Shark Bytes

I tend to agree that the characters have become caricatures of themselves to a great extent. Symptom of the show being on too long perhaps. Lisa use to be a wise beyond her years, naive idealist. Now she's a condescending liberal snob. Ned used to be an over-achiever/Christian nice guy. Now he's a fringe Christian Righter- like with Lisa too self righteous to be likable. Marge no longer seems like a maternal, caring mother, just a bitchy foil to Homer, who as so many others have said has become a Peter Griffin-lite. Bart rarely is the center of an episode and he's become as obnoxious and dumb as Homer. Maybe if they just went to doing a couple TV movies a year it could carry on better. Still a few good episodes a year, but JTS, imo...

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The New Coke was delicious

That 90's Show was the biggest insult any group of writers (and even the voice actors, they didn't have to go thru with it) could have done to a fan base.

It was worse than New Coke, worse than the end of St. Elsewhere or the dream season of Dallas.

In the immortal words of Sideshow Bob Die, writers, die

Geesh it's JUST a TV show, and a cartoon at that! You're carrying on like someone has slaughtered your whole family. The only thing more pathetic than someone having to call a person an idiot for offering a different opnion is someone bitching because a sitcom changes its backstory, of all things! How is this going to affect your life, tell me? Is Marge & Homer meeting in the 90s instead of the 70s going to kill your appetite, make you lose sleep, make you withdraw from your freinds, make you lose your ambition? Sounds that way, so get a life. I still say the episode was very entertaining and the idea to update how they met was good as it breathes new life into things IMO. If repeating this opinion still fills you with rage... GOOD.

Further evidence of the dumbening of the Simpsons' writers is the WoW episode, where Lisa becomes a footballer. Couldn't the writers have made a joke of the fact that America calls the world's sport, football, by the wrong name? You'd think Lisa, being the smart one, would know the sport is football and point out America's ignorance of that fact.

Maybe when Phil Hartmann died
DEFINITLY when Barney quit drinking

I agree the show is past its peak, but I'm shocked that so many people hated the 90's episode. It was plotted well, none of those zany twists in the last ten minutes, and if you all notice homer wasn't acting like a moronic jerk at all, he was only concerned with losing the girl he was in love with. So it seems the writers aren't as stupid as some believe, they actually remember how Homer used to be. Why is it such a crime to update their history? Is it really that important to keep their courtship in the 70's? I have to be the only person on Earth who thought the episode was a good idea.

it peaked at season 4. it was still pretty good after that until the early 2000's when they started running out of good ideas. i have to say that the movie wasnt that bad, though. it was better than any of the recent episodes.

Dave, on June 3, has a good point. The Smashing Pumpkins episode did introduce the aspects of the show that are the most frequently cited as aspects of the Simpsons' JTS.

I personally would put the end of the jump that started with that and similar episodes at the "Very Special" British episode. Nothing but guest stars, Homer's witless stupidity, and soapboxing.

The show shouldn't be compared with other shows, but with itself. While it may well be better than most of the stuff on the box, I don't think anybody can say there hasn't been a massive decline between then and now, and I would put the jump at some point between Homerpalooza and the British episode, and being mainly to do with guest stars and Homer's progressive stupidity.

Dashill, you obviously don't understand why so many people have a problem with the show now. Just watch a show from one of the first 7 seasons and compare it with one made in the past few years...completely different in plot, charcter, and pacing of the action.

Two good episodes to compare would be "Cape Feare" and the recent episode that was a parody of "24"; both follow plots similar to their source, both try to incorporate similar events from their source. But the reason the "24" parody doesn't work is that it has no depth to it. Martin as a mole for Jimbo and Kearney (out of character)? Jack Bauer talking to Bart? Its as though the writers feel the audience is too dumb to make the connection between two different things, spelling it out for us..."LOL do you get it, this is a parody of the show "24", but done with Simpsons characters, ROTFL!!!"

