The NHC Top 50 post-classic episodes [RESULTS]

[Bartesque]

I agree with a lot of these. They are indeed some of the least sucky Zombie Simpsons episodes.

[Financial Panther]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned how close Saddlesore Galactica came to making the list.

[Safety Inspector]

Number of Appearances on the Top 50 By writer
(best episode of writer)

John Swartzwelder- 7 (#6- The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace)
Matt Selman- 7 (#1- Trilogy of Error)
J. Stewart Burns- 4 (#2- Moe Baby Blues)
Ian Maxtone-Graham- 4 (#5- Lisa Gets an "A")
Tim Long- 4 (#10- Behind the Laughter)
Donick Cary- 3 (#7- Treehouse of Horror IX)
Al Jean- 3 (#14- Mom and Pop Art)
Dana Gould- 3 (#15- Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge)
Jon Vitti- 3 (#23- Little Girl in the Big Ten)
David S. Cohen- 2 (#7- Treehouse of Horror IX)
Dan Greaney- 2 (#19- I, D'oh-bot)
Larry Doyle- 2 (#7- Treehouse of Horror IX)
Ron Hauge- 2 (#13- Mayored to the Mob)
Don Payne- 2 (#31- Fraudcast News)
12 writers- 1 episode

[MagicalManFromHappyLand]

Comparison of placings on the top 100 list

1. Trilogy of Error #54
2. Moe Baby Blues #151
3. Holidays of Future Passed #141
4. Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind #91
5. Lisa Gets an 'A' #180
6. The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace #294
7. Treehouse of Horror IX N/A
8. The Seemingly Never-Ending Story #163
9. Hungry, Hungry Homer #278
10. Behind the Laughter #237
11. 24 Minutes #157
12. Wild Barts Can't Be Broken #209
13. Mayored to the Mob #201
14. Mom and Pop Art #239
15. Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge #176
16. Skinner's Sense of Snow #262
17. The Dad Who Knew Too Little #161
18. HOMR #140
19. I, D'oh-bot #229
20. Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo #114
21. I am Furious (Yellow) #196
22. Special Edna N/A
23. Little Girl in the Big Ten #194
24. 'Tis the Fifteenth Season #257
25. Half-Decent Proposal #190

[Prune Tracy]

So who's got the most mainstream opinion when it comes to post-classic episodes? (If you don't mind doing the calculations, that is.)

[Financial Panther]

Yeah, sure, no problem. Just give me a little bit to calculate them. (I don't have anything else to do today, anyway)

[Financial Panther]

Here you are! Results calculated by how many top 50 episodes appeared in a person's list.

MathIsland (21)
MagicalManFromHappyLand (21)
Brad Lascelle (21)
Nauru-1 (20)
Ruffles (20)
HMS pinafore (20)
Gladys the Groovy Mule (20)
al and mike (18)
leprechaun_dan (18)
hammster (17)
King-Size Homer (17)
Jims (17)
irvine_11 (17)
Riviera (17)
zartok-35 (16)
Mr Black (16)
AlexandreLeblanc (16)
Léo Pard (16)
Cartoonnetwork (16)
The_Thompsons (15)
Safety Inspector (15)
Handsome B. Wonderful (15)
jonnymack (13)
Gamblor (13)
Disco Stones (13)
The Spruce Moose (13)
Alcatraaz (12)
Financial Panther (11)
Blobulle (10)
melody nelson (9)
CollectorCharlie (7)

[The Governor]

I was going to participate, but I would've liked this be a S11 onward poll since I knew S10 was going to have a much bigger presence than it shoud've. Oh, well.

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I'm actually wondering how it would've looked ONLY including Jean episodes, just to get a feel for the past decade of the show.

[HMS pinafore]

look's like most of mine got in, probaly because a large part of my list was made out of season 10 episodes

[parklife]

my number one pick didn't even crack the top fifty, i'm bummed out

[Homer I Am]

Haha, you got me for a second. Nice joke!

[Ernie]

Good list. But Holidays of Future Passed ranked at number three kind of surprised me. I think it was a decent episode but out of all the post-classic episodes, number three is way too high on the list. Nevertheless, I've watched all the episodes on the list and most I got a good laugh out of it.

[Gladys the Groovy Mule]

20/25, hooray me!

[jonnymack]

44) I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can

I'm glad this underrated little gem made the list.

