TV Live Forum

I'll admit I have a lot of nostalgia for S10, (and even S11 while we're at it), yes, they're not as good as S3-8, but compared to the latest episodes, they still felt like The Simpsons to me.

Presumably if and when the Simpsons ever do end it wouldn't be long at all until there was a spin-off or reboot which basically aged the characters 30+ years and moved on to the next generation.

James2001 post_id=43326 time= user_id=956 Wrote:You're more tolerant than me, I struggle with pretty much anything past season 11... and season 11 (and a fair chunk of 10) itself is a chore.

But I think it’s silly to say there’s such a hard cut off like that. Like it suddenly became unwatchable from season 11 episode 1. There’s fewer and fewer memorable episodes as the years go by but they still happen - Boy Meets Curl and Barthood come to mind.

Maybe there isn't a hard cut off, but that is the point where the drop in quality really became apparent. Not saying it's all bad from that point, but the bad outnumbers the good.

James2001 post_id=43502 time= user_id=956 Wrote:Maybe there isn't a hard cut off, but that is the point where the drop in quality really became apparent. Not saying it's all bad from that point, but the bad outnumbers the good.

I've probably said this on here before, I certainly have in other places, but I think The Simpsons now is a bit like Have I Got News For You in that I still watch it and it makes me laugh a few times, but after it's been on I have no desire ever to watch the episode again, as opposed to the imperial phase when I couldn't miss it and would watch every episode over and over again, including the repeats. But it still passes the time and I'd rather watch it than not.

I can never understand half the contemporary references, mind. That said, I remember watching the episode with Elon Musk in it, which I can see is from 2015, and at the end I had to Google him to see if he was a real person or not.

The real question is, what's worse? Modern Simpsons or Family Guy? ?

Brekkie post_id=43486 time= user_id=976 Wrote:Presumably if and when the Simpsons ever do end it wouldn't be long at all until there was a spin-off or reboot which basically aged the characters 30+ years and moved on to the next generation.

There's a few episodes which show us the future, with the kids as adults. Though honestly only a seven year timeskip would be sufficient for a retool. That would put Bart and Lisa in high school, with Maggie at Springfield Elementary.

Steve Williams post_id=43514 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:I can never understand half the contemporary references, mind. That said, I remember watching the episode with Elon Musk in it, which I can see is from 2015, and at the end I had to Google him to see if he was a real person or not.

I hardly ever watch an episode of The Simpsons these days, maybe once or twice a year I would happen to have one on for a bit, but I’ve still managed to catch that episode at least twice!

Season 8 seems to be generally accepted as the one in which the quality started to go down, with so-so episodes like "Hurricane Neddy", "The Canine Mutiny" and "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" - although of course, there were still plenty of great eps too, like "A Milhouse Divided", "Homer's Phobia" and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase". (And obviously "You Only Move Twice" and "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer", although these were holdovers from season 7.)

Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were the showrunners for this season, and they have said that they believed the show was coming to the end of its life and so they "experimented" a bit (which also explains "The Principal and the Pauper", held over until the start of season 9). Indeed, it appears that many others involved in the show at this time thought it was near the end too, with Matt Groening already developing Futurama and many writers and directors moving on to that or to other projects. And I've seen at least one person say that "Brother From Another Series" was intended to be the final Sideshow Bob episode, and indeed it ends with him being a hero at last (but getting sent back to prison anyway).

I've documented the vocal evolution of Dan Castlenetta's Homer voice from Seasons 1 to 3 in a YouTube video I did, this topic is so interesting to me.
https://youtu.be/GiWEVaEgCP4

Interesting looking at the ratings in the US over the years. Generally speaking declining exactly in the manner as you'd expect, but two noteable declines in the 2015/16 and 2019/20 seasons, although the latter especially quite reflective of the overall drop in broadcast ratings in recent years.

ToasterMan post_id=43523 time= user_id=1182 Wrote:The real question is, what's worse? Modern Simpsons or Family Guy? ?

Going by https://www.ratingraph.com, The Simpsons.

