When did The Simpsons jump the shark?

[OCGuy81]

Like many who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I was a huge fan of The Simpsons.  There were so many great jokes, characters, quotable moments, etc.  I always looked forward to watching it each week.

That said, I probably started tuning out when I was in college in the early 2000s.  I haven't really watched it since until recently trying to watch some of the newest season.  Wow....it is really, really unfunny now, at least to me.

Homer is overly stupid.  Yes yes, his being stupid is a long time running gag, but I feel in the heyday of the series, it was more a lax attitude towards work and parenting.  Now he seems stupid just to wind up in ridiculous situations, even by cartoon standards.

There's an over reliance on secondary characters like Gill, Cookie Kwan, and Lenny.  Some of the other characters schtick has really grown tired.  "Oh look....Nelson has business cards that says he'll say Haw-haw at weddings and company picnics!" (cue crickets)

Obviously, anything is going to get stale after 30 years, but WHEN did The Simpsons really jump the shark?

I think the last season I really enjoyed was around season 11 (99-2000)

[texaskdog]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

[OCGuy81]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A lot of discussion on this question points to when Homer transitioned from being a dumb but lovable character into a sadistic, douche parody of himself.

[texaskdog]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

[OCGuy81]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

I gotta admit, having neighbors I like and getting together in the evening to drink beer in the alley sounds pretty relaxing!

[texaskdog]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

I gotta admit, having neighbors I like and getting together in the evening to drink beer in the alley sounds pretty relaxing!

Just moved to our first house that we own.  While we never did it before might be something we do now  

[OCGuy81]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

I gotta admit, having neighbors I like and getting together in the evening to drink beer in the alley sounds pretty relaxing!

Just moved to our first house that we own.  While we never did it before might be something we do now  

Nice! Congrats on the new home!

[Takumi]

I liked some episodes from the middle years, up to season 13 or so.

Re: King of the Hill, I always liked Mike Judge's story about where the voice of Boomhauer came from.
https://youtu.be/rd_rty0ovgQ

[Rothman]

Before movie and after movie.

[formulanone]

Seasons 3-8 are when it peaked, but then 9-10 started a tiny decline (most are still pretty good), but 11 and onwards were less impressive...I've still not watched seasons 12-13 all the way through, but I'll wander over to a random episode every so often. There were some good episodes after that, but mostly sandwiched between others with oft-recycled plot lines.

If you'd asked me 20 years ago "when did The Simpsons jump the shark?", I would have said it was Homer's Enemy (the Frank Grimes episode). And in a lot of ways, it really made you hate Homer Simpson and the show in general. A few years later, it's one of my favorites because it was different. The show was able to weather a few bad episodes but then crap like Armin Tamzarian (?) just seemed to be hashed together to make something shocking and surprising but just looked and sounded stupid.

There's a lot of reasons why usually Seasons 9-10 were in the decline:

1) A lot of staff writer change-over.
2) An over-reliance on having obvious guest stars (some are just better guests than others)
3) The scripts weren't so edgy/shocking/controversial anymore (that can set in with lots of once-groundbreaking shows)
4) What less-believable job will Homer have for the next three days? (I'm sure we can all relate to collecting grease...right?)
5) Excessive character traits which makes them less relatable.

[texaskdog]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

I gotta admit, having neighbors I like and getting together in the evening to drink beer in the alley sounds pretty relaxing!

Just moved to our first house that we own.  While we never did it before might be something we do now  

Nice! Congrats on the new home!

Thanks.  I call our porch the Mayberry porch as everyone has a front porch and frequently see many using them.  In our old neighborhood not many porches and hardly anyone sat outside.

[Stephane Dumas]

Armin Tamzarian aka "The Principal and the Pauper" who erased Seymour Skinner's past. I could also add to the moment when the Simpsons jumped the shark like "Homer vs Dignity" where Homer got raped by a panda, when they killed Maude Flanders because the voice actress asked for a raise and the death of Phil Hartman who voiced Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz left a big void. Gil is a lousy lawyer compared to Lionel Hutz and the removal of Apu.

The Boys of Bummer where almost all citizens of Springfield wanted Bart dead because Bart lost a baseball game against Shelbyville might be when the Simpsons nuked the fridge althought the episode "That '90s show" did a retelling of Homer and Marge first romance was a slap in the face of long time fans.

[renegade]

Who says they have?

[Rothman]

Who says they have?

Eesh.  A very slim minority view.

[OCGuy81]

I think one of the ones that made me tune out for a very long time was an 11th season episode called "Saddlesore Galactica".  It's an outlandish plot, featuring jockeys who abduct and threaten Homer in their underground lair, and even has the show realizing it's one of the "worst episodes ever" via the Comic Book Guy saying so.

[Mr_Northside]

To start, I can't actually answer the specific question of this thread.  I know I don't watch near as much Simpsons as I did in the first 8-10 years of the show.  I do know I think the episodes since aren't as great or classic, which is personal taste, but I'm not one of the people who thinks it "sucks" now (or even for quite some time now).  I'll still tune into random episodes sometimes when they are on, and usually enjoy newer ones I've either never seen before, or maybe saw once.  Not always, but usually I won't regret the half-hour spent.

I find it quite interesting, the whole thing really.  The notion of a show being on for over 30 years, but having characters that don't age along with you is..... I'm not sure of the word.  I was pretty much the same age as Bart when the show first aired, and now I am as old (maybe even just a little older) as Homer.  Of course, society has changed in 30 years as well - and with more original content being produced, they are now a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond than back in the day when they helped put the new Fox network on the map.

