The General Discussion Lounge

[moneychair2003]

does anyone know if "the president wore pearls" is quite similiar to the play/movie "evita"? im going to the see a musicial of "evita" at my school cause its the fall musical and want to know if the episode "the president wore pearls" is close to it.

[Ruttager]

"Homer the Vigilante" is a really, really great episode. Everything down to Homer's costume is hilarious...

[Channel Surfer]

does anyone know if "the president wore pearls" is quite similiar to the play/movie "evita"? im going to the see a musicial of "evita" at my school cause its the fall musical and want to know if the episode "the president wore pearls" is close to it.

Despite what the ending sarcastically tries to deny, "The President Wore Pearls" is based off the play/movie "Evita" - the musical numbers and general exploitation of Lisa/Eva Peron most blatantly. Not that it makes watching the movie any better sadly.

[Lady_Simpson]

Well then, I never knew that.
[I suck at getting any type of references]

I learn something new every time I come in here, it seems.

[kid_presentable]

Yeah, they have a really funny joke in text at the bottom at the end of the episode, I think it says, "On the advice of our lawyers, we swear that we have never seen a musical based on the life of Eva Peron." I liked it. Good solid episode.

[grissom]

I rewatched See Homer Run today and realized how much it sucks. I think I gave it a B at first, but I have no idea why. C or a C+ at best after today. The plot is contrived and meandering to the point that it completely looses focus every time something happens. Lots of crappy jokes too, like Dolph's "sala-weiner" line.

[Charlie]

I rewatched See Homer Run today and realized how much it sucks. I think I gave it a B at first, but I have no idea why. C or a C+ at best after today. The plot is contrived and meandering to the point that it completely looses focus every time something happens. Lots of crappy jokes too, like Dolph's "sala-weiner" line.

Absolutely. I really hate a lot of the jokes in this one, as well as the fact that it takes until just before the third act to actually get to the point.

[brody]

^Ugh, I hated that from when it premiered, it had absolutely no coherent plot.

On another note, does anyone else think that the joke in Barting Over with the blue-haired lawyer about "Juwah!" the secretary, is one of the most contrived jokes ever? It makes no sense the way they delivered it, because for one, thing, if the lawyer is calling to the secretary, why does he looks directly at Bart? And also, why does he jump when he's saying her name? It would of worked much better if they only showed Bart and had the lawyer's dialogue off camera.

[TheFlandersMan]

I rewatched See Homer Run today and realized how much it sucks. I think I gave it a B at first, but I have no idea why. C or a C+ at best after today. The plot is contrived and meandering to the point that it completely looses focus every time something happens. Lots of crappy jokes too, like Dolph's "sala-weiner" line.

I was one of the few who gave this episode its well-deserved F the day it aired.

[grissom]

I would say an F is a little extreme. There are a few redeeming qualities to it.

I really don't understand why I gave it such a high grade though. It's not like it was a really long time ago when I didn't have the same tastes I do now. I just reread my review, and I actually gave it a B+. I can safely say that was one of my worst reviews anyway though. I didn't give a whole lot of reasoning behind what I was saying. Plus I said that the humor made up for the shitty plot, and today I hardly even laugh once at that episode.

[Reservoir Dog]

I actually liked that episode. I just saw it for my first time since it aired. It had the return of J. Lauren Pryor, although his voice was massively off. I do agree though the plot was shitty and cliched, but i do think that the good jokes made up for it in a lot of ways. I barely even thought of the plot when i saw it for the first time. This time i paid more attention to it and i noticed the plot was very jerky and the emotional scenes were really tacky. Still i would say B-.

[Charlie]

The only part I found mildly amusing was Lisa's "freak out", particularly her throwing her things at Skinner (even though it WAS out of character).

[camelenchilada]

worst. episode. ever.
well, not really. but still very bad though.

[Imperciph]

I for one have never given any episode of The Simpsons an F, the lowest I go is a D-. An F grade means the episode fails completely, not even a single joke is of any sort of redeeming quality and the story is complete shit from beginning to end. And to me, I am yet to find a Simpsons episode that has not had at least one decent joke (considering the fact that an episode contains over 200 individual jokes, it is quite impossible not to have at least one that does hit its mark). Even something as bad as KTAAR has a line I like (No listenin, you hear me ?). Cheesy shitty sitcoms like Malcolm In The Middle or Yes Dear has had several episodes that I would fail completely, animated shows like Family Guy and South Park has had complete bombs, but to me, no episode of The Simpsons has not had anything completely irredeemable about it.

