Topic: FOX Prime Time Cartoons - Simpsons, Season 1

[UncleBob]

Are there many fans of the FOX Prime Time Cartoons on here?  Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, The Cleveland Show...

I was thinking of doing something similar to the Retroactive feature where we vote on a series, watch whatever the next season is in that series, leave the thread up for (one week?  two weeks?) to watch/discuss it, then vote on the next season set to watch.  Is there enough interest in this?

[ShyGuy]

I'm liking this new show Bob's Burgers.

Bonus Thread Derail: Simpons was much better in first 9 seasons.

[UncleBob]

You know, I haven't watched Bob's Burgers.  My DVR isn't set to record it and I never seem to think about setting it.

As for the Simpsons - we'll be able to discuss how awesome the first X seasons are...

[ShyGuy]

Check it out on Hulu! http://www.hulu.com/bobs-burgers

[TJ Spyke]

I love MOST of the primetime animated shows on Fox have been (I wasn't a big fan of Sit Down, Shut Up. Bob's Burgers has improved in its 3 episodes so far, the pilot was so-so. I was disappointed when they canceled King of the Hill, it had been going down in quality but still was very good. It had a nice long run at 13 seasons though.

I will comment in more detail tomorrow. Suffice it to say though, Family Guy is my least favorite of the Seth MacFarlane shows.

[UncleBob]

I've wanted to pick up the KotH DVDs, but the fact that FOX isn't planning on releasing the entire show on DVD, I'm reluctant to bother.

[TJ Spyke]

Yeah, I think they said it was because the first six seasons weren't selling well on DVD. Luckily they at least have all 13 seasons for streaming on Netflix.

[ShyGuy]

I hate to summon the Dark Lord of Piracy here, but that is a situation where I feel sympathy. You want to buy the entire series, you're ready to give them your money, but Fox just won't take it.

[nickmitch]

They will through Netflix.

Anyway, I like Fox Sunday Night cartoons. Animation Domination is something I always look forward to (after football, of course).

[TJ Spyke]

A little more detail:

I still love The Simpsons. The Mike Scully years were very hit and miss (he gave us episodes like "The Principal and the Pauper", "When You Dish Upon a Star", and "Saddlesore Galactica"). While the show may not be hitting it out of the park all the time anymore, I still love watching the show and think most of the episodes are really good.

Family Guy is very hit and miss. I don't like when they preach too much (for example, I didn't like the episode where Brian got weed legalized), and Peter is just plain annoying (and not in a lovable way) and makes me hate any episode where he is the major focus. Ever since Fox brought back the show, they have made Meg more annoying (I really liked her in the original run of the show). Also, I HATE the Peter vs. Giant Chicken gag. I dread it when I see they are doing it because it's not funny and it's just tedious. FG is the worst of MacFarlane's 3 shows in my opinion. I still like the show, but not as much as I used too.

American Dad! went through a slump for awhile, but I love the show. I wonder if it was the smart move to have Haley and Jeff get married, but I will give it a shot (I thought the episode where he moved in was terrible though. Really, trying to justify smoking pot by saying that without it you are a chronic masturbator?).

The Cleveland Show was something I thought was stupid when it was announced, especially when it was revealed that Cleveland Jr. would go from being a hyperactive skinny 6 year old to a fat 14 year old. However, I have loved every single episode so far. Some of Cleveland's friends are really funny (especially Lester), I love one of the early episodes where Cleveland realized that some of his comments could be taken badly out of context (like when he was trying to help Junior make friends, so he asked a kid if he wanted to play with Cleveland Jr., and that Cleveland Jr. is short and fat but enjoys being played with).

Futurama is a show that should have been brought back instead of FG. It's funnier, the characters are more interesting, and it looks better. I was happy when they announced the four straight to DVD movies. I was also happy to hear it would be coming back to TV, although that was lowered a little when it was revealed that it would have a much lower budget due to being on Comedy Central rather than Fox.