The "Cape Feare" episode shows references the classic film with a bit more tact; at no point to they actually try and spell out that they are making a parody of the movie. They do recreate some of the plot and scene elements from the film, but even if you had no idea what happens in the movie "Cape Fear", you would have no problems following along. The "24" parody is confusing if you had never watched the show before.

Finally Dashill, just because someone thinks the show jumped the shark doesn't mean that we won't or shouldn't watch it. Those who voted that it jumped the shark understand and have lived through the changes (for better or worse) of the show from its beginnings and can pick up on the subtleties of what the show was and what it has become. I'll always love the Simpsons...the Simpsons as they were, not as they are...

Justin, you have a very good point about shelf life. Some shows do go on for too long and cartoon are the worst offenders. Just look at Family Guy, King of the Hill, and South Park. Just because characters don't age doesn't mean that fans don't and trends don't change. The Simpsons was a 90s phenomenon that didn't survive the 2000s. I also agree that every actor, producer, writer, and director of any TV show should visit this site and study it carefully. This should be required "reading" in any film or media arts class in colleges. While we may disagree on what caused a show to jump, at least one category is correct on almost every show.

The Simpsons is a classic comedy that stands alone in its on pantheon of greatness. However, I would be remiss if I did not state the major problem with the series, Staying too long. Lets face it folks, the hey-day of the simpsons was well over a decade ago. Back then it was a flawless, uproarious, comedy that had no equal. No arguement from me on that. However, EVERY SHOW, regardless of how great it is has a shelve life. Some shows, spoil right away and others last for years. Some might argue that it is impossible to gauge when a show should end. To that I say, All you have to do is study this web site. I believe Jump the shark should be required homework for every Tv executive, producer, writer, director and even actor. The catagories here show consitantly the warning signs. I would like to propose that a new catagory be added. "Shelve Life", for reasons I have already stated. The Simpsons has been on for almost 20 years. It become a pop cultural Icon chearished by millions. However, due to that level of worship I believe people have a tendency to put on blinders. They dont want to even contemplate that a beloved show of such magnatude could ever be anything but spectacular. The truth is that the Simpsons has been limping along for the last decade. Its not a bad show and it still has a few good moments, but I have to say that the brilliance of the show has deminished to at worst fair and at best just plain good. Is in not better to get out when your at the top of your game than to just stay on and on become lesser and lesser over time? Once again, I love the Simpsons, and because of that love I hate to see it slip from excellence to just decent. Hence, "The Shelve Life" catagory describes The Simpsons to a tee.

The Simpsons jumped when it became liberal-biased to the point of getting political and mocking religion almost every episode and every character became a parody of themself. Lisa is definitely the worst character. I've never found anything she did funny. I liked her the best in the first season. Slowly she became more and more of a buzzkill until she became completely unnecessary.

I attempted watching it a few days ago, and the plot was pretty much that bagboys were getting disrespected so they went on strike. Now that theyre on strike, there's no way to obtain food in Springfield. So Homer has a brilliant idea to go up to the attic to look for food. He comes accross a box of animal crackers from the 60s, where he found a golden giraffe that won him a trip to Africa. The rest of the episode was them making fun of African culture just like they do everything else with a side serving of people mistreating animals.

And this episode has to be a few years old. The plots are so much worse now.
I guess the last episode I actually enjoyed was the one with the 1895 house. It had some pretty funny moments.

I'd say the worst episode they ever made was 'That 90's Show', it was pretty much like a sledgehammer that hit it's chronology hard. Season 19 was definitely it's worst season yet.

I was shocked to read that Matt Groening has said that the show is better than it ever was. With "great" stories and much better animation (I agree with him on that but I like the pre-2003 style better). I guess it's that the Simpsons is no longer for us Simpsons fans but for simple-minded souls that watch generic reality shows like Desperate Housewives.

I stopped watching this garbage a long time ago.