[Charlie]

^ I hope you read that, AdamR, and decide to redeem at least a few of the nine episodes you gave an "F" to.

The worst episode I have seen is When You Dish Upon A Star (I haven't seen KTAAR, Saddlesore, NKOTB, etc), and I would only give that a D-, certainly not an F (because, like you said, Imperciph, every episode has at least a few good jokes).

[Nebuchanezzar]

I have no problem's with giving a Simpsons episode a 0/10 score, even though philosophically, it is impossible to give to an episode. I don't think I've done it though. I believe that I gave Viva Ned Flanders that score once, but it has risen a bit before. My current lowest is Homer v Dignity I think at 0.5/10.

[Adam R]

^ I hope you read that, AdamR, and decide to redeem at least a few of the nine episodes you gave an "F" to.

Hmm, lemme see:
When You Dish Upon a Star -> OK, I like the idea of Homer's movie.
Homer Simpson in "Kidney Trouble" -> The hand slapping Grampa after he pinches the butt, maybe.
Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder -> The "not Lenny!" bit amuses me.
Saddlesore Galactica -> CBG's thing is amusing to some extent and I'm the anti-meta guy!
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge -> I dunno, not much. Closest is "well you're not trying very hard".
The Computer Wore Menace Shoes -> Dancing Jesus maybe, but y'know I have an irrational grudge.
The Great Money Caper -> I can't think of anything.
Brawl in the Family -> "Mouth whoopie".
Bart Mangled Banner -> Nothing, really.

So yes, my F's don't fail to entertain me at all, most do for a few seconds at least, but I stand by my grades.

Also, I have A Milhouse Divided on in the background and I think that one of my favourite jokes in the entire series is "Is this what you thought married life would be like?" "Yeah, except for we drove around in a van solving mysteries".

[grissom]

That is a great line. Another one of my favorite jokes comes from that episode too, where Homer is taking a bath and Bart comes up behind him and smashes a chair over his head. AMD is probably in my top 25 episodes at this point. I like it more and more every time I see it. It's one of those permanent continuity change episodes that people around here seem to hate, but it's got everything you need from a good episode: a lot of funny stuff and some non-cheesy emotion. Easy A+ from me.

[BrideofMoleman]

That is a great line. Another one of my favorite jokes comes from that episode too, where Homer is taking a bath and Bart comes up behind him and smashes a chair over his head. AMD is probably in my top 25 episodes at this point. I like it more and more every time I see it. It's one of those permanent continuity change episodes that people around here seem to hate, but it's got everything you need from a good episode: a lot of funny stuff and some non-cheesy emotion. Easy A+ from me.

I completely agree with you. The only problem I had with it was Homer divorcing Marge, but other than that, it was really great. I especially liked the Hot Dogs in Sink gag, "Can I Borrow a Feeling?", the cracker factory's man's lecture on how crackers are a family food, "No, I sleep in a big bed with my wife", and the bullys and Milhouse. I liked the continuity that came from it, actually


On a grimmer note, I also hated See Homer Run with a furious passion. So many incredibly lame jokes; including the whole crapping tennis balls, the whole concept of Safety Salamander, Crazy Cat Lady's overuse. Not to mention the event which they were parodying was long old. And also the fact that it took three acts to even get to what the episode was about! In short, I loathed the episode.

[Adam R]

Something else that I want to add to the thing about giving F's above: if giving an F always means that it's failed to entertain you in every way, then does giving it an A+ mean that everything was absolutely perfect and it couldn't have been improved in any way? Because I find it hard to believe that some of you that have given 30+ A+'s out think that there is no room for improvement in these episodes.

[Reservoir Dog]

On a grimmer note, I also hated See Homer Run with a furious passion. So many incredibly lame jokes; including the whole crapping tennis balls, the whole concept of Safety Salamander, Crazy Cat Lady's overuse. Not to mention the event which they were parodying was long old. And also the fact that it took three acts to even get to what the episode was about! In short, I loathed the episode.

