Why do People hate on The Simpsons so much?

McClure said:
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That's ironic, considering that 90% of your posts fall into that category.
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No, I don't think so anymore. I used to make posts like that, but recently, I think I've been improving on the quality of my posts, so I think that argument is a bit old.

Besides, blanket statements that praise the show get thumbed down. Then why do blanket statements that bash the show get thumbed up?

Finally, I actually don't think is anywhere near as well-known as you made it out to be. Outside of some places on the internet, I haven't seen anyone mention it. I haven't met anyone in real life who thinks this way and I've read several articles about the show that have gone without mention of it. Overall, I think the show is in good standing in both wuality and popularity and it considered a great thing.
 
D'ohmer said:
No, I don't think so anymore. I used to make posts like that, but recently, I think I've been improving on the quality of my posts, so I think that argument is a bit old.

Besides, blanket statements that praise the show get thumbed down. Then why do blanket statements that bash the show get thumbed up?
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People who follow the show are more aware of the problems than someone who claims to like the show (and then acts surprised to learn new episodes are still being produced).

Finally, I actually don't think is anywhere near as well-known as you made it out to be. Outside of some places on the internet, I haven't seen anyone mention it. I haven't met anyone in real life who thinks this way and I've read several articles about the show that have gone without mention of it. Overall, I think the show is in good standing in both wuality and popularity and it considered a great thing.
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The fact is the Simpsons has been Grandfathered in TV history. This fact alone means the Simpsons is now above being critically questioned and the casual fanbase sees the show as something that invokes warm memories of all your 'favorite times' you had growing up with the Simpsons. Your problem, D'ohmer, is you confuse the show's instituionality and profitable name with the quality of the new episodes. It's like saying "My 2011 Ford Focus is the best car ever made because Ford is such a well known name."

Also, articles tend to mention the decline from time to time, but at this point, talking about it in the media is like beating a dead horse. Everyone knows it's fact the show has declined and talking about it is about as useless as showing a spinning newspaper headline that reads: "Newsflash: The Simpsons is Yellow!". It's just that NOBODY CARES ANYMORE. And with advertising dollars from NewsCorp at stake, what online media outlet would have an independent thinking columnist say how bad those "loveable" Simpsons characters and show have become? He'd probably be bounced out of a job faster than the rising cost of gas. You'll be hard pressed to find strangers who don't receive a check from Gracie Films who'll say the new Simpsons episodes have enough merit to stand on their own.

laurso99 said:
The reason people hate on the Simpsons now is that it used to be an intelligent show, and even during the scully era when the show lost it's subtlety and intelligence there was still some degree of good humour, now the simpsons just lazily coasts by spewing out crap aimed at those with not the brain cells or the good humour to be properly engaged in show.
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Since Scully, the average age of the Simpsons fans has decreased dramatically. The Simpsons used to be a non-raunchy adult, animated Sitcom that kids just happen to watch because it was animated, now it's an 'all ages' generic cartoon that'd look more at home next to NickToons. Also, if you're under the age of 14 and think Seasons 1 and 2 are the most 'boring' and 'stupid' because Homer sounded stupid and the animation was 'terrible', let me tell you how much of a freaking idiot you are.
 
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D'ohmer said:
I don't think I really send that much. If you have gotten a lot of them, then I apologize. I did use to use the thumbs down/up feature as a disagree/agree tool, but I've recently been using it as more of whether or not I think the post is quality. Besides, simply getting thumbs down is different than recieving a condescending reply to someone's opinion. I never gave thumbs downs to posts that I disagreed with, but were actually reasonable. Random, condescending remarks at the show, or quick statements without any reasoning whatsoever got thumbed down by me. I don't remember any of your posts that I gave a thumbs down to, so I am not saying that you made any of those posts, I am just letting you know.
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You just "Thumbs Downed" me a 3 days later for the same fucking post you are responding to about how you don't "Thumbs Down" people, or are limited in appraoch.... Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is wrong with you?
 
I was a fan of the Simpsons since they were just shorts on the Tracy Ullman show, and when Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire aired for the first time I distinctly remember talking about it on the schoolyard the next day saying how awesome it was. "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?" that blew my mind. I had a subscription to Simpsons Illustrated, and a Bart Simpson "Don't Have a Cow Man" poster on my wall. The show's heyday was when I was in high school, and people watched the new episodes every week, and watched the [newly] syndicated episodes over and over every day. Everybody quoted the show and we'd laugh ourselves stupid doing it.

Admittedly, I find the first couple of seasons dull and uninteresting. But I have seasons 3 to 7 on DVD and I still watch them, and they still make me laugh. Not out of any sense of nostalgia, but they're genuinely brilliant. I started losing interest in the show in 2000, and I distinctly remember saying to my colleagues at my university newspaper that the show should come to an end soon.