King of the Hill started slow, it's hard to go back and watch season 1, but got better over time. It was funny to see what looked like a satire about how conservatives think, and how Hank was so in love with propane (so much so that Peggy and Bobby had to hide the fact that they though burgers cooked with charcoal tasted better than those cooked with propane). The visual style took a weird change in later seasons, it looked like they were being done by computers then. It wasn't worse, but it was different.

Sit Down, Shut up is weird. I hated it at first (and I wasn't the only one, it got canceled after a few months), but started liking it a little bit more when Fox started airing it Saturdays at midnight. I did like that it had several alumni from Arrested Development on it (Mitchell Hurwitz created both, and cast members Jason Bateman and Will Arnett).

[NWR_insanolord]

I know I'm in a very small minority, but I love "The Principal and the Pauper." It's pretty crazy, and really messes with the continuity of the show, but it's really well written and very funny. It's written by Ken Keeler, who would go on to be (in my opinion) the best writer Futurama ever had, and I'd encourage anyone with the season 9 DVDs to listen to the commentary for that episode and hear him make his case for it.

[TJ Spyke]

It was funny hearing him get high pitched trying to plead with people to like it. He knew that most fans did not like the episode. He doesn't seem to get why people get into the characters and don't like the writers saying "like this character we've built for the last 9 years? Well, screw you.". He is a good writer, but I thought this was a bad episode from him. I still enjoyed the audio commentary for it. I can say the same about John Swartzwedler, I hated his later episodes.

[NWR_insanolord]

The other writers stop just short of out and out saying those later Swarzwelder episodes were ruined by the room after he stopped coming in and thus wasn't there to defend his writing in some of the DVD commentaries. He can definitely still write; as I've said before on these forums, his novels, especially How I Conquered Your Planet and The Exploding Detective, are fantastically hilarious.

[TJ Spyke]

I guess that is why he stopped writing episodes. He last episode was almost 8 years ago (I checked to find out when and what episode, it was "The Regina Monologues"), he did help contribute to The Simpsons Movie though. IIRC, I think one of the reasons he stopped coming in was because they banned smoking in the writers room and he is addicted to smoking.

[NWR_insanolord]

The way they tell it, that was pretty much the entire reason he stopped coming in. 8 years sounds right, since he's been averaging about a novel per year, and he's written seven so far. They usually come out in the spring, so we're almost due for another one.

[Morari]

I haven't watched any "prime time" television in years.

I used to love The Simpsons, but am not at all caught up with it anymore. The quality of individual episodes seemed to start to vary, but never to the extent where they were absolutely not worth watching.

I hate Family Guy, American Dad, and the Cleveland Show. They're boring, repetitive, and try too hard to be offensive for the sake of shock value. I'm pretty sure that you have to be stoned or have ADD to actually enjoy those shows.

I enjoyed Futurama well enough. It always seemed pretty uneven though. When it was funny, it was really funny, but those moments were too few.

I liked King of the Hill the best however. It was subtle in most of it's humor, being more of a satire than anything. It also had actual plots per episode, which seems to be lacking in a lot of animation that rely more on "random lols" that don't really fit the characters nor the situations.

[Ian Sane]

For me the last good season of The Simpsons was Season 7 which is a LONG time ago now.  There are probably Simpsons fans that were not even born then.  The "bad" seasons outnumber the good ones so I don't even know if it is fair to say I like The Simpsons since I don't even like 50% of the show's run.  The long and the short of it is that I feel the show's humour changed over time from something I found hilarious to something I found irritating.  No show lasts this long without changing in some way that will likely turn off some of the fans.  Good shows come in, kick some ass, and get out while they're ahead.  No show lasts 20 seasons while maintaining any level of consistent quality.  Fox let King of the Hill go on too long as well.  Such is the nature of the cash cow I suppose.  Fox seems to either cancel a show too soon or let it go on and on past its prime.

I can say however that Simpsons seasons 3-6 is the best comedy show I have ever seen.  It's funnier than Seinfeld, funnier than Arrested Development.  It was at its peak the absolute BEST.