There's not much in it and it could be argued that there has been a decline with Family Guy as well but it has been gradual as opposed to the distinct dip in quality between seasons 8 and 9 of The Simpsons.

Personally I consider Season 13 to be when "good Simpsons" was dead and buried. I binged the lot on Disney+ determined to figure out exactly when the quality decline became terminal... And no, I didn't have anything better to do.

As for the terrestrial rights, I'm surprised that The Simpsons was still a phenomenon in the UK in the early 90s considering it didn't hit FTA until 1996, and IIRC Sky One wasn't as widely consumed as it is now. I'm basing this purely on the success of media outside of the TV show, such as the video games and the songs, the latter's success documented on recently released episodes on TOTP. There's even a bit of LWT continuity somewhere on YouTube from around 91/92 teasing the arrival of Dinosaurs, calling it "ITV's answer to The Simpsons".

I'm assuming there were VHS releases before the BBC took the terrestrial rights but I've never found any solid information on when the first ones were released.

Larry the Loafer post_id=44194 time= user_id=990 Wrote:I'm assuming there were VHS releases before the BBC took the terrestrial rights but I've never found any solid information on when the first ones were released.

There were indeed, and the Simpsons Wiki suggests the first four were released in October 1991 - https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Simpsons_Collection

We got two for Christmas that year, the Call Of The Simpsons and Life In The Fast Lane videos, two episodes per tape you note, so I got to know those four episodes very well. We didn't have any of the other videos, though, too much else on our Christmas and birthday lists.

The rest of the time we got our Simpsons fix by going to my sister's friend's house, the only person we knew who had Sky, which seemed to be how most other kids saw it those days. I remember going there a few times, I vividly remember watching Lisa The Greek there, that would have been early 1992. As you say, everything else was via the endless spin-offs, I had a Simpsons Diary in 1992 when I'd probably have seen less than a dozen episodes.

The other Simpsons VHS releases were a series that started in 1999, this was the first one - https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Simpso...Hot_For_TV
I bought pretty much all of those because they were a valuable source of Sky episodes that were years away from coming on the Beeb. I remember being massively disappointed when one of them featured four episodes that had already been on the Beeb, but I still bought it anyway to continue the collection.

Steve Williams post_id=44197 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:

Larry the Loafer post_id=44194 time= user_id=990 Wrote:I'm assuming there were VHS releases before the BBC took the terrestrial rights but I've never found any solid information on when the first ones were released.

There were indeed, and the Simpsons Wiki suggests the first four were released in October 1991 - https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Simpsons_Collection

We got two for Christmas that year, the Call Of The Simpsons and Life In The Fast Lane videos, two episodes per tape you note, so I got to know those four episodes very well. We didn't have any of the other videos, though, too much else on our Christmas and birthday lists.

The rest of the time we got our Simpsons fix by going to my sister's friend's house, the only person we knew who had Sky, which seemed to be how most other kids saw it those days. I remember going there a few times, I vividly remember watching Lisa The Greek there, that would have been early 1992. As you say, everything else was via the endless spin-offs, I had a Simpsons Diary in 1992 when I'd probably have seen less than a dozen episodes.

The other Simpsons VHS releases were a series that started in 1999, this was the first one - https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/The_Simpso...Hot_For_TV
I bought pretty much all of those because they were a valuable source of Sky episodes that were years away from coming on the Beeb. I remember being massively disappointed when one of them featured four episodes that had already been on the Beeb, but I still bought it anyway to continue the collection.

I may be wrong, but I'm sure that the version of The Cartridge Family on that VHS had a warning at the start that said something like "This episode is not to be broadcast on a BBC channel until 1/1/2000" or something like that (It may have also had a VT clock).

PD post_id=42718 time= user_id=1887 Wrote:I'm sure I remember The Simpsons appearing on Live & Kicking for a brief period during the Emma & Steve series

Also a thing I recently found out is that Live & Kicking wasn't the only time CBBC broadcast The Simpsons. According to Genome, during the 2002 Commonwealth Games it also aired there.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/c7c4c3f224d0...ec769931ad