Which seasons' animation style do you prefer?

Which animation style do you prefer?


  • Total voters
    23

RedX

"Mysterious.... very mysterious."
Joined
May 25, 2022
Messages
18
If you're wondering how I was able to differentiate the seasons for each animation style they had, Simple, I used TV Tropes.
 
I have a weakness for early season 5's animation style, whose looseness hilariously complements the wackiness of the Mirkin era. THOH IV and Homer Goes to College never fail to make me laugh with their visuals.
 
I went with 3-5 but around the period I think they really hit their peak and I can't complain about anything past season 1 up til HD

The first few HD years were really rough... The movie was fine even though it did some 3d thing that I really hate and they still do, like 3d cars, it's probably a lot cheaper to animate but it just looks weird to my eye. There's a comparison video of the classic era vs the HD era comparing the intro for each era of the show. It's hard to argue for the HD era animation.

That being said I'm pretty happy with how the show looks now, a few years back there were still a few weird things that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Sometimes I felt like they just pasted the characters in a scene using whatever tools they had, it sounds a little weird to complain about that considering they just put cels over an image in the past. I think the issue I had was there was depth missing, back in the cels days the characters were surrounded by a shadow, I don't think the first few seasons of the HD era managed to capture that feel.
 
Oooft that's tough. I had to give it to seasons 3-5. Sometimes I'll rewatch Deep Space Homer and be amazed that something that beautifully animated aired on TV at that time.

I also agree with Frankbags that the show has improved a great deal over the last few years in terms of animation quality. I used to see that 'Marge turning her head at the checkout' comparison image frequently on Twitter. Now it's all but vanished.
 
I have a much easier time choosing a least favourite honestly, which is however it looked in the mid teens. I'd need some screenshots to be more specific but it's definitely around there.
 
I have a much easier time choosing a least favourite honestly, which is however it looked in the mid teens. I'd need some screenshots to be more specific but it's definitely around there.
I agree, it's one of the reasons I don't watch those seasons very often
 
Seasons 3 to 5 due to the expressiveness, the giant doey eyes on everyone, and in general everything is very glowy which adds a certain charm. The giant doey eyes made a slight return in seasons 20-21 albeit with just the enlarged pupils which would look so good if the actual animation and those seasons wasn’t so stiff.

On an unrelated note, even though it’s always been animated by Fox, has anyone noticed in the latest seasons of Family Guy, maybe from around season 18, the pupils of the characters are also larger in similar way?

Ever since The Simpsons’ animation went in-house to Fox around season 28, the movements of the characters got way more expressive, sometimes even too expressive. The outlines are also thicker sometimes with characters off-model more often.
 
i went with S14-20, not cuz any of the others aren't good, in fact i think The Simpsons' visuals are always fantastic
But i think I just think i like the style of that era the most, it looks rlly good.
 
Season one actually has my favorite intro. I like seeing Lisa heading home on her bike. There's a lot of charm to s1 despite the frequent off model moments. My favorite season entirely is 2 but I would rank 1 as immediately behind it.
 
Season one actually has my favorite intro. I like seeing Lisa heading home on her bike. There's a lot of charm to s1 despite the frequent off model moments. My favorite season entirely is 2 but I would rank 1 as immediately behind it.
nah i never thought once the models looke off model
 
There's no doubt that season 2 looks genuinely amazing a lot of the time, which remains quite surprising as it's the second season & the show hadn't quite found itself and its style (which it did with season 3, I'd say), despite the season still being really great. I think David Silverman was a great asset in the early seasons (but I'd also just as much credit the writers, such as Jon Vitti, for laying the groundwork).

While season 2 both looked and was excellent, I think the expressiveness of the animation definitely saw an upturn in the following classic seasons (3 and onward) and that was a plus, but I'm unsure of which batch of seasons has my favorite: I Iike pretty much all of the styles in the first nine seasons (even that of 6 through 9; I liked that less cartoonish and a tad more grounded approach), but also some of the post classic stuff (Scully seasons & even the pre-HD Jean seasons have some really good animation).
 
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My favorite animation comes from the Mirkin seasons (coincidentally my favorite era of the show), I love the wacky facial expressions and those weird huge pupils (even though the pupils weren't drawn like that on purpose)
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of course everything from seasons 2 to 9 (and to an extent s1) had some really wonderful animation as well, examples inlude:
Krusty Gets Busted, Bart vs. Thanksgiving, Three Men and a Comic Book, Homer the Heretic, Treehouse of Horror VI, Raging Abe Simpson etc., El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer and that dance sequence in Grade School Confidential.

