The General Discussion Lounge

[Jessfrogger88]

oh well i mean if they are parodying him with a character named GAYlord TWINKledink... misinterpertation

[Dental Plan!]

I find the fact that 'The Simpsons Game' features better writing than the current season of the show to be quite funny...and interesting. The game was written by Matt Warburton, Matt Selman and Tim Long (not the most talented of writers), with Selman being the head writer, or 'showrunner' for the game. The fact that it improves on the show currently can be put down to one of a few reasons, in my opinion. Firstly, the videogame focused storyline gives them an oppurtunity to more easily include topic focused humor, and still feel fresh. The higher quality of writing could also be an indication of how Selman would fare as a showrunner. If this is the case, Selman certainly seems like a better candidate to be running the show at the moment than the tiring Jean. What do you guys think?

[Nebuchanezzar]

Is this opinion common? If so, then you're probably correct.

[coltonwiggum]

I haven't played the game, but that sounds very interesting. I'll check it out.

[Dark Homer]

He knows how to write for Bart, I'll give him that

[Stevie V. Scrivello]

So, does this mean the game is worth buying and isn't a cheap cash-in? Hmm...all I'll need is a next-gen system to find out for myself.

[Dental Plan!]

Is this opinion common? If so, then you're probably correct.

It is common, yes. I, personally, am of the opinion that the writing is only marginally (but still noticeably) better than the current show, which is actually quite a feat, as there were only 3 writers working on the game, compared to more than triple that working on the show.


Other (actually, most) people seem to believe that the game exceeds the quality of the show by some margin, with many of the regular off topic posters who stopped watcing the show years ago loving the game for it's humor (see: Kupomog, Morbot). Also, a number of professional game reviewers have said how fantastic the writing is, with IGN saying

The script isn't quite Season 2 through 7 funny, but it's way better than any current season ep.

So, does this mean the game is worth buying and isn't a cheap cash-in? Hmm...all I'll need is a next-gen system to find out for myself.

As a game it's a fairly average action platformer with a really bad camera...but as an experience it's phenomenal. If you can get used to the the camera, you'll defintely enjoy this game. Probably better as a rental, though.

[MookiesSleeping]

hhaaha oh yeah Kid Rock... Anyways, Dear Simpsons please stop putting in celbrities that are just hot "at this second" I dont care what they eat or what they do in their spare time, Im sure most of your viewers, ( cartoon watchers ) dont care what these scumbag celebrities do either. Write jokes please.


Fuck it Im drunk, dispute the point.

[Santos L. Halper]

Ummm...

[Postmaster]

God bless you for finding this skittle (if you're reading this) I don't think I'm going to ever need to make a proper post in GD again, it sums up most of my sentiments much better than words ever could.

[Stevie V. Scrivello]

hhaaha oh yeah Kid Rock... Anyways, Dear Simpsons please stop putting in celbrities that are just hot "at this second" I dont care what they eat or what they do in their spare time, Im sure most of your viewers, ( cartoon watchers ) dont care what these scumbag celebrities do either. Write jokes please.


Fuck it Im drunk, dispute the point.

I know what this post says, but what does it mean?

[Drumstick]

I know what this post says, but what does it mean?

He wants less celebrities in the simpsons and more focuse on the humour.

[sung]

Yesterday, I watched Duffless and Yokel Chord. I kind of tried to identify the difference of atmosphere of the classic and recent episode's atmosphere. What I figured out is that the classic episode had more of movie-like intense atmosphere while the Yokel Chord was more like Cartoon-Network-style loose atmosphere. I personally enjoyed Yokel Chord, but not as good as Duffless. Anyone agree, or disagree?

[Dave Shutton]

I agree the old episodes are more like works of art while the new ones seem thrown together for the most part

[Imperciph]

God bless you for finding this skittle (if you're reading this) I don't think I'm going to ever need to make a proper post in GD again, it sums up most of my sentiments much better than words ever could.

actually, your current avatar suffices quite well too.

[Postmaster]

actually, your current avatar suffices quite well too.

I actually usually have avatars switched off despite having one myself, but having turned them on and looking through some recent posts, it really does make my posts look 50% grumpier regardless of the sentiment in the post doesn't it.

