The Simpsons Dive

[Quorthon]

pulpmariachi said:

iamthesmitty said:

The Simpsons still has enough to get laughs out of me, but to be completely honest, as of now, I believe Family Guy is the better TV series. What I think the Simpsons is trying to do is be too much like a mixture of South Park and Family Guy, when instead it should try to be more like... I don't know... THE SIMPSONS.

I'm sorry, but to think "Family Guy" at its best is better than "The Simpsons" at its worst is just heresy.

"Family Guy" is the same tired gag that got old before it was first pulled. Flashbacks and non sequitors galore and then hollow plots that could be wrapped up in five minutes. The writers are the laziest people on television and they just want people to have that stupid, cheap laugh as opposed to one that works and lingers.

I'm not repeating anything new.

I don't disagree with you in that Family Guy has some of the laziest writing for any animated show. That's true. And watching South Park pick apart the series in so harsh and "matter of fact" a way only makes Family Guy look all the cheaper.

But that said, I enjoy watching Family Guy more than the Simpsons these days. As a side to all that, American Dad is still largely a waste of time, with occasional shock value laughs giving it the only bit of substance it has. American Dad is just Archie Bunker all over again with the generic "obsolete values" character learning to adapt to the "new values" of the changing world in every single episode. Dad doesn't like gays, learns that gays are people too, spreads his awakening new message. Didn't see that ending coming a mile away...


Overall, while there are moments of "hit" over a "miss" in some later Simpsons episodes, I still think the series is on a continous nosedive. It didn't used to be hit or miss, like, at all. There are some good jokes, but overall, too many of the episodes feel hollow or just lazily written.

[Heineken Skywalker]

Speaking of non-sequitor lazy writing on "Family Guy", how about that "hilarious" fist fight last week between Peter and the giant chicken? They dragged that pointless thing out for a good five minutes. "Family Guy" can be funny, but crap like that is just lame.

[slayrrr666]

Frankly, neither show really seems lazy. They make me laugh, so I continue to watch them. It's that simple.

[Pulpmariachi]

slayrrr666 said:

Frankly, neither show really seems lazy. They make me laugh, so I continue to watch them. It's that simple.

I think you're missing the point of the statement.

My claim is the "Family Guy" writers don't really think out their jokes and instead just write one thing over and over in different ways, then resort to the characters doing stupid things for a prolonged period of time.

You know that "Simpsons" where Sideshow Bob corners the Simpsons on the boathouse? Then there's the rake scene, which is funny in its own right because it was unexpected and then there were loads of jokes going on before and after? Yeah, McFarlane just took that joke and made an entire series outta it.

[slayrrr666]

That honestly doesn't bother me. Ripping off the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV is certainly not a bad thing. I wish more would do that, as it's guaranteed to make me laugh. 30 minutes of someone stepping on rakes would probably kill me with laughter.

And besides, it's nearly impossible to do anything original at all anymore. It's just what you do with the past influences is what matters. Family Guy is good enough for laughs, and I've certainly seen far less funny sitcoms that try to imitate what they've done.

[Quorthon]

heinekenskywalker said:

Speaking of non-sequitor lazy writing on "Family Guy", how about that "hilarious" fist fight last week between Peter and the giant chicken? They dragged that pointless thing out for a good five minutes. "Family Guy" can be funny, but crap like that is just lame.

I actually felt ripped off the first time I saw that second fist-fight between Peter and the Chicken. The first one was long enough blasting away for 2 or 3 minutes, and the second time they did it, it was so long that an entire segment of the show was wasted. Instead of a 21-minute show, we had a 14-minute one, which would be all the shorter when one factors in the rest of the pointless jokes that showed up afterwards.



