Short answer: 'yes' with an 'if'; long answer: 'no' with a 'but'
June 8, 2023 11:13 PM   Subscribe

The Simpsons Is Good Again - after 34 seasons, 750 episodesm and a decades-long funk, the show innovated its way back to popularity and relevance
Every person I spoke to for the story - from Broti Gupta, one of the first writers on The Simpsons to have been born after the show's premiere, to James L. Brooks, one of the series' founders, to the former members of the No Homers Club fan community, infamous for compaining about the decline of the show - agrees that The Simpsons, in 2023, is undergoing a renaissance. The staff, working in the shadow of a looming writers strike when I visited, are putting out some of the most ambitious, poignant, and funny episodes in the show's history - episodes that, after all these years, have managed to broaden our understanding of these familiar characters and why they remain so important to so many people. And thanks to the streaming era, a whole new generation is growing up bingeing The Simpsons, bolstering the sense that the show, once left for dead by critics, may really go on forever.
posted by Pachylad (56 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
man, I've been having a similar sort of feeling about the new Clone High, where I'm honestly kind of afraid to watch it for fear that it might be bad, or even worse, mediocre

if this is true, though, I might have to actually check out an episode of The Simpsons made in the last decade for a change
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:07 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


¯\_(ツ)_/¯

/fetches an episode from the latest season

I stopped watching somewhere around season 11. I heard, largely unavoidable, murmurings about problematic stuff and didn't put any further energy into it, but I would really like to enjoy it again. He's hoping it's a bit of easy fun.
posted by krisjohn at 12:33 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


I asked how many episodes they think they’ve seen, and the responses were usually in the 150-to-300 range. And they all intend to watch all 750. Some boys in Noemi’s class already have, and, ugh, it’s so annoying.

I hear ya, sister.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:35 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Watched latest. Tired but not as bad as I recall from the last time I tried. Something about clowns.
posted by abulafa at 12:41 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


"To me, the movie The Simpsons is most like isn’t Groundhog Day but Everything Everywhere All at Once."
Ugh.

/cancels download.
posted by krisjohn at 12:43 AM on June 9, 2023 [8 favorites]


I want to believe this...but the art style from the recent seasons is off-putting, and apparently the show is still shoehorning in celebrity guest appearances, so I will probably end up repeating the ol' "Am I so out of touch?...No, it is the children who are wrong."
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 12:47 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


About two years ago, they released A Serious Flanders, a two part episode that was half parody of Coen brothers movie, half straight Coen brothers movie. It is great, and a big surprise when you just expect a regular episode.
posted by Schismatic at 12:56 AM on June 9, 2023 [9 favorites]


Wow, ok, that was unwatchable. Maybe I'll try again in two decades.
posted by krisjohn at 12:59 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


Turns out I have access through Disney+, so will give it a go. Be ready for finger pointing if it is not up to snuff.
posted by biffa at 1:17 AM on June 9, 2023


I want to believe this...but the art style from the recent seasons is off-putting

Yes! There's just something so off about the slightly too crisp look they have these days. I don't know when it changed, but it definitely looks shiny and polished in a really nauseating way that it didn't used to.
posted by Dysk at 1:18 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


may really go on forever.

I've watched a couple recent episodes and the voiceover work convinced me the show might actually end. Maybe the writing has improved but age is finally catching up with the actors. Marge especially sounds too gravelly but Homer and some others also sound off. Mr. Burns gives a monologue at the end (it was S34:E19 - Write Off this Episode) using the wrong voice entirely.
posted by Gary at 1:25 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


I seem to remember a post or comment with a list of the few good episodes from the Dark Times, but I can't find it with a search. Does anyone have a link to that?

I might check it out if there's a chance of something good again.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:36 AM on June 9, 2023


Also is the good season 34? Disney Plus UK only seems to go up to 33 so far.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:48 AM on June 9, 2023


Also is the good season 34? Disney Plus UK only seems to go up to 33 so far.

