It's Over With The Simpsons

[lazypadawan]

To use a term that has jumped the shark, I think "The Simpsons" has officially jumped the shark.

I loved this show. I watched when "The Simpsons" began as short clips on "The Tracey Ullman Show" in 1987. I saw the Christmas special in '89 and watched the show regularly when it became a series in 1990. It was funny and brilliant. As a SW fan, I loved all of the great SW references. I even wrote a piece about it for my old fanzine Blue Harvest in the mid '90s, a concept the SW Insider picked up two years later. Who could forget Mark Hamill's guest turn a few years ago?

"The Simpsons" overall has been IMO going downhill in quality the past year or so. It just isn't all that funny anymore. I found myself watching "Cold Case" or the Discovery channel or something instead.

Tonight, I decided to catch the show. Imagine my dismay when I saw that part of the episode was a not-so-subtle mean-spirited slam at TPM and at Lucas before it disintegrated into a very unfunny plot about Marge and Homer becoming alcoholics. It's as though they hired a basher to write the script. Hello guys, it's been five freakin' years! Why bash TPM now?!

It's sad to see even "The Simpsons" jumping on the anti-Lucas/anti-prequel bandwagon. Well, I shall not be watching any longer. The best animation is on The Cartoon Network anyway.

Comments

[chibisophia.livejournal.com]

I saw that too and was quite dismayed by it it. I've felt like it's been declining in quality for quite a while now [I liked it much better in the early seasons, where the simpsons still actually had some realistic concerns - like money problems, and still injected character into their archtypes - homer was stupid and greedy but he still cared about his family and friends] but that pretty much settled it. I mean, really, a TPM bash? Wow, way to stay current guys. Next thing you know they'll be making jokes about -gasp- Monica Lewinsky or the Y2K bug.

Funny they made a TPM bash, too - I remember them being big Star Wars fans in the beginning.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things so utterly strange about this episode; it feels so five years ago they may as well have joked about Y2K bugs. 

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

No cartoons on the air worth watching for me until the next season of Clone Wars airs anyway. ;)

I enjoyed the Simpsons back in the day, too - and the Hamill episode's a classic. "I bent my Wookiee" and the "Luke, be a Jedi tonight" song - hard to beat those as far as pop culture SW references go. :) Shame to see they've trod the route so many already have. Fine, so you don't like the prequels. No one cares anymore. (Except some of us, who are giving them more attention than they deserve for it.) Find something else to fill up your episode.

Do I even want to know the details of the bashing?

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

It was straight out of the basher bible; it showed Bart and Lisa going to see a
"Cosmic Wars" movie that was quite obviously TPM.  They showed the Senate scene,
but in this "parody" it involved nothing but Palpatine taking votes, which Bart
and Lisa found boring.  I missed the next couple of minutes because of something
I was doing, but Bart and Lisa go find "Mr. Curtis" at the "Cosmic Wars Ranch"
in Northern California while Homer and Marge get tanked at a winery nearby.  It
was so thinly veiled it was pathetic.  "Curtis" is sitting there writing a tax
audit scene and saying to himself that it's brilliant, when Bart and Lisa come
in to complain that he's lost his way, the older "Cosmic Wars" movies were
timeless classics, blah blah blah.  "Curtis" says they're right, maybe he should
go rent some westerns and samurai movies to see how they used to be done.  BTW,
"Curtis" is a midget no taller than Bart or Lisa.  He gives the kids "Jam Jam"
cereal, modeled of course after Jar Jar.  The kids throw the boxes in the trash
once they leave the ranch.  Bart says something about all you have to do if you
have a problem is complain to the office.  "Curtis" rides off on a Tauntaun,
then you see a drunken Homer and Marge toss him back and forth like a beach
ball.  Terrible.

"Clone Wars" on the other hand, is gonna rock!

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Ugh.

All I've been hearing about is how brilliant and funny it was and how "The Simpsons" now "owns" Lucas. Wait, I thought Peter Jackson did. ;-P

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

It was so not brilliant or funny. I have a sense of humor when it comes to SW but this was just plain mean. It was as though the TFN basher crew submitted a script and out of desperation, the show's producers went with it.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

How depressing...both that "The Simpsons" has jumped the shark, and that it's bashing the prequels. I had thought that the writers liked the prequels; I guess I was mistaken, or they've got new writers.

I usually watch the Discovery channel anyway, and lately they've been rerunning "Six Feet Under." So no huge loss for me.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Given how this is a total shift in their attitudes about SW, how they made a flimsy attempt to "veil" it as something else (what, in case Lucas sues?), and how it was all so unfunny, I suspect these are different writers. 

I'm also surprised this was on Fox, whose parent company owns the studio that
distributes the SW films!  Has corporate synergy ever so not worked for a
franchise?  Can you imagine any of  Time Warner's subsidies saying anything bad
about New Line's crown jewel LOTR?  I'm about ready to suggest Lucas pull a Mel
Gibson and just release Eppy III through a small indie studio.