[Stevie V. Scrivello]

Yesterday, I watched Duffless and Yokel Chord. I kind of tried to identify the difference of atmosphere of the classic and recent episode's atmosphere. What I figured out is that the classic episode had more of movie-like intense atmosphere while the Yokel Chord was more like Cartoon-Network-style loose atmosphere. I personally enjoyed Yokel Chord, but not as good as Duffless. Anyone agree, or disagree?t

Personally, I blame America's "It has to be zany" sentiment for that; if a prime-time cartoon isn't wacky and off-the-walls all the time, it's automatically "boring" (said the fellow who was pulled into a Simpsons vs. Family Guy/most of what's on Adult Swim debate during Thanksgiving). Personally, I didn't really like Yokel Chords; I certainly agree with the statement about the episode's overall atmosphere and tone, though. I assume they're trying to reach a younger audience or nonesuch, and the intensity of such episodes as "Duffless" simply wouldn't play to Generation Y.

I actually usually have avatars switched off despite having one myself, but having turned them on and looking through some recent posts, it really does make my posts look 50% grumpier regardless of the sentiment in the post doesn't it.

It actually does, now that you mention it. Odd, I never thought an avatar could have an impact on that sort of thing...

[Imperciph]

Channel Surfer and I discussed this last year :

It's interesting, a lot of adult (Western) animation on television, as a medium, does pander to a certain set of generalities - pop-culture heavy, satirical (good or not) gag-a-minute shows that dwell in crudity to varying degrees. Doesn't matter if we're talking about "Family Guy", "Adult Swim" stuff, "South Park", "Beavis and Butthead", etc. Intelligent or dumb they are similar with a certain set of expectations attached to them. They all push the limits of what you expect to find in shows in regards to content, and all aim to carve a niche in some way in redefining comedy. What they don't seem to care about is taking themselves seriously the way "The Simpsons" did in season one, in the sense that they aim for believable, relatable characters (assuming they even believe in making well-written, memorable characters) and could try to make the audience care about what's going on. Very few other animated shows attempted this on any level - "King of the Hill" and "Futurama" are really the only ones that tried with any regularity - and none tried near as often as the season 1-3 years of OFF. Which in a way means that animation has become a genre of sorts marketed to the same teen/young adult demographic with the same types of expectations.

agreed entirely. Any new primetime animation that becomes a hit mainly gets most of their attention for pushing the boundaries : whether in terms of editorialistic opinion or pop-culture references or crudity. In fact, The Simpsons was marketed in a similar fashion as well : Bart being "underachiever and proud" was intended to be the break-out character of the show. His character defied all conventions of portraying children in television. Similarly the cynical, sarcastic nature of the show created its mass appeal because back then it was revolutionary.

Since The Simpsons, most animated comedies have become increasingly gag-based as time has passed. As they have succeeded as well it leads me to believe that after The Simpsons, animation has developed a new set of conventions of success : marketed to the same demographic, presented in a "crude" "controversial" manner that appeals to majority that particular demographic's sense of humour. The Simpsons was marketed in a similar manner as well, but like you have mentioned, it sincerely tried to maintain a constant emotional core as well which differentiated it from the animated serieses that have followed it.

[Stevie V. Scrivello]

According to my father and uncle, what makes Family Guy and everything on Adult Swim great is the "bold and daring" nature of the programs, how nothing is sacred because the writers aren't afraid of the Man. Mind you, these were two men who thought that having Peter Griffin hump some woman whose name I can't be bothered to recall right now was infinitely more clever than anything shown on The Simpsons, classic era or not. This more than proves that people like me are far, far out of touch with what younger Americans at large think is funny. Random is in, relatable is out. Of course, as a South Park fan, I really can't act as if I'm above crude humor and outrageous situations in the least. Perhaps I have a superiority complex.

At any rate, I agree with both you and Channel Surfer on this one. It always amused me that, although comedy is the least serious of genres, the more seriously The Simpsons took itself with its characterizations and plots, the more effective the episodes were. I always enjoyed how I could care about the characters, cartoons or not, because of this. In that way, OFF (classic at least) is a little bit unique in the lexicon of prime time animated programming.

[Adam R]

Yesterday, I watched Duffless and Yokel Chord. I kind of tried to identify the difference of atmosphere of the classic and recent episode's atmosphere. What I figured out is that the classic episode had more of movie-like intense atmosphere while the Yokel Chord was more like Cartoon-Network-style loose atmosphere. I personally enjoyed Yokel Chord, but not as good as Duffless. Anyone agree, or disagree?

Completely disagree. The atmosphere is much looser in the classic era to me. I'd definitely agree it's Cartoon Network-y, but loose is the opposite for me.

[Kiyosuki]

Well it comes down to two things, the heavy stigma that animation has in what its "supposed to be" here in the west, and low-brow humor.

