The Simpsons Appreciation Thread

[BonnieShels]

Clearly most of us here appreciate the glory of The Simpsons and I was wondering to myself "Wow, there's no thread dedicated to the wonder of this show!".

Obviously with the advent of South Park, Family Crap and the likes of The Life and Times of Tim, it's sometimes easy to forget just how good it is.

Anyways, the other day I thought of this scene and played over in my head and just plain old laughed out loud (like a crazy person).

Thought this would be a good place to share it.

[theworm2345]

Yeah it has been going strong for 20+ years. Was funniest in the early/mid-90's, hit a lull in the latter part of the 00's but after the movie I feel they put some life back in to it. Not as funny now as it once was but still pretty amusing. Family Guy went to **** after its hiatus, South Park has gone downhill, and Futurama hasn't been as good since its hiatus so it is impressive that they can at least turn out amusing stuff when half of the South Parks and probably 95% of the Family Guys in the past 5 years have been utter ****.

[Lim till i die]

The last five years at least of The Simpsons have been an abomination for which some people should be beaten with phone chargers for all eternity in the darkest smallest cell in the world.

It has been surpassed by any adult animation you care to mention including the increasingly terrible Family Guy.

On a lighter note:

[born2bwild]

I have always found the Simpsons to be, in spite of its cleverness, far too pleased with itself .There's always a moral to the story, its fictional horizons are those of the putative 'normal' American family and its plots all tend to apologise (mostly through Homer) for the imperfections and celebrate the stability of that institution.

I laugh at it in spite of all that....I like the episode when Homer listens to the wrong hypnosis tape (increase your vocabulary instead of stop smoking).

I usually watch Beavis and Butthead to get the Simpsons out of my system.

[Dunny]

http://eyeonspringfield.tumblr.com/

[BonnieShels]

Ah... I love this one also...

[Lev Yashin]

so many classic moments

[Lionel Ritchie]

As Fry pointed out on Futurama - It's been ****e for the last 500 years.

I remember a friend in school, 5th year autumn 89 to narrow it a bit, telling me about a scene where Homer set an animal trap and launched a rabbit into the sky ...I laughed for days -hadn't even seen the thing. Remember kids -ALL the various adult/adult-ish animations out there that you see, enjoy, engage with ...ALL owe their very existence, never mind their varying degrees of popularity ...to The Simpsons. (and yes the Glee related episode went right over my head too!)

[Schumi]

Monorail!

[John83]

...Remember kids -ALL the various adult/adult-ish animations out there that you see, enjoy, engage with ...ALL owe their very existence, never mind their varying degrees of popularity ...to The Simpsons. (and yes the Glee related episode went right over my head too!)

But yes, it's true. I've been to house parties which degenerated into Simpsons singalongs. It's the definitive cultural reference for people in certain age ranges.

[Dunny]

The best of Willie

[Spudulika]

"Hot stuff, coming through" - how I wish a former Presidential candidate would have said that. Great episode.

It's so hard to pick one exact episode to call the best, though I'd given up watching it a couple of years back, South Park too. The U2 episode is good, especially the bit when Monty Burns says w@nker

[superfrank]

'Twas a remarkable show. I remember watching it everyday around 7pm on Sky.

It started to dip around 2000 and never got back to being as good but even when I see newer episodes, they still give me a laugh.

Undoubtedly, its best feature is how it appeals to both children and adults. I remember one example, the episode where Lisa is going out with Nelson. He lies about egging Skinners' house and Lisa finds out. He says something like "Alright, I lied, I'm sorry, let's kiss" and she says "No, a kiss doesn't mean anything if it's based on a lie" or something along those lines, something very idealistic but, at the same time, most adults would have taken it in in a cynical light. Anyway, I must have seen that episode about a billion times but it was only when I was older that I actually appreciated that particular joke.

There's a whole thread dedicated to Simpsons quotes on Boards here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056051569

Also, the U2 episode is probably an example of when they started really turning the special guest appearances into boring jokes barely related to the plot. It usually involved someone linked in some way to the episodes plot, who'd pop in and say "Hi, I'm so-and-so" and punch Homer or tease Lisa or something. They used to make better uses of them where the actors would provide the voices for special one-off characters, the episode with Donald Sutherland was just incredible:

"You're banned from this historical society! You and your children, and your children's children... for three months!"