|
White Light posted:No dude, zombie simsons are starting to eclipse the Golden Years as the more relatable simpsons for the current audience. It's not the first time I've seen this sentiment either, whoever is watching it seems to prefer the current iteration over the classics. Classic Simpsons is a relic of a bygone era. I learned a ton watching it back in the day but the references are just so old now. Like, burt ward, Spiro Agnew, Dustin Hoffman, Ayatollah komeini, ed Sullivan, johnny Carson, Maynard g Krebs (or even bob Denver for that matter) , people under the age of 25 have no idea who these people are and have probably never even heard their names and have no framework to understand, even in passing, who they were. Maybe not Dustin Hoffman, but he hasn't been around for a while I think. Now I realize Maynard g Krebs is a reach for anyone who didn't grow up in the late 50s/early 60s, but still. He was the first hipster on TV and someone most people would likely have known about in the 80s and 90s. Dobie gillis was very popular. But that's the point, you tend to understand the previous generations people because they're still around in some capacity, or their legacies are still culturally relevant. Syndication gave TV shows 20 and 30 year life spans, Gilligan was on TV in the 90s and my friends all knew it. Nowadays with streaming, there's absolutely no reason to watch any show made before the office. The original crop of writers were late-stage boomers, early stage gen x (they mostly grew up in the late 60s, early 70s). The cultural touchstones they imparted on us 90s kids are just totally foreign to kids who were born after 9/11. Honestly it's no wonder classic Simpsons doesn't resonate with modern audiences. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 5, 2023 |
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 16:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:22 |
|
|
Americans need to be pandered to unlike smarty-pants UK people. No British comedies ever went super mainstream in the US, especially if it's in any way topical. And no, running on PBS doesn't count as mainstream. I'm talking something an electrician would watch. Nobody gets off work, grabs a bud light, and puts on keeping up appearances. We couldn't even import pop idol without putting two Americans on the panel and america in the name. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Aug 5, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
Americans know Monty python because of their many movies and not because of the flying circus, or any of the shows that they spawned. And anyway only nerds knew Monty python (even referenced in the Simpsons). I think you'd be hard pressed to find an average American who was more than just passingly familiar with British humor in the 90s, let alone today.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
redshirt posted:I watched Monty Python with my dad in the early 80's. No idea how he found it. Look apparently I had the worst take ever but "my dad liked Monty python in the 80s" is kinda my point - holy Grail was like 1974 or something and the flying circus was from the 60s. Americans weren't aware of Monty python until long after their heydey. The Mr bean show only had one season, for crying out loud, and it was popular because there were like no topical references at all. He was silent. Mr bean was super popular the world over precisely because it was pure physical comedy and kinda fits my point exactly - Americans no like British references the way British people apparently don't mind American references, and are in general far more aware of American pop culture than we are of British pop culture. All I'm saying is classic Simpsons just doesn't resonate with modern audiences quite as much anymore because it looks and sounds very dated compared to modern animated comedies, and American TV in general. Classic Simpsons was very much a "smart" show that could be enjoyed by average people because it made references average people could get at the time. I mean that's what we're saying - zombie Simpsons makes references to stuff just because, but then, unlike classic Simpsons, they forget to include any actual jokes that classic Simpsons had. Like classic Simpsons definitely had random references appropos of nothing, but in the context of the jokes they tended to either enhance the jokes or were just funny or silly on their own. Nowadays it's all random references and there aren't that many actual, like, setup-punchline jokes. Idk maybe I'm crazy. I guess I'm horribly out of touch at the ripe old age of 35.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 18:10
|
|
|
The Moon Monster posted:My favorite obscure reference is in the stonecutters episode where Moe says "He's gone mad with power, like that Albert Schweitzer guy!" I did a book report on Albert Schweitzer in the fifth grade, I was probably the youngest person in the world who knew who Albert Schweitzer was in the 90s
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2023 23:56
|
|
|
There's a special place in my heart for "Boy, they're really sockin' it to that Spiro Agnew guy again, he must work there or something"
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2023 00:17
|
|
|
vegetables posted:Being a UK viewer is maybe a bit different because my experience at least has been to just accept American shows will be full of baffling references to things that I don’t understand— expecting to understand all the references is alien to me, even now. Lol that's hilarious But for real waffle house > ihop
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2023 01:01
|
|
|
I wasn't saying I think that, but that I personally know people who do. GenZ considers seinfeld old and unfunny. People's opinions on stuff have changed so much, a lot of shows we grew up with and enjoyed are considered "problematic" or unfunny. I mean, this is a simpsons thread, so I dont even need to go into it. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Aug 6, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2023 02:12
