Weakest golden era jokes?

Irvine

Irvine

Hired Goon
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
16,428
My votes for the less humorous jokes during the show's peak would probably either be the Rover Hendrix joke or Jasper's cataracts being cured, than being subsequently blinded.

Not that there are anything particularly wrong with them - there are just several better ones.

What about you?
 
Realty_Bites.jpg
 
Last edited:
I wouldn't consider Realty Bites golden era. Otherwise almost example I come up with would be from season 9.
 
Homer's "rickets" joke from Who Shot Mr. Burns (whatever part it was in). Not the worst, but it was bad.
 
Financial Panther said:
Oh come on. That's hilarious!
Click to expand...

Not really. I mean, limbs flying off isn't normal, classic Simpsons (unless it's THOH or an Itchy and Scratchy short). That's the problem with jokes like this (and severed legs kicking footballs)- the boundaries of normal episodes were stretched beyond breaking point.
 
I see what you mean, but I think it's funny just for its pure shock value. I mean, if you listen to the commentary, the original idea was to have the wire slice his sandwich. Nobody would expect it to slice his arm off in a canon episode. If this were a THOH, you might be a little more expectant to see that sort of thing, but because this isn't one, it's just shocking, and it's really funny to me.
 
To me it's not so easy picking out some some of the poorest jokes from the classic era, but here's a couple off the top of my head:

The second belch gag in 'A Star Is Burns' and this whole scene from 'Lady Bouvier's Lover':

dzcao0.png
 
NumberZone said:
The second belch gag in 'A Star Is Burns' and this whole scene from 'Lady Bouvier's Lover':

dzcao0.png
Click to expand...

Oh come on, I'm laughing just looking at that.

I mentioned the "LSD" joke in "Home Sweet Homediddily-dum-doodily" once before, and I still stand by it as uncharacteristically weak. Rod Flanders speaking in tongues from "Marge in Chains" falls flat for me too, though it's mostly because they do it twice in a row when once would have been just fine.
 
From the episode "'Round Springfield".

Homer: Lisa, honey, are you going to be OK?
Lisa: Bleeding Gums was my hero and I never got to tell him how I felt.
Homer: Oh, I'm sure he knew, and I'm sure that wherever he is now, he's
happy.
Lisa: But he was the only person that had the same love for music that
I do.
[Maggie gives Lisa a pacifier]
Thank you. Oh, Dad, why did he have to die?
Homer: Well, it's like the time that your cat Snowball got run over.
Lisa: Uh huh.
Homer: Remember, honey?
Lisa: Yeah.
Homer: What I'm saying is, all we have to do is go down to the pound and get a new jazzman.
Lisa: [wailing] Oh, Dad! [weeps]

There are other failed jokes in this episode but I found that part of the dialogue disgusting (Because of Lisa's reaction).
 
Last edited:
IceToSeeYou said:
From the episode "'Round Springfield".

Homer: Lisa, honey, are you going to be OK?
Lisa: Bleeding Gums was my hero and I never got to tell him how I felt.
Homer: Oh, I'm sure he knew, and I'm sure that wherever he is now, he's
happy.
Lisa: But he was the only person that had the same love for music that
I do.
[Maggie gives Lisa a pacifier]
Thank you. Oh, Dad, why did he have to die?
Homer: Well, it's like the time that your cat Snowball got run over.
Lisa: Uh huh.
Homer: Remember, honey?
Lisa: Yeah.
Homer: What I'm saying is, all we have to do is go down to the pound and get a new jazzman.
Lisa: [wailing] Oh, Dad! [weeps]

There are other failed jokes in this episode but I found that part of the dialogue disgusting.
Click to expand...

I thought it was funny. Does that make me a bad person?
 
Another one from Round Springfield that has been mentioned in a previous thread, but Grampa shouting 'Death!' at various objects (and animals, people) around him is quite an awkward joke.
 
In "Two Dozen and one Greyhounds", the puppy who name is "The Puppy formerly known as Prince"
 
Rover_Hendrix.png


And I always hated the Marge line "Homer, of all the crazy ideas you've had, this one ranks somewhere in the middle" if that counts as Golden Era.
 
Well, the way I see it, the term "golden era" is subjective. Some people count season 9 as the golden era, some don't. Some count season 1 as part of the golden era, others do not. Heck, I've even seen people on other forums who don't even count seasons 7 or 8 as the golden era. I've seen other people who group season 10 in with the golden era. I was one of the people guilty of this until I tried re-watching it recently. I used to think people cited season 10 as the start of the decline because they didn't laugh as much as previous seasons, but after watching it more closely, I thought "wow, it really is a big step down from the classic era." The jokes got dumbed down, the plots became more insane, the list goes on. There are a few golden era-level gems contained in the 10th season (Lisa Gets an A, Treehouse of Horror IX, Bart the Mother) but the crap outweighs the good stuff. That's when you know it's really not a good season.

As for what I consider the golden era, my answer would be - basically - all the single digit seasons. Seasons 1 and 9 are grouped in there to a lesser extent, however - season 1 has the feel that they are still trying to find themselves and even has a few mediocre episodes thrown into the mix. Season 9 is probably the most uneven season, with it being half genius and half liquefied horse manure - but I still classify it as "golden era" because the classic episodes heavily outweigh the downright terrible stuff. In the season rankings in my signature, I put season 1 over season 9 because I find it more emotionally grounded and closer to what the show would become, but really I would consider both seasons around the same quality, so it could go either way.

When I used the term "golden era" in this thread, I meant whatever you personally would consider to be the show's prime. However, most posters on here have already come to a consensus that most of the single digit seasons make up the golden era, so I expected most of the replies would be from those specific episodes.
 
i used to have a theory that grampa saying "Death!" while pointing to Maggie was a foreshadowing of her shooting Burns

anyway, i can't really think of any exceptionally 'weak' golden era jokes at the moment, but probably the Rover Hendrix gag from Homerpalooza
 
I always found Rover Hendrix similar to Gary Larson humor where you can find it funny through it's simplicity, and it's not like I ever had to tweak my perspective in that direction. It's quick and it never stood out to me as weak while watching the episode in full. I guess it though, for the classic era.
 
i can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but i do remember that there was a lot of awkward jokes in season 4 that had a similar feeling to some of the shittier season 14+ jokes that bomb.
 
lionelhutz123 said:
I always found Rover Hendrix similar to Gary Larson humor where you can find it funny through it's simplicity, and it's not like I ever had to tweak my perspective in that direction. It's quick and it never stood out to me as weak while watching the episode in full.
Click to expand...

yeah

the classic era got away with a lot of not-that-great jokes because it didnt grind the entire scene to a halt in order to linger on them for ten minutes, as in recent episodes
 
Krusty's plane.
It's named I'm-on-a-rolla-Gay.

Ugh.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top