In a sense, Slayrrr is right--everything's been done before. But there are more clever ways to do things. I'm annoyed these days seeing such predictable episode plotlines. "Oh, this is going to be the 'heat wave' episode," or "this is going to be the 'camping' episode," or "this is the 'daughter-dates-someone-Dad-doesn't-like' episode," or "oh this is going to be 'latest-cliche-sitcom-outing-that's-been-done-a-million-times-before' episode."

Family-based sitcoms are pretty much dead and totally out of ideas. The last original family-based sitcom was Malcolm in the Middle, which I still hold in high regard (up there with Seinfeld) as one of the last truly original sitcoms on television. The writing never became stale, the stories never predictable or cliche. The characters always funny, and even heartwarming when they needed to be. It didn't try to get all topical and preachy, and there was a continuous story lining the bottom of every episode to carry the series along. With Malcolm in the Middle, we didn't even have the typical "family sitcom standard set" of a couch facing the audience used for 15 out of 21 minutes out of every episode. That couch-facing-the-audience set-up was hardly ever used compared to most family sitcoms. American Dad uses it more and let's face it, as an animated show, they shouldn't be constrained to such static sets.

The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad have all fallen into running "classic" (cliche) sitcom stories and settings. The Simpsons tries to hide it by being overly topical (thus dating the episodes and ruining the chances of them being timeless), and Family Guy and American Dad just use obscene language and shock-laughs to hide what is essentially every other family sitcom plotline that came before (Family Guy) or what is essentially every Archie-Bunker-esque storyline that came before (American Dad). I watch some of these newer ones and I can't stop thinking half the time how, "this has so been done before" and how "sitcom cliche" some of the stories are.

Everything may have been done before, but there's no excuse for being so lazy with so much of the writing for these or other "normal" sitcoms these days. Like there's a hat filled with bits of paper, and on each piece of paper is written a cliche sitcom storyline, and rather than be creative, the writers of Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad (and a whole host of other live-action sitcoms) just pluck out a piece of paper and theme their episode on what's written there.




In the average Family Guy writing session:

"Roy picked the 'teenager-going-through-changes' plotline from the hat. The pink font indicates that it revolves around the female teenager if there is more than one teenager."

"I'll grab a pre-written script from the Cliche Plot File Cabinet and start making the necessary changes. I should be done in a half an hour or so."

"Frank, do you want to add the Family Guy standard unnecessary jokes or Family Guy standard profanity?"

"Profanity."

"Who wants jokes...?"



That's the extent of the creativity these days.

[slayrrr666]

It never goes deep enough that I get angry at what's going on, instead I just let myself go and sink into the show, enjoying it for it's ability to make me laugh. There's hardly anything new left, so I never bother trying to search for it. Instead, I let it happen and it happens to be funny.

Besides, I enjoy seeing all those old cliches again and again. On Frasier, every time there was an episode that mistaken one of them as being gay was laugh-out-loud funny as it's a plotline that feels funny to me. Every time a show decides to feature a vacation episode, either as a destination or road-trip episode, I know exactly what to expect in every one (road-trip: they're going to be at each other's throats the entire time for inconsequential matters. Destination: someone is going to be a clutz and smash into everything in an attempt to prove that they're actually good at whatever they're there for) and the same goes for numerous other ones.

It's not a matter of they're not being anything new out there. It's just a matter of finding ways to make me enjoy spending a half-hour watching it. These are done in spades on all three shows, so I keep them in my regular viewing rotation.

[Heineken Skywalker]

From IMDB:

'Simpsons' Actors Go On Strike

A de facto strike has hit production of The Simpsons, with the key actors providing the principal characters' voices, Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe) and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns), demanding raises from about $360,000 per episode to $500,000, Daily Variety reported today (Tuesday). With the actors refusing to record the dialog for upcoming episodes, production has been on hold, and it now appears that fewer episodes than the usual 22 will be turned out for next season, the trade publication said.