|
|
|
It's not batman!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2023 13:50
|
|
|
gamer roomie is 41 posted:I still have no idea who Mel Zetz is or why his suit would fit on Bart, I have no idea who the union rep with the jowly voice is from Klassic Krusty. Mel Zetz was a made up name who in my head looks like Billy Barty, and AFL-CIO chairman George Meany was supposed to be AFL-CIO chairman George Meany, who was featured on a US postage stamp for his 100th birthday in 1994. He was featured in the episode Bart of Darkness which aired in, you guessed it, 1994. Meany's still a deep cut for sure but it's not like the writers had to reach very far for it. I was a nerdy kid who collected coins and stamps so I actually got that one. It's possible Mel Zetz was actually supposed to be a riff on Billy Barty, who's real name was Billy Bertanzetti, and who was a wise cracking dwarf popular in the 50s, 60s, and 70s (and also he played Noodles in UHF, another amazing comedy classic that has a *very* similar vibe to early simpsons in regards to its references) HOWEVER I admit that is a real stretch and probably not the case. If you haven't seen UHF and you're a fan of classic comedy, seriously go watch it. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Aug 7, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 02:06
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:Kramer Before Kramer. actually...not. Seinfeld season one premiered July 5th 1989, 16 days before UHF. Richards was around for a while before that, he was on fridays in 1980 and did a lot of physical comedy. He was basically being typecast. quote:Wikipedia is wildly overstating the popularity of loving Bozo the Clown I think there was a bozo the clown show in Chicago in the 90s which is a massive, massive media market iirc that was widely syndicated throughout the country. I was aware of Bozo when I was a kid, there was a rumor going around our school in the 2nd grade that some kid had the real bozo the clown coming to his birthday party and everyone was freaking out about it despite nobody really knowing anything about bozo the clown other than he was a famous clown Like with most of this stuff, our parents were well ware of Bozo the clown and it rubbed off on us to a lesser extent. My dad would point out clowns and refer to them as Bozo the Clown when I was a kid even though he was just being silly And to keep bringing it back to UHF, since I was a huge weird al fan, there was a Bobo the clown bit on uncle nutzy's funhouse which was what made me aware of low-rent local TV clown shows. Seriously watch uhf if you've never seen it. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Aug 7, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 04:14
|
|
|
JediTalentAgent posted:But into that, through the 90s and maybe into the early 00s we still had the regional afterschool/before school kids programming blocks with high-energy hosts to promote things. Outside of that robot from Toonami, did anyone else on the cable front continue that trend past the early 2000s? Nah I think it eventually got cheap enough to just make animated bumpers, rather than paying a host, like for the fox kids club or whatever that aired at 2. I'd get home from kindergarten and watch dark wing duck and animaniacs and tiny toons on fox but they didn't have a host. Just wacky bumpers.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 04:27
|
|
|
I think the general point is that TV clowns were still very much a thing people in the 90s were aware of. Which specific clowns people knew is kinda beside the point. Most kids "got" the idea behind the Krusty the Clown show.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 13:06
|
|
|
The ones who are characters first and references second still hold up, like gil. The ones who are just references and don't have anything else to them, like the yeeeeees guy, as one offs are fine, but as recurring characters strike me as familyguy-esque
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 15:52
|
|
|
Bugs Bunny was a reference to a famous movie scene of Clark gable eating a carrot and saying what's up doc? Now that's a reference to bugs Bunny himself.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 17:08
|
|
|
In farm frolics they showed a horse, and said, ok horse, trot for us. And the horse started trotting. Then it would say ok, let's see your gallop, and it started galloping. Then the narrator said, now cantor, and it jumped up and started doing this song and dance routine that meant nothing to me. Then years later I learned about Eddie cantor and immediately thought of that scene. They did another one of those pun based cartoons and showed an ice plant which was a plant made of ice. I happened to have grandparents in a small town and behind their house was the ruins of the old ice plant where they made the ice for your ice box. I had to explain that to someone and they had no idea that ice boxes used to be a thing they just assumed people couldn't store food before refrigerators, and I was like bro the Romans made ice... Also the word gangbusters has entered the common lexicon and most people don't even know it's from the phrase, "coming on like gangbusters" to mean something loud and cacophonous, which came from the 1940s radio program gangbusters which started off with no warning this crazy loud sirens and gunfire and noise and stuff and was very startling Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Aug 7, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 17:55
|
|
|
I always thought of Krusty as an Ed Sullivan type, who'd been around so long he was an institution unto himself, and had an extremely popular show that was watched by (adolescent) kids and adults alike. But also just kids too cause why not. But yeah I agree with that, Krusty was just used to skewer media in general. He was a has-been borscht belt vaudevillian one week and a jaded 90s comic the next.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 18:07
