Moments from the HD era that have dated already

CousinMerl

CousinMerl

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I was just thinking of this the other day. I'm talking about individual moments, references, jokes & gags and the newer the episode the better.

One that comes to mind is that one joke in 'Steal This Episode' with Homer having the Star Wars/Cosmic Wars screening and there's a gag about the prequel trilogy (I, II & III) having been retconned into never having happened and the audience cheer. While this makes sense, the later hatedom of the sequel trilogy (VII, VIII & IX) which is still going strong (and being even more extreme, aggressive & toxic than the prequel hate), a ton of fans want it to be retconned & the views on the prequel trilogy having softened considerably has left the joke feeling kinda quaint. Still, I'd say this is a case of YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Another one is the Pokémon Go parody in 'Looking For Mr. Goodbart' which came about a year too late (and by so after the enormous fad popularity of the mobile game had died down) so it did date fast, on top of being a lame and surface level spoof made by people who didn't understand the subject so that was a double mistake).

Which dated bits and pieces & jokes from the HD era come to your mind, folks?
 
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Off the top of my head, you can't do any "Better" than the references to Jersey Shore in The Real Housewives of Fat Tony. Already dated when the episode first aired in 2011, and even more embarrassingly so a decade later.

Honorable mention would be any of the THoH segments since at least 2011 where they're just complete shallow parodies of whatever they're referencing like Avatar, Fury Road and Stranger Things.
 
Cletus naming one of his kids CBS All Access now that theyu've rebranded to Paramount+
 
Bart saying to Lisa "We make a great brother and sister team, like Andy and Lana Wachowski" does no longer make sense since Andy is Lilly now.
 
Another episode I thought of that was likely dated before it even aired was The D'oh-Cial Network where you can tell that it was written when only the trailer for The Social Network was out and they never really bothered to watch the film at all once it did (or if they did, they never bothered rewriting it).

And in terms of individual moments from other episodes, two words: Baby Shark.
 
Flanders' Ladder starts off with Bart doing the "scary maze game prank" on Lisa the scary maze game first was released in 2003 and was popular around 2007, Flanders' Ladder aired in 2018. The Simpsons was over a decade late with their reference it just shows how truly out of touch the writers are.
 
That scene in Bart vs. Itchy and Scratchy when Lisa asks Bart how it feels to be trolled, memed, gif'd and pwned?
Definitely, a very cringey line even back when it aired.
 
The entire scene in No Good Read Goes Unpunished where Lisa criticizes people who complained about seeing Apu as an offensive stereotype and basically telling them to piss off, since about a year or two later Hank Azaria would quit voicing him because he agreed with people who saw him as a sterotype and the show would be forced to semi-retire him.
 
SimpsonsWillGoOnForever said:
That scene in Bart vs. Itchy and Scratchy when Lisa asks Bart how it feels to be trolled, memed, gif'd and pwned?
Definitely, a very cringey line even back when it aired.
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Pretty sure that was the joke here, that Lisa is usually so out of touch when it comes to things like these that she would make dated references (if I remember correctly, afterwards she said she read about them in some magazine).
 
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AlphaOmega said:
about a year or two later Hank Azaria would quit voicing him because he agreed with people who saw him as a sterotype and the show would be forced to semi-retire him.
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One could argue he was already semi-retired by then as his last speaking appearance to date was in The Serfsons a few months prior and by this point he was already limited just to being used as background fodder.
 
John95 said:
One could argue he was already semi-retired by then as his last speaking appearance to date was in The Serfsons a few months prior and by this point he was already limited just to being used as background fodder.
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Yeah, but it's pretty obvious the writers had no plans to really deal with it other then mocking people who complained about Apu and telling them to stop whining, so the show announcing a year that Azraia would no longer voice Apu and that he would be voiceless from now on just made them look like fools.
 
@AlphaOmega, Supposedly they're looking into recasting Apu but of course this is proving to be harder than all the recastings from last season. So they end up looking like fools twice!

As for that moment, I remember watching it for the first time and thinking it was the show's version of "We sincerely regret that you felt that way" which I believe I also mentioned in the episode's R&R.