When a friend of mine and I saw the Futurama "film" recently he brought up Arrested Development which was a pretty clever show, and it won a ton of awards yet it got cancelled. He thinks its because a lot of people "didn't get it" because the humor was very subtle. He brought all this up because he thinks Futurama was in a similar debacle when it was first cancelled because a lot of Futurama's humor can be pretty sophisticated stuff.

Of course it also has to do with its botched up time slot, this is a huge oversimplification of things but my point is, is that comedy has a bit of a stigma itself I think. It can be very clever...some of the cleverest writing there is, and really sophisticated since a lot of comedy usually has a pretty serious or interesting subtext to it whether many realize it or not (by definition comedy is another form of tragedy in the old greek methods.)...but to many people comedy is synonymous with mindless laughing. How many times has someone given you the "don't think about it, its just a comedy!" demand? Like comedy isn't allowed to have some substance to it, its just "lol teh funny!".

Combined with animation's own stigma...and I think you see where I'm going with this. The Simpsons was able to get away with being BOTH extremely clever with substance and low-brow at the same time, since its a pretty sophisticated show at its core disguised as low-brow humor on purpose. Thats where its broad appeal came from, though of course now we can endlessly argue that the low-brow aspect of it has become the part more concentrated on.

Oh and the Simpsons game was definitely not just a "cash in". Well, arguably of course it is but its not a cheap cash in. We've said a ton of things about it in its thread but while I'm not going to say it`s a return to the best writing the show has churned out it did capture a certain multi-layed clever spirit of it. Its a pretty trippy game.

[Dark Homer]

I just discovered Matt Selman does a column for Time Magazine's website: http://time-blog.com/nerd_world/

How long has this been going on???

Edit: Here's him talking about Husbands and Knives

[Kiyosuki]

Hm, thats a pretty cool find. It seems like he joined Lev in this fairly recently, though I haven't looked all the way back in the archives his name only starts to really show up in November. I guess he has to keep himself busy with something during the strike?

The way he makes it sound, I still wish the CBG plot were actually the majority of the episode, not just cause it was a fun idea but if anything because it seems like a subject many of the writers were just really keen on.

[Dave Shutton]

I was watching the deleted scenes from season 8 with comentary and i got to the one where Jasper is the original minister and they mention that eventually there will be a Jasper episode. The DVD was released in september of 06. Do you think it is in production? or was he just kidding around?

[General Jack D. Ripper]

I find the fact that 'The Simpsons Game' features better writing than the current season of the show to be quite funny...and interesting. The game was written by Matt Warburton, Matt Selman and Tim Long (not the most talented of writers), with Selman being the head writer, or 'showrunner' for the game. The fact that it improves on the show currently can be put down to one of a few reasons, in my opinion. Firstly, the videogame focused storyline gives them an oppurtunity to more easily include topic focused humor, and still feel fresh. The higher quality of writing could also be an indication of how Selman would fare as a showrunner. If this is the case, Selman certainly seems like a better candidate to be running the show at the moment than the tiring Jean. What do you guys think?

I strongly disagree. The game hardly had a plot towards the beginning (that was kind of the point I realize, but still), and there are very few jokes I laugh at in the game. Many of the lines and statements about video games and the video game world are over-the-top, cringeworthy, no one would ever say that type lines. Some of the lines during gameplay are incredibly terrible. Things like "They look like invaders...from space!" which successfully ripped off a Futurama line and made it painfully unfunny. Not to say that the game doesn't have some good moments, it just severely annoys me how anyone could think that this game had better humor than any episode in years. Probably equal to a middle of the road current episode, ie Little Orphan Millie.

[Drumstick]

I was watching the deleted scenes from season 8 with comentary and i got to the one where Jasper is the original minister and they mention that eventually there will be a Jasper episode. The DVD was released in september of 06. Do you think it is in production? or was he just kidding around?

It's the commentaries they probably were kidding around but the way things are going I wouldn't be suprised as everyone seems to get an episode these days.Do you know who said it?

[Dave Shutton]

It's the commentaries they probably were kidding around but the way things are going I wouldn't be suprised as everyone seems to get an episode these days.Do you know who said it?

Not sure, i'm not good with the names and voices and stuff

[cheerprincess1]

jasper episode would be all right. cant think what kind of plot theyd do with it though.

[Postmaster]

Jasper is hilarious, but I don't think I could empathise with him.

[Robbie]

Jasper did get his own subplot, though, and it was one of my favorites.

"Please alter my pants as fashion dictates."