Your destination is always just around the next corner
posted by chavenet at 3:40 AM on June 9, 2023 [4 favorites]


I haven't watched it in a couple of years. I like to pretend nothing beyond season 10 or so exists, so this isn't likely to get me to watch it again but good for them, I guess.
posted by tommasz at 3:55 AM on June 9, 2023


Broti Gupta and Christine Nangle are both VERY funny, I have to believe if they're involved that it must be good. #nanggang
posted by saladin at 4:33 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


For the love of five-fingered God, don't watch the recent clown school episode if that's your first episode back after two decades. Try S34E10, or for a more outside-the-box concept episode, S34E03.
posted by Servo5678 at 4:50 AM on June 9, 2023 [11 favorites]


Also is the good season 34?

According to the article, yes. Four of the five recent episodes it recommends as "future classics" are from season 34.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:57 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


TheophileEscargot: Also is the good season 34? Disney Plus UK only seems to go up to 33 so far.

This stopwatch My Disney Plus only goes up to fifteen minutes season 32.

D-:
posted by Kattullus at 5:03 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


man, I've been having a similar sort of feeling about the new Clone High, where I'm honestly kind of afraid to watch it for fear that it might be bad, or even worse, mediocre

It hits, trust. It has the same kind of sharp bite that is witty and well pointed. I have not been disappointed in the reboot of Clone High.

Going back to watch the Simpsons is probably not something I'll be doing but I'm considering it.
posted by Fizz at 5:20 AM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


We've started watching from the beginning with my daughter, who is 10 and deserves to understand what the heck her parents are talking about. While the first season's animation is squirrely, I do think it's something where diminishing returns would hit after season 9. I maintain that the 90s seasons were some of the best TV ever made. I'm curious whether the new episodes would resonate at all.
posted by graymouser at 5:23 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Yes! There's just something so off about the slightly too crisp look they have these days. I don't know when it changed, but it definitely looks shiny and polished in a really nauseating way that it didn't used to.

CG animation in 4k, I suspect. I mean, 4k live action can often be really disturbingly hyper-real, so it just makes sense animation would, too.

I haven’t watched the Simpsons in eons. I knew it was still on, but I could never tell you where.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:35 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


Watched latest. Tired but not as bad as I recall from the last time I tried.

Yeah, this is it. The Simpsons isn't good again, it's just not as abysmally terrible as it had been for a long time. Frankly, it can never really be good again, or at least as good as it was. The Golden Era was such a perfect storm of talent, industry structure, and cultural zeitgeist that simply can't happen again.

The renewed popularity is also a function of the show just being widely available again for the first time in decades. Fox was real weird about streaming it so it kind of disappeared from the general cultural landscape; now that Disney has it on its streaming service, lo and behold people actually watch the show.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:39 AM on June 9, 2023 [8 favorites]


The Simpsons isn't good again, it's just not as abysmally terrible as it had been for a long time.

The part I can not fathom at all is the how and why of its durability. What set of personalities, contract negotiations and market forces have congealed to keep this not-good show on the air across four decades, when so many other, better shows were cancelled or ended or whatever? How many years of mediocrity has it been, and this show just keeps slouching along?
posted by mhoye at 5:53 AM on June 9, 2023 [6 favorites]


I haven’t watched the Simpsons in eons. I knew it was still on, but I could never tell you where.

Circa 2000, I spent a winter night at a sparsely-populated youth hostel in Ottawa. I was one of maybe five guests there that evening and it was chilly and drizzly out, so I spent an evening in.

I had the TV lounge to myself and access to satellite TV for the first time in my life. As best I could discern, there was always at least one episode of The Simpsons on at any point in the day.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:56 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


How many years of mediocrity has it been, and this show just keeps slouching along?

It's no mystery, the show just continued to make more money than it cost. By the time it started going downhill in quality it was already a cultural institution with enormous brand recognition. If the show keeps drawing viewers and moving merch, why cancel it no matter how bad it gets?

Or, as Troy McClure put it in "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular":
Who knows what adventures they'll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable?
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:25 AM on June 9, 2023 [21 favorites]


…keep this not-good show on the air across four decades, when so many other, better shows were cancelled or ended or whatever?

