simpsons havn't been relevant for a while. Also South park for the last 7 seasons or so make me laugh out loud whereas I only chuckle at the simpsons these days. |
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