I love THE SIMPSONS, and everyone on that show is extremely talented, but gawd, actors are so spoiled. Here's an acting gig where you don't even have to go into costumes or hair and makeup because no one's ever going to see you. You can gain or lose weight and no one cares. You could dress in a bathrobe if you wanted to while they're recording your voice in that booth. And some weeks you barely have any dialogue to speak at all, depending on who the episode is focusing on. And these people are striking 'cause they're only getting $360,000 PER EPISODE?? I wish I made $360,000 PER YEAR!!!!

I could almost see it if this cast was made up of actors who were in demand for live-action roles too, but other than Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer, who occasionally pop-up in movies, when was the last time you said, "Ooh, I have to go see that new Yeardley Smith film!!"??
You know who the biggest star was in THE SIMPSONS MOVIE? Yup, Tom Hanks.

[slayrrr666]

Totally agree on that. I wish I made that kind of money over 2 years, and they're getting it for 2-3 hours of work? Sign me up for that, as I can imitate other accents pretty well and can be a recurring character on the show. It's retarded, and all of this started with earning $20 million dollars for a movie. I don't care who you are, there's no one out there worth that much money for a single film. Once that barrier was crossed, this all went to hell.

[Quorthon]

May 20, 2008 17:48:23 GMT -5 Heineken Skywalker said:

From IMDB:

'Simpsons' Actors Go On Strike

A de facto strike has hit production of The Simpsons, with the key actors providing the principal characters' voices, Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Hank Azaria (Moe) and Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns), demanding raises from about $360,000 per episode to $500,000, Daily Variety reported today (Tuesday). With the actors refusing to record the dialog for upcoming episodes, production has been on hold, and it now appears that fewer episodes than the usual 22 will be turned out for next season, the trade publication said.

I love THE SIMPSONS, and everyone on that show is extremely talented, but gawd, actors are so spoiled. Here's an acting gig where you don't even have to go into costumes or hair and makeup because no one's ever going to see you. You can gain or lose weight and no one cares. You could dress in a bathrobe if you wanted to while they're recording your voice in that booth. And some weeks you barely have any dialogue to speak at all, depending on who the episode is focusing on. And these people are striking 'cause they're only getting $360,000 PER EPISODE?? I wish I made $360,000 PER YEAR!!!!

I could almost see it if this cast was made up of actors who were in demand for live-action roles too, but other than Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer, who occasionally pop-up in movies, when was the last time you said, "Ooh, I have to go see that new Yeardley Smith film!!"??
You know who the biggest star was in THE SIMPSONS MOVIE? Yup, Tom Hanks.

That's more money than I've made my whole life.

Seriously, I lived for under $10,000 a year when in college. And I was able to keep that going for a while.


Ugh.

[ZapRowsdower]

Just watched last Sunday's episode...

I hate to say it, but man, the Simpsons really suck now.

I chuckled maybe once or twice... And then realized how that joke could have just as easily been used in South Park or Family Guy. It seems they're trying to make the Simpsons more like South Park and Family Guy. My question is, why can't they make it more like... oh, I don't know... THE SIMPSONS?

I love South Park, and I love Family Guy, but the Simpsons has always been a great show for what it was. For 10 seasons, it was the greatest show on television. Why did they decide it was a good idea to fix it when it wasn't even broken? This last episode was so devoid of humor I just wanted to cry. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I think this is the season where the Simpsons have hit rock bottom. Would I say it jumped the shark? Maybe two or three.

[Heineken Skywalker]

I watched it too, and I while I agree it wasn't a good episode, there have been several episodes this season that have been very good. This year's Treehouse of Horror was probably the best one they've done in a long, long time, for instance.
After so many years on the air, to not expect a clunker from time to time is just silly.

"Jumped the shark", huh? I've got another overplayed saying for ya, "They can't all be homeruns.".

[ZapRowsdower]

Eh... It's one of two episodes I've seen this season, both of which were stinkers.

Although I don't doubt the Treehouse of Horror episode was excellent. They always put plenty of effort into those ones.