|
|
|
That's right, I did the Iggy
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 18:16
|
|
|
I still lol about his loving plane, the im-on-a-rolla-gay It's just so dumb but for some reason deeply hilarious to me The combination of the name itself and the fact that it's named for the plane that bombed Japan lol
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 18:30
|
|
|
Disco Pope posted:Yeah, I get that, but the *idea* of that kind of character has been in the water for about 50 years now, a lot longer than any of those shows would have aired. That clown is a circus clown, which was developed from earlier clown characters. It was popularized with the travelling circuses of the mid-to-late 19th century.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 18:41
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:Krusty is a Zanni from commedia dell'arte Gotdammit bobby
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 18:46
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:I'm not really sure of the full business model back in the day. According to my grandfather, they didn't have cinematic trailers back then so they showed shorts to fill time between movies. Theaters were some of the first buildings to have commercial air conditioning back then (commercial AC having only really been invented around the turn of the century) so people would pay a quarter (roughly my grandfather's hourly wage in 1940) and could sit in the Air conditioned theater and watch short films, news reels, and movies for, iirc, as long as they wanted. Wasn't honestly a whole lot else to do back in those days like there is now, and people didnt have as much time off. My grandfather and grandmother went to the movies once a week. I know some people do that now but I never did.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 21:42
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:Ive been rewatching episodes from the good seasons while eating dinner lately and Lisa was so much better when she was sort of a brat and actually did funny poo poo. The ending of the itchy and sctratchy land episode is ace. She used to be an 8 year old and the Simpsons used to be a show about the family dynamic - Lisa wanted to be popular and liked doing stuff with bart. She has since become the whiny voice of reason and just doesn't really act like a kid anymore At least, of the new episodes I've seen. Which aren't many.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2023 18:03
|
|
|
Mr Interweb posted:...no? The episode where they're at the beach is like an entire episode dedicated to her wanting to be popular. It even opens with her thinking people will like her because of her work on the yearbook, and she gets really bummed when nobody signs her yearbook. It was like, basically her primary character trait other than being a smarty-pants until they made her a vegan and Buddhist and what not. And the episode where she babysits bart is all about her getting in over her head because at the end of the day she's just an 8 year old and isn't ready to handle being an adult. And the one where she becomes a vegetarian she makes gazpacho for everyone thinking they will want it and gets laughed at and it makes her sad. And then the episode with the pool is all about her rise to popularity and how she starts acting dumb to impress boys. And in that same episode she breaks into the flanders house because bart asks her to. It was a common theme. The Cory hotline was a running gag at one point. She also went along with bart's plan to write itchy and scratchy episodes under grampa's name in The Front. Not necessarily a bad thing to do but you'd expect her to raise a moral objection but without rewatching it I dont think she did. Don't gaslight me. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Aug 24, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2023 14:25
|
|
|
Yeah that's true, I just meant like, when they made her a paragon of morality (or really, a parody of leftists) and stopped letting her be a bratty but well meaning 8 year old know it all most of the time, which she was in the early years. Like I said, early on it was very character driven but then they tried to make it more like south park and family guy and just went for the gag at the expense of the characters
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2023 21:20
|
|
|
That's a big thing in Wes Anderson movies - children that act like adults and adults that act like children. It's a pretty solid premise, tbh, as long as you don't take it too far. Kids should still be kids.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2023 18:09
|
|
|
je1 healthcare posted:They did have a subplot planned where Krusty and Homer were the same person, an idea which got canned along with Marge's rabbit ears when it became clear they wouldn't be cancelled. If by "not cancelled" you mean, the moment matt groening articulated it to a single other person, then yeah. iirc that's when Sam Simon banned him from the writers room. It was *pretty* early on
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2023 17:37
|
|
|
Sentient Data posted:It's kind of funny how the commentaries reveal that groening hates all the fun stuff that gave the show charm. Matt groening is Krusty the klown. Hilariously out-of-touch trend-chaser who only cares about money, and is a beloved figure despite being a weird rich creep with no real comedic sensibilities. He has control over and his name is synonymous with a very popular show (itchy and scratchy) so people put up with him and drive dump trucks of money up to his house for merchandise deals. He'll slap his IP on just about anything for the right price. He is immensely successful despite his lack of effort. Sentient Data posted:Maybe the real problem is that it all just melted away into lucas-level yesmen blinded by the merch money The current crop of writers grew up watching family guy and South park. They don't know what the Simpsons was all about (a deconstruction of the American family sitcom) because they've probably never seen them except as an academic exercise.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2023 21:57