But here we are 10 years later.

Look, I'm starved for funny things to watch. I love to laugh. The Simpsons just is not quality entertainment I want to waste my time on. I still love the Simpsons for what it was, hate it for what it is now.
 
joe said:
The Simpsons is unwatchable putrid shit, but somehow Family Guy still manages to be worse. Really incredible.
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that was my lame attempt to reference the first post. However, I enjoy Family Guy more than new The Simpsons, because it doesn't bore me.
 
Le Jake said:
Since Scully, the average age of the Simpsons fans has decreased dramatically. The Simpsons used to be a non-raunchy adult, animated Sitcom that kids just happen to watch because it was animated, now it's an 'all ages' generic cartoon that'd look more at home next to NickToons. Also, if you're under the age of 14 and think Seasons 1 and 2 are the most 'boring' and 'stupid' because Homer sounded stupid and the animation was 'terrible', let me tell you how much of a freaking idiot you are.
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This post is perfect.
 
Are kids really all that into The Simpsons anymore? As Phil kind of suggests (maybe not intentionally adding to that debate but still), the show's heyday of popularity with younger kids seems like it was more in the early 90s than anything. Kids have Family Guy and other things nowadays.

Nowadays, I feel like the core audience for The Simpsons is really mainly adults that have been watching it for ages and won't let it go. Whether or not they still enjoy it to some extent.
 
i think that a good chunk of the simpsons viewership is probably made of the remaining devotees plus people that just watch television constantly and just watch whatever is on. i'm sure there are teenagers/kids that like the simpsons but yeah i would think that most of them would find it dull and prefer to watch family guy or south park or whatever.
 
In college, I think the few people I knew who still watched The Simpsons were usually my professors. Most everyone roughly my own age seemed to either agree it had gotten lame and had stopped watching, or simply had stopped watching because they had moved on and didn't really think about it much anymore in general (some didn't know it was still on). Everyone grew up with it but few still watched it or cared about it. I was about a year older than most other graduates, but when I finished I found that a lot of the younger students, freshman or sophomores, I knew had never even seen an episode, despite being the "types" that would have watched it before.

I know there's a limit to that sort of anecdotal evidence, obviously. But I did find it interesting. And it made me feel old at times, with the younger students.

But yeah, the whole argument that The Simpsons became a children's show never really sat that well with me. It always appealed to kids and actually perhaps less so now as it's ceased to be the hot thing. I think the problems the show has faced have less to do with an intentional switch in demographics than just with the sorts of problems that tend to afflict most adult sitcoms, either as they age as The Simpsons has, or from the start in the case of bad/mediocre sitcoms.
 
Anywho, I don't have as much anger toward Mike Scully than I do Al Jean and while he did fuck up preety badly, I doubt it was with the intention of being lazy or to piss us off. What I'm angry about Al, however, is that he was supposed to be this hope for a return to the golden days of yore, a change for the better. But, alas, he turned out to be no better, even worse in many ways, than Scully was as while there was a slight difference, it was barely noticeable as Homer is still a beyond-moronic jerkass, the jokes are still quite shitty, the plots are still bad, and so forth. And personally, even though a majority of people may not agree with me, I truly believe that Al is deliberately making the series worse for whatever reason and well, why else would he not want to leave his post as Showrunner? I mean, think about it. He has a photographic memory of everything that's transpired in the past with the series and thus, should know about the series continuity preety well, aside from the fact he could easily write good episodes if he so chooses but, he doesn't. Whatsmore is he allows insultingly obvious parodies of realworld products which once existed on the series (Ipods, Nintendo Wii, Star Wars, etc.) to be replaced by shitty counterparts (not so much with Star Wars, though) and even if he could not get the rights to use the brand names, he could still try more clever ways on parodying such brand name products and such.

I wish I was wrong, but I certanily don't think so. I mean, people screw up once in a while as no one is perfect but how anyone could let the series get THIS bad is unthinkable.
 
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'he was supposed to be' a hope for an improved Simpsons? did he say that in a press release or something? cuz i'm sort of at a loss how something completely ascribed to him by the fans at the time means absolutely anything.
 
Erm... yeah. I like Scully more than most but what you just said doesn't really wash with me, Snaked.
 
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you were the chosen one... and you betrayed us!!!!!
 