As one riff on a Dr. Frank-N-Furter line went “I’ll remove the Cos, but not The Simpsons.”
posted by larrybob at 6:27 AM on June 9, 2023 [10 favorites]


...age is finally catching up with the actors. Marge especially sounds too gravelly... It makes sense that Marge would sound more like her sisters, but the fact that Bart is voiced by a 65 year-old is bothersome.
posted by TedW at 6:29 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Just had the sad realization that with the sheer volume of sample data available, they can probably very easily generate AI voice models for all of the characters once the actual human VOs age out. Infinite Simpsons.
posted by Zargon X at 6:32 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


Generating infinite simpsons is a perfect use for AI, as it’s already been demonstrated that nobody cares if it’s good.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:44 AM on June 9, 2023 [20 favorites]


For the love of five-fingered God, don't watch the recent clown school episode if that's your first episode back after two decades. Try S34E10

This was good advice. I have lolled a few times.

Although it is literally hard to hear Skinner, the actor's voice is definitely on its way out.
posted by abulafa at 7:21 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


I remember, in the 1990s, being annoyed just how mediocre Matt Groening’s Life in Hell had gotten, after it’s brilliant run in the early-to-mid 80s. He finally retired the strip in 2012.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:24 AM on June 9, 2023 [7 favorites]


I still watch it regularly - I don't agree it's in any kind of 'renaissance', most are more blandly forgettable than terrible.

So many are retreads of ideas they have done before: like the recent 'Krusty Starts a Clown School; one was the same as so many episodes before where Springfield Elementary has changed.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:33 AM on June 9, 2023


It's crossed my mind more than once that as a suburban mother of two girls and a boy with a nervous brown dog and a bald husband (no cat though), The Simpsons might hit different for me now than it did back in the day when I obviously identified with Lisa. I even do that "Marge grumble" when the bad ideas are flying, my husband gives me shit about it all the time. But it never crossed my mind to pick up CONTEMPORARY Simpsons! Maybe I'll check it out.

And yes, the only impediment to creating AI-generated voices for all the main characters and letting the voice actors retire is the voice actors' contracts, which I assume prohibit this on some level or it would already have been done. They have more than enough training data to do an excellent job.
posted by potrzebie at 7:39 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


Gary: Mr. Burns gives a monologue at the end (it was S34:E19 - Write Off this Episode) using the wrong voice.

I’m really hoping it’s Homer saying “hello, I’m Mr Burns. I believe you have a letter for me”.
posted by dr_dank at 8:13 AM on June 9, 2023 [4 favorites]


There's an extremely common conception of "The Simpsons" that it was good for 7-10 years, and then got bad, and has stayed bad/gotten worse since. If you've watched any of the last 25 seasons, it's a lot more complicated than that. It was probably the worst around seasons 11-12, and then rebounded a bit when Al Jean returned. The quality has varied over the years, and it has been particularly good the last three years or so. (Although the voice cast is really, really losing it, especially Harry Shearer, who is 79 and stopped caring 25 years ago, and Julie Kavner, who is 72 and has 50+ years with an extremely coarse voice starting to catch up with her.)

I'm not a fan of the way they've collapsed their universe of characters into a flat circle of totally interconnected relationships - like, why would Krusty know who Superintendent Chalmers is and tell a joke about him?* - but if you can get past the extreme self-referential stuff it's pretty good TV.

(* I don't know if that literally happened but it's a good hypothetical example of stuff that has been extremely common for the last 10-15 seasons.)

It kind of reminds me of when people who haven't watched SNL since Jimmy Fallon was on it say, "SNL isn't funny." How the heck would they know?
posted by mellow seas at 9:09 AM on June 9, 2023 [9 favorites]


Man, I was a big Simpsons fan during the first 9 or 10 seasons (didn't buy any merch, though). I frequently quoted from it every chance I got. After I quit watching (due to the aforementioned decline in quality) I still kept up the quoting well into the 00's. By now, though, I've forgotten it all almost completely.* I won't bother with these new episodes; if I want another dose of the Simpsons, I'll just rewatch the "golden years" episodes.

*Fortunately I've still got plenty of Monty Python and Hitchhiker's Guide references to annoy people with.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:14 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Sat through 5 minutes of s34 ep10 (with a free 60 min preview session on Fox). I don't wanna write off the possibility of a renaissance completely, but a few things stuck out in those 5 mins about what feels fundamentally off from the Golden Era:

– The volume & pace of delivered jokes has drastically slowed down. I think in the golden age, scenes were jam-packed with joke attempts. Instead we have a lot of exposition for plot, and not that many punchlines (and the punchlines are unfortunately weaker and not as funny to me).

