Episodes that feel like they belong in another era

Mister_Jacobs

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Homerpalooza from season 7 has a vague Scully-esque feel to it; it certainly feels a bit like a precursor to his era.

King of the Hill, Miracle on Evergreen Terrace and Natural Born Kissers all Scully episodes have more an Oakley & Weinstein feel to them.
 
Hmm, I would have to say "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" and "Hardly Kirk-ing" felt rather Scully-esque to me. And though "My Sister My Sitter" was by Oakley and Weinstein, it feels more like a Scully episode to me at times.
 
Hungry Hungry Homer feels like it could be a Mirkin episode outside of a few things (mostly unrelated first act at Blockoland, ending with the mayor).

I actually agree with My Sister My Sitter, it employs the sort of "everyone is insufferable" characterization that was so common in the Scully era. It's one of the few pre-Scully episodes I straight up dislike.
 
Monty Burns Fleeing Circus feels like a Scully era episode that's script was just lying around for over a decade until they animated it. It had typical Scully era quirks such as: complete cartoonish wackiness (Springfield is destroyed but is fixed by the next act), oddly violent and dark scenes (several characters are injuried, mutliated, and Ralph and Sherri (or Terri) straight up die), random guest stars (Amy Schumer gets two lines in this), and a bizarre ending (Burns is humiliated again but is randomly over it for no reason).

Really, the only thing missing was that they didn't have Homer as the main focus by having him be Burns' assistant and end up taking over the show by sabotaging the other acts or something.
 
Not going to lie i think 'The Town' felt like a season 11/12 episode but I can't put my finger on why...
 
"Trilogy of Error" seems like an experimental Oakley/Weinstein episode.

"Lisa the Iconoclast" could easily have been an Early Jean Era episode (s13-16) given its landmarks: Lisa being overly preachy that no one will accept the truth, very little Bart (three lines total), Homer getting a wacky new job by assaulting Ned in public twice where no one seemed to care either time (and when he did get his comeuppance, it was because he supported his daughter), dark corpse jokes (Wiggum playing with the skull), a "joke" about a sniper nearly killing Lisa... just update the technology a bit and replace Troy McClure with a random guest star, and you got yourself an Early Jean episode.
 
Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious feels like it could almost be a Jean era episode by having elements like: the Simpsons being portrayed as a completely broken and miserable family, characters acting out of character (like Lisa suddenly being really lazy) just to make the plot "work", Sherry Bobbins being an obvious parody of a popular character with a slightly different name, and characters just randomly hanging out with each other (Sherry goes drinking with Barney in the Simpsons house).
 
Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious feels like it could almost be a Jean era episode by having elements like: the Simpsons being portrayed as a completely broken and miserable family, characters acting out of character (like Lisa suddenly being really lazy) just to make the plot "work", Sherry Bobbins being an obvious parody of a popular character with a slightly different name, and characters just randomly hanging out with each other (Sherry goes drinking with Barney in the Simpsons house).

Well technically it was a Jean episode since he produced it with Mike Reiss.
 
"The Springfield Files" could be a Scully episode - it was the first non-THOH episode to have Kodos or Kang be real, and did so with them and the other aliens in a way that makes no sense - if those aliens and Chewbacca and the others were real, why did no one believe Homer about his alien?
 
I only mentioned it because the Scully era is the era where the show started to go THOH/Family Guy with a real Loch Ness monster, Jockey Elves, Godzilla and other monsters, etc. And also because it still defies logic - just like how the Jockey Elves were hardly a threat (beaten by a hose and garbage bag?), no one believing Homer about the alien makes no sense if Chewbacca, Kodos/Kang, Marvin the Martian, and the guy from The Day The Earth Stood Still are all blatantly right there.
 
The Simpsons dabbling into surrealism for a gag is nothing new. Having a bunch of aliens show up for a joke is no different than Frink's flying bike in Lemon Of Troy, or the robotic Richard Simons in Burns' Heir, or Leonard Nimoy teleporting in Marge Vs. The Monorail. The difference is when the surrealism begins to affect the plot, which the jockey elves and loch ness monster did.
 
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I mean, I thought it was funny myself, especially Chewbacca singing Good Morning Starshine and buying a Homer is a Dope T-Shirt, it just doesn't really make sense that even though Chewbacca and a bunch of other aliens are right there, people still question Homer about seeing an alien.

I'm not complaining, just pointing it out.
 
"The Springfield Files" could be a Scully episode - it was the first non-THOH episode to have Kodos or Kang be real

It's not exactly Kang or Kodos, but Radio Bart had a dead Rigelian

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I agree about it feeling more like a Scully one, even if I still also agree with Storm about it having the key difference of not affecting the plot the same way it would a few seasons later.
 
I could see Itchy and Scratchy Land qualify as a very early Scully or Jean episode, since the finale ends with the Simpsons attacked by evil killer robots.

I also agree about the surrealism thing, there was nothing wrong with having something wacky happen for the sake of a quick joke, like the scene where Burns has monkeys writing Shakespeare, but when it became an actual part of the plot, it became a problem. I'm fairly certain the previously mentioned Itchy and Scratchy Land was the first sign of this happening...I mean, again, the episode ends with the Simpsons having to fight killer robots in a theme park.
 
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I've always thought it was odd how the third act of Itchy And Scratchyland gets such a pass from fans but would almost certainly be ripped to shreds under Scully. It feels like Swartzwelder ran out of things to do with the theme park setting so he just wanted to end it on a random Westworld tribute. It's my least favorite part of an otherwise excellent episode - too much of a breach of reality for my tastes.
 
I don't mind it or think it hurts the episode, but yeah, the last act of Itchy & Scratchy Land really is a jarring swing into THOH territory, especially for so early in the show's run
 
I'd feel better about the whole setpiece if it had more memorable jokes - I think the funniest one actually comes from the second/third act break with Homer "wooing" the bots.

Okay, "when you get to hell, tell them Itchy sent you" is pretty great too.
 
yeah i guess, but then again its not like mad shit never happened in season 2 and 3 haha
 
Looking back at "Homer's Enemy", while some believe it was the gateway to Jerkass Homer, another thing it has in common with the Scully era is also characters acting out of character to make parts of it "work" (Lovejoy, Marge, and Lisa laughing"s at Homer dozing off, Mr. Burns being swayed and hiring employees out of pity, Smithers being right there and not even attempting to stop Grimes from reaching for the high voltage wires), plus it may have been the start of Moe becoming violent, somewhat shits on Simpsons history (Homer did not win the Grammy by being lazy), and a blatant continuity error within the same episode (the news shows Grimes living in a small house, then suddenly he says he lives in room between two bowling alleys) as well as a character who seemingly teleported (Chief Wiggum should be in the audience, but Sarah Wiggum is right there with Clancy nowhere to be seen).

"Secrets of a Successful Marriage" could be an early Jean episode, since as I've said, it basically flat-out says that Marge is an enabler who will always take Homer back no matter how much he screws up, plus the start of Stalker Moe.
 
Bart the Daredevil is an episode that feels like its from multiple eras, Some of the wackier parts and some of the Jokes feels like a Jean and Reiss episode (even straying into Mirkin a little bit) but there are also some lines that are feel like they are from season 1. Whatever it is, it doesn't really feel like a season 2 episode.
 
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