Snaked said:
Anywho, I don't have as much anger toward Mike Scully than I do Al Jean and while he did fuck up preety badly, I doubt it was with the intention of being lazy or to piss us off. What I'm angry about Al, however, is that he was supposed to be this hope for a return to the golden days of yore, a change for the better. But, alas, he turned out to be no better, even worse in many ways, than Scully was as while there was a slight difference, it was barely noticeable as Homer is still a beyond-moronic jerkass, the jokes are still quite shitty, the plots are still bad, and so forth.
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The reason I dislike Jean more than Scully is because at least the latter had sense to walk away after four seasons. Jean is still clinging to his job after 10 years that has seen declining ratings and a lack of critical acclaim. Instead of acknowledging that, he maintains that there's nothing wrong with the show, and that it's just a few vocal internet fans who are complaining.

And in all fairness, up until season 17, I had no problem with the Jean era. Sure there was the odd terrible episode, but the majority of the episodes were enjoyable.
 
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TheForbiddenDonut said:
'he was supposed to be' a hope for an improved Simpsons? did he say that in a press release or something? cuz i'm sort of at a loss how something completely ascribed to him by the fans at the time means absolutely anything.
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The current staff thinks the show today is "as good as ever".
 
You know I really have to reiterate something from my earlier post.

....I still can't believe there's a ride of this show. Like, seriously it really wigs me out. I mean...a lot of things turn out to become so popular that they get a themepark ride and it doesn't detract from the quality of it at all per se; but still for this particular show...remembering how it was viewed and the way that it was generally...I still can't get used to that fact. It's like a meta joke I could easilly see them pull off all that time ago but..it's real. Even if they had merchandised the hell out of this show even long ago, it's still absolutely bizarre to me.
 
I watch this show every week thinking how much better certain jokes/scenes would have been if even I HAD written them, or any other random idiot with a sense of humor and wit about him had. That's why I hate this show so much.
 
Kiyosuki said:
You know I really have to reiterate something from my earlier post.

....I still can't believe there's a ride of this show. Like, seriously it really wigs me out. I mean...a lot of things turn out to become so popular that they get a themepark ride and it doesn't detract from the quality of it at all per se; but still for this particular show...remembering how it was viewed and the way that it was generally...I still can't get used to that fact. It's like a meta joke I could easilly see them pull off all that time ago but..it's real. Even if they had merchandised the hell out of this show even long ago, it's still absolutely bizarre to me.
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i'm a bit confused by this, what's wrong with the show having a ride? from what i've heard the ride is a lot of fun (even though harry shearer isn't involved), and i personally feel a good theme park ride is better than a lot of other merchandising they could do (and i have absolutely no problem with merchandising, either). just curious on what you feel is wrong with it
 
Animal said:
i'm a bit confused by this, what's wrong with the show having a ride? from what i've heard the ride is a lot of fun (even though harry shearer isn't involved), and i personally feel a good theme park ride is better than a lot of other merchandising they could do (and i have absolutely no problem with merchandising, either). just curious on what you feel is wrong with it
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During the first few seasons, the show, through Krusty, made fun of the crass marketing and commercial diarrhea that came from being long standing TV show. Back then, the merchandising and all the Simpsons garbage was a byproduct of the show whereas now it seems like the opposite is true--the show is a byproduct of the merchandising. IMO, I wouldn't care if the junk they sold existed if the show was still written WELL like before Scully was put in charge, but when I'm shopping and I see Simpsons junk for sale--or see pictures of the Simpsons Ride--after watching "Thursdays with Abie", I'm like "barf!'. The irony is the writers say the internet nerds are being hopelessly nostalgic when we bitch about the current state of the show, but in reality Fox wants you to be nostalgic when you're deciding to buy the merchandise. How much is that nostalgia worth?

About $800 million a year.
 
Let's not romanticize the show's earlier "sell-out" days. (Says the guy with a username named after the Bart rap song.)

I only got to skim through parts of that Ortved book on The Simpsons that came out a little bit ago, but assuming some of the tidbits I saw were true, Groening and Brooks were never exactly above merchandising the living hell out of The Simpsons. Brooks pushed hard for the (awful) "Yellow Album" to get made after the first album was such a success, and some of the writers were rather candid about Groening often not being present because he was off appraising product proposals. The writers may have continued to be anti-authoritarian in some of their jokes, even toward their bosses (if I recall correctly from what I read of the book, I believe Smithers' weird relationship with Mr. Burns was partially inspired by Brooks' assistant Richard Sakai, and Burns's behavior in "Blood Feud" too was allegedly based a little bit on Brooks), but Groening and Brooks were certainly at least partially out to make some cash. And it's hard to entirely blame them, really.

There is something weird about the existence of The Ride (which is sort of fun, by the way, but still). But honestly, I think the stuff with Krusty and whatnot was from the very beginning at least partially self-satire and acknowledgment of their own part in the juggernaut of television licensing. Still is, probably.
 
^Even in the Ullman years, actually. If I'm not mistaken, they even introduced Milhouse in one of the Butterfinger spots that aired sometime before "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" first premiered.
 
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