– Bart's cursing is interesting, but it doesn't seem to function as anything other than an attempt at edginess (versus say, when Homer wanted Mr. Burns to acknowledge his gift, and Burnsy thanked everyone in Homer's fam except him, and it became about how angry he was and how comically loudly it carried through the town).

– the song that Skinner started singing was also just plodding along, and I knew it would eventually pick up the pace, but my goodness, it feels like the entire show is swimming through molasses.

I couldn't sit through the song, and accepted that maybe I'm just looking for something beyond superficial familiarity. The current ep (and other ones I tried to watch from s33) almost feel like fan-art versions of Golden Age simpsons (for me that's s4 – s7, with s8 starting to slip).

I'm open to new episodes being enjoyable, but I can't expect it to be anywhere near the good stuff. I understand why they keep the series going ($$$), but I personally think they should have let it die. And just make something fresher. But that's a lot of work, and requires a kind of hunger and drive that is hard to sustain, and gets easily quenched by comfort & money.

I'll still watch the Golden Age Simpsons regularly, with great delight and appreciation each time I revisit the eps.
posted by room9 at 9:21 AM on June 9, 2023 [3 favorites]


Fortunately I've still got plenty of Monty Python and Hitchhiker's Guide references to annoy people with.

To quote Noemi: ugh.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:47 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


As far as I'm concerned, Season 3 is the only season of The Simpsons.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:49 AM on June 9, 2023


Fortunately I've still got plenty of Monty Python and Hitchhiker's Guide references to annoy people with.

To quote Noemi: ugh.


No, no, no -- it's not that, it's 'Ni'. You're not doing it properly.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:57 AM on June 9, 2023 [11 favorites]


Did they go back to it being a critique of the American family, and Homer being an abusive father? Huh.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:58 AM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


It hasn't garnered much media attention, but the Old Beavis and Butthead segments (in which Beavis and Butthead are fairly authentically middle-aged, but still Beavis and Butthead) on the latest season of Beavis and Butthead are very, very good.

The producers of The Simpsons could really do a solid by similarly adapting The Simpsons to the modern world. Marge and Homer divorce. The nuclear plant shuts down. They have to sell the house. Both on government benefits. Split custody. That's it. That's the concept.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 12:19 PM on June 9, 2023 [8 favorites]


There's an extremely common conception of "The Simpsons" that it was good for 7-10 years, and then got bad, and has stayed bad/gotten worse since. If you've watched any of the last 25 seasons, it's a lot more complicated than that.
mellow seas

The show is a victim of its own success. At its peak it was arguably some of the best television ever made. The highs were so high that, even if it really has come around to being good again, "good" in comparison to what it once was lands as utterly mediocre. Even you seem to acknowledge that it's a shell of its former self. It's not like there was literally never a funny moment again after Season 8 or wherever one pegs the fall, but it lost the spark that made it such a cultural force in its heyday.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:08 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


That's it. That's the concept.

There are a series of episodes depicting Bart in middle age. There’s maybe 6(?) episodes spanning seasons maybe 15-30 or so. Homer and Marge are divorced. Lisa is married with a daughter that she can’t quite connect with. Bart is divorced from his high school sweetheart with weekend custody of his two studious sons. Maggie is a musician.
posted by Servo5678 at 2:54 PM on June 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Yes, the new Old Beavis and Butthead is great!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 4:15 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


I personally think they should have let it die

I've already responded to a similar comment on another thread about The Simpsons, so why not just spare my typing fingers and link to it.

To anyone posting here (especially those of you who posted multiple times) - it really doesn't matter if you like The Simpsons or not. It just seems to keep going.

I'm happy it's still around. It doesn't hurt any of you for it to exist, so if Fox/Disney/whoever wants to keep paying to make it, I'll keep watching it, as I have since day 1.