That said, I'll still be sad when they wrap up the show for good (whenever that will be) - even if I very, very rarely watch them when they first air, it's still comforting to know they are there (regardless of the discussion of how people view the quality of the show now vs. then)

[kphoger]

Homer is overly stupid.  Yes yes, his being stupid is a long time running gag, but I feel in the heyday of the series, it was more a lax attitude towards work and parenting.  Now he seems stupid just to wind up in ridiculous situations, even by cartoon standards.

Has any sitcom since the 1990s had a family father or husband who isn't a fool, hapless, or otherwise pitiful?  Heck, Everybody Loves Raymond capitalized on it.

[WillWeaverRVA]

The episodes stopped being interesting to me around season 10 or so. I flat out stopped watching after season 11.

[GCrites]

I find it quite interesting, the whole thing really.  The notion of a show being on for over 30 years, but having characters that don't age along with you is..... I'm not sure of the word.  I was pretty much the same age as Bart when the show first aired, and now I am as old (maybe even just a little older) as Homer. 

We are older than Homer. The oldest he has been listed at is 40. Very early on he was 34. So he ages at 5% speed.

[dlsterner]

Has any sitcom since the 1990s had a family father or husband who isn't a fool, hapless, or otherwise pitiful?  Heck, Everybody Loves Raymond capitalized on it.

I think that's been going on longer than since the 1990s!     Many sitcoms of the 1970s and 1980s used the "Dad is a doofus" theme.

[ErmineNotyours]

I could also add to the moment when the Simpsons jumped the shark like "Homer vs Dignity" where Homer got raped by a panda,
...

I was going to mention that very episode.  "Jumped the shark" is a term inspired by Happy Days, but The Simpsons deserves it's own "raped by a panda" category when the writers don't care about fan expectations and will do anything to shock.  It's not even a terribly original idea as a character on Trading Places was raped by a primate, though at least that movie was rated R and you knew what you were in for.

[texaskdog]

Season 2.  It's the type of show I should love, but I'm more into King of the Hill, and to a lesser extent Family Guy & South Park.

I really enjoyed King of the Hill as well! I liked the humor that came from the mundane details of everyday life.

Since you're in Texas, texaskdog, how accurate a portrayal of Texas life was that show?

You wouldn't believe it.  When I lived in Minnesota I had married a Texan in 1998 and came down to see her before I was to move.  She dumped me and left me in a motel room and I watched King of the Hill and Texas started to all make sense to me.  When I moved here in 2006 many of the things I thought were made up and stupid turned out to be true.  My wife just got a speeding ticket and tickets are forgiven if you go to driving school, one of them is a comedy driving school.  If you lived here you'd truly understand how Texan it is.  Granted in later season some of it got out there a bit but love of the Cowboys and Longhorns, high school football, love of well cooked meat, accents, tornadoes....Whattaburger!!

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3502535416513478&set=gm.845690472960731

[triplemultiplex]

The first chink in the armor was The Principal and the Pauper early in season 9.  The rest of that season was pretty great otherwise with some of my personal favorites sprinkled in there.
But season 10, that's where it really took a hit.

The reasons are numerous and mostly come down to dilution.  The Simpsons dominated for it's first 9 years because it mostly stood alone.  It was subversive, but with a heart and it attracted a lot of great writers.  Enough that they could shed a few every couple of years to their own projects and keep making good shows.

But in the late 90's, the rest of television caught up to The Simpsons.  It's tone didn't stand out as much any more and other shows began to match it's joke density.  And of course there was the new wave of prime time animated shows; much of which were staffed by Simpsons alumni.  They even did it to themselves with Futurama.

9 seasons in, they were already starting to rehash certain plot types, especially when it came to stories about Homer fucking something up and Marge almost leaving him, but then they figure it out.  And they had already rewrote the show's timeline once in terms of Marge and Hormer's history together.  The exploration of ancillary characters worked well until they blew it with Skinner.  It was the herald of things to come with Octuplets and sober Barney and killing Maude and other shit like that.

My next argument for Season 10 being the one where they were over the hill is the star-fucker episode When You Dish Upon a Star.  It marked the point where celebrity cameos became more about throwing popular names in there so Fox had something easy they could market.  For most of the series to that point, guest voices were less about popularity and more about cool, if that makes sense.  But in this one episode, they crammed a bunch of actors into a forgettable plot that was all about "Hey it's Alec Baldwin and Ron Howard, everyone!"  It's so far removed from the shows initial charm.

I'm probably one of the few people around here who never stopped watching.  There are enough compelling episodes to keep me watching, plus I guess I'm super loyal to some TV shows.  I would actually be quite comfortable if The Simpsons would come to an end.  I am repulsed that they are now owned by Disney and I think that would have been a great time to pull the plug as a grand protest to the absorption of Fox Entertainment by the grotesque amoeba that is the Walt Disney Corporation.  But I still watch it because I'm invested in these characters and I want to see what they're up to.

[jakeroot]

Easily the Frank Grimes episode (Homer's Enemy).

In fact, I would say the exact moment was the end of the episode when he falls asleep at the funeral, and everyone laughs when asks Marge (while asleep) to change the channel (or whatever he said). At that point, it was clear that Homer could be written off as a bumbling idiot to get out of anything; ergo, they could continue to put him in outrageous situations no matter how insanely outrageous they were. All you have to do is say "hey, that's Homer for you!" and bam, next episode.

In a different way, the Armin Tamzarian episode was pretty insulting to viewers, as it made it clear that the writers could rewrite any part of the series to fit a particular narrative, no matter how much material preceded that episode.