|
|
|
Halisnacks posted:While we are explaining golden era jokes, I have a kinda basic one I don’t get: when Marge is fantasising about being with a pirate and asks if his earring means he’s a pirate, and he says “Kinda”, is it just a 90s gay joke? That’s what I assume, but then he goes on to speak to her implying sexual interest, so I’m not sure. The saying back then was "left is right and right is wrong." For some reason it was acceptable for a man to pierce his left ear but not his right, even if both are pierced. He has an earring in his right ear. So they are implying he is gay. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Sep 1, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2023 04:57
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:I thnk you guys are missing the actual question which was That's true. I always took it as a stab at the rumors that always dogged Fabio, who the pirate is clearly modeled after. I think the writers are very subtlely implying that Fabio is a butt pirate.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2023 13:09
|
|
|
formerly chuck's edit: Junk posted:oh yeah, i always wondered So I was thinking about this one and I don't think it's a reference to anything specific. I remember when I was a kid I'd go through the tollbooth that would say "25 cents each axle" or something like that, and imagine to myself a car with like 10 axles. I think that's the same train of thought here. Why would a car have that many axles? idk, because it's eastern european. It wouldn't be the first eastern european car joke in the simpsons. How do you establish the car is eastern european? Give the driver an accent and make him look like Nikita Kruschev/Mikhail Gorbechev, of course. He's happy because he doesn't speak english very well. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Sep 1, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2023 14:04
|
|
|
1 feels like such a different show, I can't bring myself to watch it. Clearly had growing pains and that's ok, but I don't enjoy it. 2 I think had some good episodes. Three men and a comic book comes to mind, I think the way we was as well. Nothing against season 2 it's just not for me. 3 is still really strong but some of the characters are still being worked on. Mr Burns voice was still off. 4 is truly the start of the golden era. The whole season is full of absolute classics. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Sep 4, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2023 15:02
|
|
|
Early simpsons guests were often there apropos of nothing and weren't plugging anything in particular - they were just random celebrities from various eras and levels of fame. A lot of names that resonated with nerds, but also the occasional movie star. Sometimes they'd come in and have a line, and be gone, other times they'd be part of the story. Later simpsons guests were big names you'd see doing the late night circuit, and they were either literally in the show for no other reason than they're the flavor of the minute, or they'd be *really* shoehorned into the story, typically in the form of "Lisa meets X artist" and the story would *always* suffer because of it Despite being a huge beatles fan, Paul McCartney was the first major guest star I remember just being totally shoehorned into a show for a few seconds gag just because they could. Contrast that with Ringo Starr, who was part of the story, and George Harrison, who made two very brief cameos to deliver good jokes in an episode that was otherwise *entirely* about the beatles and they could have just had them be guest stars but they weren't (likely for cost reasons). And while not about guest stars, it reminds me, there's the episode where Ned Flanders is revealed to be a huge beatles fan. I haven't seen that episode in a really long time, but I don't think they ever mentioned that facet of his character ever again. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Sep 4, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2023 18:08
|
|
|
The Great Burrito posted:In Treehouse of Horror X during the Y2K segment he laments picking that day to wear his Beatle boots. Couldn’t find a clip but it predated the Beatles collection oh poo poo you're right i completely forgot about that
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2023 03:07
|
|
|
and nobody addresses it
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2023 03:40
|
|
|
abigserve posted:the george harrison bit was so loving good It's been done Modern Simpsons would never be so subtle
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2023 16:56
|
|
|
New Yorp New Yorp posted:And it's retroactively an even better joke because Ringo announced he would no longer respond to fan mail 10 or 15 years ago. he was known for answering fan mail. hence the simpsons episode and the video
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2023 04:30
|
|
|
That's what ruins the Simpsons for her? Not the 2.5 decades of bad writing and unfunny jokes? But one character being retconned? The entire show has been retconned at this point. I mean homer grew up in the 90s now apparently Anyone still watching the show has to have accepted all that stuff by now
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2023 15:41
|
|
|
Or they could cancel it and move on to new shows idk just spitballing here
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2023 16:07
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:22 |
|
|
Uhhh...counterpoint: I didn't do it
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2023 17:26
|
|