(the newest episodes are on Hulu, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned that. Last season and earlier are on Disney+.)
posted by 41swans at 5:57 PM on June 9, 2023 [5 favorites]


I watched a few episodes this season, and they were OK. Just OK.
posted by mikelieman at 6:00 PM on June 9, 2023 [2 favorites]


> It doesn't hurt any of you for it to exist

Not true for everyone all of the time. Depends on what the show does and how. See, e.g., the Apu controversy and the show's handling of racist stereotypes or foreign cultures...
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 8:13 PM on June 9, 2023 [6 favorites]


Also, bear in mind that every mediocre episode they release brings down the show's average quality. The longer they postpone the end, the more they're pissing on their own legacy as something that was once extraordinarily good.*.

* See also: The Rolling Stones.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:31 AM on June 10, 2023


I started watching Season 33 last night; have they really killed the couch gag?
posted by chavenet at 6:46 AM on June 10, 2023


Every so often, I reread Zombie Simpsons, which is an enjoyable novella-length essay that tries to explain exactly where and how The Simpsons declined.

One of the major things it points out is that the early Simpsons creative process was simply unsustainable. Yes, it had an insane collection of creative talent, but it also pushed that talent into absolutely brutal writing sessions that led to mass departures every other season.

I've been a huge fan of the It's Always Sunny podcast, which is shockingly good on all fronts; one of the things the show's creators discuss, as they watch over their early seasons and (correctly) ask themselves whether they've gone to pot in recent years, is that they simply didn't know what they were doing early, on, pushed themselves to the point of burnout constantly, and created a show whose peaks were often the result of incredibly unhealthy creative work. Now that they're older, saner, and have families, they've found a much calmer process—and one of the consequences of that process is simply not pushing against boundaries in the same way.

The new season of It's Always Sunny, which is their first one written after they began their podcast a year ago, is surprisingly good—apparently them reviewing their old work has led to a bit of a creative renaissance. I'd love to imagine The Simpsons doing the same thing, but that's harder, since it was always a far more collaborative project, and the bulk of its most brilliant talent left decades ago.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 7:54 AM on June 10, 2023 [3 favorites]


+1 for new Beavis and Butt-head. Sublimely spectacular.
posted by avocet at 12:07 PM on June 10, 2023


@Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted

Appreciate that book recommendation. Seems like it's exactly for someone like me and will give it a read.

And it's "good" to know that the golden era Simpsons was creatively unsustainable. I do recall from the DVD commentary that having characters explode as a gag was an outlet for overworked & burnt-out & stressed-out writers. But hearing that the conditions for the writers was outright brutal adds complexity to the episodes I hold so dear. I say this as someone who is fiercely protective of my own creative process, having been burnt & hollowed-out myself from pushing too hard – sometimes out of personal ambition, other times out of pressure from higher-ups.
posted by room9 at 12:48 PM on June 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


I'm feeling really leery about the idea that the only way to produce truly brilliant art (or at least comedy) is to treat your workers like shit (or at least push (or at the VERY least, enable) your workers to drive themselves into burnout).

On Twitter, there are a bunch of comic book artists using the hashtag #ComicsBrokeMe to talk about how overworked and underpaid they are so that's part of why I'm reacting this way.

I feel like the "pushing boundaries of the art form = pushing the boundaries of your capacity to stay healthy and sane" idea also enables a mindset that allows for all the #MeToo abuse we've seen in tv/film (and every industry, really). Genius = asshole, brilliant work = everyone suffers, and so on.

If it's true, then yeah, get ready to embrace less-than-genius art. But without a survey of every person on every tv show and film set from, say, 1970-now, we can't really say whether or not it's true. And on top of that, art is subjective! My favorite Simpsons joke isn't gonna be yours, etc., etc. While it was a hit, showing that a lot of people found it funny, not everyone is going to like it, etc.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 3:57 PM on June 11, 2023 [1 favorite]


My 10 and 12 year olds have been binging all the Disney+ seasons, so I've been watching a lot of Simpsons recently. And you know what? Pretty much every single episode is at least mildly entertaining and makes a good observation or two about people/life. I care about the characters even though they're all deeply flawed.

I get so tired of "your favorite band sucks" on MeFi. The Simpsons is a good TV show, and I'm still enjoying it with my family.
posted by OnceUponATime at 5:43 AM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]


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