[Alex_Of_Darkness]

In general, the result looks good

[TriforceBun]

Not a bad list. I have to agree that S10 is definitely over-represented, and Maximum Homerdrive has always been like the quintessential Scully-style episode: Homer gets a job for flimsy reasons, wacky hijinks ensue, strange plot twist in the third act and a big chase, etc. Never liked it much at all.

Most of these are good to great though. I wish Big Ten was higher, I've always really liked it. Pearls, Way We Weren't and Half-Decent Proposal are some of my other favorites from this stretch, so it's nice to see them represented. Trilogy of Error is probably my favorite S10-12 ep, so not a bad choice. Although I guess I don't really have any right to complain since I didn't submit my own vote!

Please keep the spammy back-and-forth one-sentence posts to PMs though, guys. Failure to do so makes reading this thread terribly obnoxious.

[guitarjel20]

I think Trilogy of Error is good at #1. I have no problems with that. Was there any episodes from season 9 on the list? If there is not, then season 9 would be considered part of the classic era. Which I would disagree with. For example the episode "The Principal and the Pauper" Sucked terribly! The whole story pissed me off. Skinner's false identity was a stupid premise. Besides the all singing episode in season 8 that (in my opinion) initiated the eventual downfall of quality episodes, this season 9 piece of crap cemented the slippery slide. Those two are still my #1 and #2 worst episodes to date. And there has been some crap in these later seasons. But, I will say that I've been pleasantly pleased with the current season 23 episodes. My bar is low, and their not terrible.

[Prune Tracy]

^All Singing, All Dancing was also from Season 9.

[Brad Lascelle]

I think Trilogy of Error is good at #1. I have no problems with that. Was there any episodes from season 9 on the list? If there is not, then season 9 would be considered part of the classic era. Which I would disagree with. For example the episode "The Principal and the Pauper" Sucked terribly! The whole story pissed me off. Skinner's false identity was a stupid premise. Besides the all singing episode in season 8 that (in my opinion) initiated the eventual downfall of quality episodes, this season 9 piece of crap cemented the slippery slide. Those two are still my #1 and #2 worst episodes to date.

The main problem people have with pegging Season 9 is that there's appreciable spillover from the Jean/Reiss, Oakley/Weinstein and Mirkin production runs.
Seven episodes were run by people other than Mike Scully and many of them are easily on "classic era" level.

If you were able to slice out the non-Scully portion and treat it as a separate entity (you could probably justify leaving the two Mirkin episodes in - one of them is All Singing, All Dancing after all), you'd have more people on board with excluding the Scully Season 9 episodes from classic era inclusion. The Top 100 episode poll reflects this as well.

[Prune Tracy]

I think Season 9 fits reasonably well into the classic era. Only a few truly terrible episodes, and several A+ ones.

[zach]

season 9 has no truly terrible episodes.

[Financial Panther]

Agreed. Only episode in it I dislike is The Trouble with Trillions, and even that's not awful.

[cloneasaurus]

Season 9: No terrible episodes, no awesome episodes, but plenty of mediocre episodes.

[zach]

ah i love trouble with trillions.

[irvine_11]

ah i love trouble with trillions.

I thought it started out good, but it turned stupid once Cuba got introduced.

[zach]

"Give what back?" best line (in cuba).

[Prune Tracy]

Trash of the Titans is the first episode chronologically to score a failing grade from me, and I didn't like All Singing, All Dancing, either. The Joy of Sect is iffy for me, but the rest are at least average or higher.

[MagicalManFromHappyLand]

Principal and the Pauper is the only season 9 episode I hate, I think season 9 and 10 aren't really classic era or post classic era, they're sort of like a halfway point.

[The Governor]

season 9 has no truly terrible episodes.

These sucked*:

Trash of the Titans (F)
--Here comes Jerkass Homer!

Trouble with Trillions (F)
--Stupid as fuck plot.

All Singing, All Dancing (D-)

The Last Temptation of Krust (D)
--Not funny, except for the comics that guest starred.

The Principal and the Pauper (D)
--making a shitty episode and then point out it's a shitty episode in the commentary, THEN say "if you didn't like it, then you fell for it!"... Three wrongs don't make it right.

* = Based on the qualifier that PLOT and CHARACTER are important to an episode. If you think the family is a bunch of cartoon clowns, please go knock yourself out over Capt. Wacky.