EDIT: Huh, could've sworn I commented on that R&R after the episode aired but I guess not.
 
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AlphaOmega said:
The entire scene in No Good Read Goes Unpunished where Lisa criticizes people who complained about seeing Apu as an offensive stereotype and basically telling them to piss off, since about a year or two later Hank Azaria would quit voicing him because he agreed with people who saw him as a sterotype and the show would be forced to semi-retire him.
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That one was really insulting. The show doing an out of nowhere, in-your-face condescending message (complete with the characters staring into the camera) of an legitimate complaint toward the show felt way below the show, but they did it and it ended up making them look childish and petty (and certainly made me disappointed with the cast and crew).

It really was made even worse since Apu already barely appeared at that point (heck, even since before the 'Problem With Apu' came to light, as I think it was one year or two before that he last had a major speaking part).
 
dorian said:
Flanders' Ladder starts off with Bart doing the "scary maze game prank" on Lisa the scary maze game first was released in 2003 and was popular around 2007, Flanders' Ladder aired in 2018. The Simpsons was over a decade late with their reference it just shows how truly out of touch the writers are.
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Don't confuse the reference to old, forgotten thing the writers reminded in the present time of script writing and "popular (even hyped) in the time of script writing thing, which became forgotten/outdated now".
References to old culture (as aforementioned crazy maze, or every essential Godfather reference, or anything else) don't belong to dated things, cause they were already old in the time of episode.

On the other hand, aforementioned Baby Shark song, or even Haw-Haw-La-La Land (what was written in small time after the movie had come out) is outdated NOW.

P.S. As for Flanders' Ladder case, that was done well, at least.
 
@CousinMerl, Unless Yeardley Smith & Julie Kavner have said that they 100% supported that scene, I wouldn't put any disappointment on them as they were simply doing what they're paid to do. I would still blame the writers though as they were so self-centered and had such inflated egos that they didn't give a shit about if the scene would be one of the lowest points in the show's history (which it is).

And yeah, Apu's last major appearance before this was Season 27's Much Apu About Nothing which by this point was a little past two years later.
 
John95 said:
@CousinMerl, Unless Yeardley Smith & Julie Kavner have said that they 100% supported that scene, I wouldn't put any disappointment on them as they were simply doing what they're paid to do. I would still blame the writers though as they were so self-centered and had such inflated egos that they didn't give a shit about if the scene would be one of the lowest points in the show's history (which it is).
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I was actually thinking about not mentioning the cast as it is unfair to blame them (since we don't know if they supported it), but I decided to leave it in (as they still agreed to do it and participate so I think it is okay can be just slightly disappointed), though that is nothing compared to what the crew did: I mean, I expected more even from the modern writers and producers not to slam that kind of valid criticism with some condescending call-out that feels like it is aiming to make the critics feel bad. It felt almost unreal.

I think that one of the worst thing a show can do is actually write and perform blatant in-show call-outs to criticisms of the work as it can make them look like petty children with big egos who cannot handle criticism, be it by critics, fans or trolls (in the case of the latter, I think the best thing to do is ignore them. Attacking trolls only makes things worse).
 
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@CousinMerl, If you mean that you're disappointed that they still did it despite having an objection to it (which we don't know if they did), than OK I can understand that.

As for a show calling out their critics, that's one of the reasons why Teen Titans Go! continues to have an active hatedom as they resort to doing at least one episode a year that only exists just to be jabs at their critics/haters. The only "Accomplishment" they can possibly achieve is not having it turn out as awful as The Return of Slade.
 
@John95, Yeah, that was what I was meaning, pretty much. I know they were paid to do it and probably under contract as well, but it still felt at least a little, tiny bit wrong. I do wonder if they objected to it or not, but I guess we'll never know.

I've also heard about 'Teen Titans Go!' continuously trolling haters and it feels so pointless. I mean, I dislike like trolls and haters as well, but really? Was it so necessary to piss off the haters even more and essentially validate them and their toxic efforts?

Anyhow, I will try not to derail this thread of mine anymore.
 
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