The General Discussion Lounge

[cinco]

Anyway, IGN is rating the series from a casual viewers-POV I guess.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

Yes. I'm sure when they review "the smurfs", smurf fanboys will be complaining their review was trash, but we won't know the difference. Just forget about, I don't know why people care.

And I don't know why I used the smurfs as an example, but you get the idea.

[Nauru-1]

It's definitely true that they're trying to appeal to people outside of the diehards. I can certainly understand that, although it's still puzzling to see episodes from season 21 consistently topping the episodes they've reviewed from earlier Jean seasons or even season 1 for that matter.

[D'ohmer]

I don't like it how they gave season 20 a 7.9 and this an 8.3, but that's probably what I would give this season as well. I would probably have given season 20 a 9.5

[Bella Drape 'er]

insert "season 20 is the worst season ever!!" argument

[Diversity Pumpkin]

I don't think this will work, the General Discussion section is a General Discussion Lounge. If you've got something to say about an episode just start a thread about, everyone else does. This will probably just confuse people about where to find a specific topic, or annoy people who missed the previous ones.
That's just my opinion though.

lol.

[Charlie]

Yeah but to be honest, this topic at the moment doesn't seem like much of a General Discussion Lounge anyway. People seem to be abusing it as a chat topic and just casually bringing up The Simpsons (not aimed at you, DP, but at other people - they should know who they are).

[Diversity Pumpkin]

I'm not sure if this post will make your previous post ironic, Charlie, but I've always thought this would be cool...

In season 3, they kept using the same animation of Homer talking in bed, and Marge responding with "mm, yeah" episode after episode. If you can't remember, the scene only lasted about 10 seconds, with an overhead shot that slowly zoomed in.

They kept reusing this animation to the point where it became hilarious (at least to me, anyway).

I think they should just randomly use that again in a current episode. It wouldn't contrast with the rest of the episode's animation style at all, making it all the more funnier. It's probably something they can do in the final episode. I don't know. I'm probably the only one who'd find that hilarious.

[Charlie]

I might have to go back and watch Season 3 just for that, it sounds kind of cool and like you, I find that kind of thing funny (if you could tell me some of the episodes it happens in, even better! ). For some odd reason, I really liked when they'd recycle animation from older episodes - it happens a lot in Season 5, and in most cases I find the crappy way they've edited it to try and get the mouths to sync a lot funnier than whatever joke they've tried to cram in.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

I might have to go back and watch Season 3 just for that, it sounds kind of cool and like you, I find that kind of thing funny (if you could tell me some of the episodes it happens in, even better! ). For some odd reason, I really liked when they'd recycle animation from older episodes - it happens a lot in Season 5, and in most cases I find the crappy way they've edited it to try and get the mouths to sync a lot funnier than whatever joke they've tried to cram in.

I'm sure it happens in Radio Bart and Saturdays of Thunder. There should be a couple more, because I remember seeing it so many times as a kid. I think the writers joked about it on the commentary.

[arii]

Random thought: You know how the writers said that when it comes to jokes, they'll take a joke out of an episode if it makes them laugh a hundred times, but on the 101st time, if it gets nothing, then it's gone? (Whoa, awkward wording.) Does anyone think they're still doing this method?

Or maybe they're actually writing good jokes that just don't cut it 101 times, so then what we get left are the jokes that only have the chance to make them laugh a few times but were came up with so late in production that they don't get the chance to have the same rigorous testing. Or something.

[sung]

i saw this had its own thread in cracked.com forum

[Mr. Trampopoline]

bartyboy will love that

[Granto]

homre

[Dark Homer]

i keep confusing d'ohmer and dothebartman

[hughes]

Random thought: You know how the writers said that when it comes to jokes, they'll take a joke out of an episode if it makes them laugh a hundred times, but on the 101st time, if it gets nothing, then it's gone? (Whoa, awkward wording.) Does anyone think they're still doing this method?

Or maybe they're actually writing good jokes that just don't cut it 101 times, so then what we get left are the jokes that only have the chance to make them laugh a few times but were came up with so late in production that they don't get the chance to have the same rigorous testing. Or something.

(sorry for replying to this something like two weeks after the fact, but anyway...), y'know, I remember hearing that in the commentary and wondering how much the exaggerated, but I can see how that can be a major contribution to the decline. Something I've noticed that's one of the biggest differences between classic and modern episodes (for me, anyway), is that modern episodes still have plenty of lines I find funny, but there are hardly any that are as memorable as just one episode of the classic era...it seems (to me, anyway, I know a lot of people will likely disagree with this analysis) like classic era episodes are made up of a few great, memorable jokes and then behind them are a whole ton of good, solid jokes that slip between the cracks when compared to the grand scheme of things, along with an occasional joke that bombs (one that comes to mind is the Rainman gag in $pringfield). Fast forward to the modern era, and I think there is still that basis of solid jokes, but along with the higher number of shit jokes in a season than there were in the entire 9-season classic era, it's that lack of truly memorable jokes that make these episodes stand out as inferior. For example, I remember really enjoying The Great Wife Hope when I watched it, but now I can barely remember what the fuck happened (with the obvious exception of the very ending scene, considering it became a bit of a meme around here for awhile), but I'm sure if I watched it again I'd enjoy it. Back to your point, I think that there probably are some jokes that get cut because they don't cross some arbitrary number of times of "funny" in the writer's room, while most of the bombed gags seem like stretches to fill time. I really wonder that if the 15 extra seconds to do a list joke or have Ralph say "duck, duck, duck" 378 times were made up of different jokes, if we would get those memorable jokes we are missing (/halfassed attempt to tie my rant into the original topic of this post)

[Financial Panther]

Gotta rant somewhere... Just got finished playing Apples to Apples, and the winner for "clueless" was "Bart Simpson." That made me MAD. I tried to explain that Bart is actually quite intelligent, and that he is in no way clueless, but I just kept getting interrupted. I said that I'd post my disgust on nohomers, and here I am.

[D'ohmer]

^That sucks. I'm sorry about that. I can't see how any fan of the show can think he's clueless. Sure, he doesn't always make the best decisions, but at least he's with it.

[TheForbiddenDonut]

what Financial Panther isn't telling us: the other red cards were Silverfish, The Circus, and The Flu so Bart won that round by default.

[Jesse Pinkman]

just because bart won doesn't really mean anything. maybe he was the most "clueless" thing picked, maybe the person who picked bart did it as a joke because the other choices weren't that good... I'm just saying that even though bart may have won that category, doesn't mean anything

[Financial Panther]

No, he says "Bart is clueless, man. Everyone agreed. I got sick.

[Jesse Pinkman]

they probably aren't big watchers of the show...

[Financial Panther]

That's what I mean. Stupid casual fans.

[cinco]

What are you people talking about?

[Financial Panther]

Just go to post 3377.

[Jesse Pinkman]

well to people who don't watch a lot, bart could very well seem clueless...

[Diversity Pumpkin]

Buh?

Guh?

Zuh?