Seasons 10-13 had more consistent outlines and colors but that's more of a change in the artstyle, not the animation itself. This was also around the time Lauren MacMullan started directing and her episodes were always of above average quality, I really enjoy how she often went off-model in inbetween frames, it reminds of David Silverman's animation in earlier seasons.

Seasons 14-20 were almost the same as 10-13.

Seasons 20+ got a little worse but slowly improved later on, partly because computer animation allows for more detail that just would've been impossible or too expensive with cels.

A example of a recent episode with great animation is season 31's Gorillas On The Mast.
 
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Agreed with Don Homer.

Stumbled across this screenshot yesterday and burst out laughing at Lisa's blank expression.
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@muppet, I had almost forgotten there was a trend with the character having huge pupils in many episodes around season 5 (I think). Those almost stoned-looking, often blank stares are so goofy and really supplemented the joke writing.
 
MacMullan's episodes were my fave look... but the refined modern style isn't half-bad, either.
 
MacMullan's episodes are on par with the classic era, direction-wise, to create an immersive mood. Just look at some scenes of her like Lisa in the surveillance room in Bye Bye Nerdie (too bad she has to deal with not-so-great writing for this one).

I too think season 1 is underrated in terms of animation. It might be crude, but it's also so fluid most of the time.
 
It's more than just the animation itself though. The cinematography of season 2 was leaps and bounds ahead of any other classic season.
I do agree but I feel the same way a bout season 4 only there’s not as many little details (for example in principal charming the cracks in the wall bin patty and Selma’s wall next tpntje door or in Bart vs thanksgiving when he crosses the other side of the tracks so many little details I notice something new every time) season 4 doesn’t have As many little details it’s more “polished” but I like 2 and 4 the best. Thanks for the reminder b boy ;)
 
MacMullan's episodes were my fave look... but the refined modern style isn't half-bad, either.

I definitely think Lauren's episodes are some of the best looking individual episodes. It has both the style, the fluidity, the coloring & the angles but that lighting work alone gives it the right kind of zazz; the perfect cherry on top. No matter the quality of the scripts themselves, she always delivered on the directing front. No exceptions. When she left the show, it lost one of their greatest directors. Would be cool if she made a guest directing job and handled a modern episode (I'd be curious just to see how she'd utilize that current modern HD era animation style, which really can look great at times, to her advantage).

Speaking of the period her episodes were released in, Those Scully & early Jean era episodes really had some great animation as a whole, not just MacMullan's episodes. Much like seasons 6 through 8 they were more subdued in comparison to the cartoonish expressiveness of seasons 4 & 5 but are still great and sometimes my preferred style (often harkening back to the animation of season 2 & 3).
 
For me, I think the animation started getting good from Season 3 onwards, and aside from Season 20-21, it has been pretty good. I'd say Seasons 6-19 overall would be the best for me in the Pre-HD era, and Seasons 27 onwards has been pretty great when it comes to the HD era (especially the last two Seasons, the environments look amazing, with shoutouts to "The Saga of Carl Carlson" (which is actually from Season 24), "Pixelated and Afraid" & "Boyz N the Highlands").
 
One of my favorite episodes is three men and a comic book. The storm is really well animated with great lighting (Homer not checking on the boys as thunder howls and lightning flashes is a good joke made better by the art.)
 
There's some great looking classic simpsons episode. I'm always amazed by some of the scenes in "Mr Lisa Goes to Washington". It does feel like they streamlined things too much as the show went to save money somewhere. In the early hd era it feels like they just copy and paste characters and sceneries from their asset library.
 
One of my favorite episodes is three men and a comic book. The storm is really well animated with great lighting (Homer not checking on the boys as thunder howls and lightning flashes is a good joke made better by the art.)

Agreed. The animation direction there meant a lot. The much later 'Raging Abe Simpson And His Grumbling Grandson...' is another amazing-looking individual episode. I think that last third or so features some of the best animation work of the series as a whole, having everything from moody lighting with shadows to expresive animation, even making Mr. Burns feel surprisingly threatening (and definitely showed that the Oakley & Weinstein era had some seriously well-animated stuff).
 
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