I want to start off with asking: why is everyone talking about "See Homer Run" lately. I've seen it in about 3 threads already, so here's my opinion on it. For one, totally bad episode. I disagree with you though when you said that the jokes were lame. I thought the jokes were good, they were the few that season that made me laugh, including: Homer moving his tail, the frowny face on Lisa's permanant record, all the campain adds were pretty funny. The thing that killed it (I've said this before) is the jerky, overly unrealistic, uninteresting, confusing plot. The ending was hugely cleched, and left me thinking "is that all?". So in ending it was the plot, not the jokes, that killed this episode.

[Imperciph]

Something else that I want to add to the thing about giving F's above: if giving an F always means that it's failed to entertain you in every way, then does giving it an A+ mean that everything was absolutely perfect and it couldn't have been improved in any way? Because I find it hard to believe that some of you that have given 30+ A+'s out think that there is no room for improvement in these episodes.

A+ for me means the episode did have perfect structure plotting and characterisation and out of the 200 jokes it had about 190-195 which hit their mark. Just like it is impossible not to write one good joke of 200, similarly it is impossible not to write one weak joke out 200. But an A+ episode excels either in storytelling or characterisation or in humour so much that I am thoroughly entertained so as not to focus on the lackings in other areas.

I do think my top 15 are completely perfect but I simply can't go out inventing A++ grades for them, can I ?

[Adam R]

Yes, I can agree, but I think it's a little biased towards the higher end of the grading scale that the episodes with the highest grade can have imperfections, yet the episodes with the lowest grade can not have one entertaining thing at all. I mean, pretty much any comedy writer can hit the mark once out of 200.

[coltonwiggum]

To me any A+, A, or A- (5/5) means excellent (not perfect). Any A--, B+, B, or B- (4/5) means good. Any B--, C+, or C (3/5) means satisfactory. Any C-, C--, D+ (2/5) means needs a lot of improvement. Any D, D-, D-- (1/5) means almost total garbage. Any F (0/5) means total failure, nothing good. This is also roughly the grading system I used way back in elementary school.

[TheForbiddenDonut]

My Grading Scale:

A+: Perfection. No flaws, and even if there are none, an episode can only receive this grade if it offers some type of powerful moment, usually emotional.
A: Usually given to gag-fests. Most episodes I give this to either have no flaws but lack depth, or has minor flaws that I'm willing to overlook. Basically, this type of episode just has to be enjoyable.
A-: Good, but always has some kind of noticeable flaw that stands out.
B+: A pretty good episode that is just average as opposed to some standout excellent moments.
B: Perfectly average.
B-: I will be usually bored. There may be a lot of good, but it is almost completely counterbalanced by mediocrity.
C+-C- (now I'm getting lazy): I really dislike any of these episodes. There will always be some good, but it's heavily overshadowed by garbage.
D+-D-: Episodes that fail, but have a minuscule amount of redeeming qualities.
F: Awful.

[Disgruntled Goat]

The grading system we had in school was something like:
A* = 80+
A = 70+
B = 60+
C = 50+
D = 40+
E = 30+ (never figured out why the US doesn't have a grade 'E')
F = anything less

I think that's how it went... in any case less than 20 or 30 percent is an F. So to me an F is something which is really really shit, but like every Simpsons episode there is going to be something good about it.

[moneychair2003]

The grading system we had in school was something like:
A* = 80+
A = 70+
B = 60+
C = 50+
D = 40+
E = 30+ (never figured out why the US doesn't have a grade 'E')
F = anything less

this is kinda off topic. but, i wish i went to that school. 97+ is an A+ at my school.

[Reservoir Dog]

^ lol, i know what you're talking about

[Postmaster]

I don't see F's and A+'s as opposite ends of the spectrum though, that would be a D- to me an F it's sort of an extra grade, like how some movie magazines wouldn't give 0/10 or 0/5 for something, and some would it'd just be a 1/5.
That said still don't think I'd be giving F's, I'm sure even saddlesore made chuckle at least 5 times probably more, and I give that a D-.

[coltonwiggum]

E = 30+ (never figured out why the US doesn't have a grade 'E')
F = anything less

In Ontario there are no Es, because those mean excellent on another grading system we use, and we use Rs instead of Fs.
This is so horriby off topic it reminds me of the time I watched that show called "Family..." something.