When Family Guy first came on I loved it but I found that the show doesn't hold up in repeat viewings.  I'll watch an episode, laugh my ass off, and then when the same episode comes on in reruns I'll just be bored.  There are no subtle gags I didn't notice the first time or bits that always bring a smile.  It is just like one-and-done gags that only work once.  I didn't stick with it long after it came back because, realistically, I was getting sick of it before it got cancelled.  It very much has a formula that was really funny when it was fresh but became quickly predictable.  Comedy can't be predictable.  It has to sneak up and punch you in the gut.  I'm not into the other Seth McFarlane shows for the same reason.  It's the same type of comedy.

I love Futurama.  It's funny because not only is it a good comedy show but it actually works okay as a sci-fi show as well!  It'll make you laugh while having a pretty cool storyline at the same time.  I don't mind a show ending after a short run and the first four seasons work so well that I'm almost sad it came back.  It now could blow things.  It worked as is.

I've now watched two episodes of Bob's Burgers and I realistically don't like ANY of the characters except Bob himself.  His family just pisses me off.  The show has some funny moments but if you don't have a good cast of characters you're screwed.

[NWR_insanolord]

Calling season 7 the last good season of The Simpsons is ridiculous. I mean, I disagree with a lot of people about the evolution of the quality of the show over the years, but I've never seen anyone say it went downhill that early. Hell, I'd argue that the show didn't even hit its peak until season 8.

[UncleBob]

So, are we a go for "Toon Talk"?

Should we do one week or two weeks to watch/discuss a season?

[TJ Spyke]

I am up for it, length of time doesn't matter to me.

[Ian Sane]

  Calling season 7 the last good season of The Simpsons is ridiculous. I mean, I disagree with a lot of people about the evolution of the quality of the show over the years, but I've never seen anyone say it went downhill that early. Hell, I'd argue that the show didn't even hit its peak until season 8.

What age group are you talking to?  Your profile says you're 22.  I'm 29.  The Simpsons has been around for so long and has changed so much that people of different age groups and different senses of humour would get something totally different out of the show from different times.  If you dig the sense of humour shown in season 8 then season 8 would TOTALLY be your peak view of the show.  Most people I talk to that are around my age think season 4 or 5 was the peak of the show.  Season 8's humour is way different than season 4's.  I'm not saying you're wrong for finding that funny, it's just a different style of humour.
 
Remember also that most people my age were watching the FIRST season when it was brand new.  You would have been what?  1 year old at the time.  That's a different frame of reference.  Our first exposure to Homer was completely different than that of someone who started watching him in later seasons.  I saw Homer become dumber and dumber and louder and louder and become a character I did not like at all.  Homer's Enemy is from Season 8 and I HATED that episode.  It seemed totally out of character compared to the Homer of earlier seasons.  From my point of reference season 2 Homer is correct which makes season 8 Homer out-of-character.  A younger fan would think that season 2 Homer was out-of-character compared to the later Homer that was their first introduction.  A famous season 8 episode is the Hank Scorpio episode.  I find that episode hilarious but, holy ****, was it far removed from what the show started off with!  At the end of the episode a supervillain has taken over the East Coast and Homer owns the Denver Broncos?!  Huh?  From my perspective of what I saw The Simpsons as that episode seemed like a total jump-the-shark moment.  The Simpsons just wasn't that kind of show and really had not been that kind of show before that point.  Later in that season you get a Mary Poppins spoof who literally flies with an umbrella.  Uh, so we now have magic characters in The Simpsons?  If you like that kind of zany comedy then that's great and I probably would like it if it was a brand new show.  But it was not the show I grew up with.  The characters were not the same and the style of humour was different.
 
You talk to someone 8 years younger than you and they'll have a different point of view.  We're talking about a 20 year show.  In that period of time everyone is going to have this run of five or six seasons that they think is the best and everything since then just doesn't cut it.  And with 20 years to work with that span of seasons is going to be different for different people.
 
You just as easily have similar different points of view for a band that has been around for decades.  Consider a band like U2 or The Rolling Stones where the style has sgnificantly changed over time and there will different ideas of when the band's peak was.  Hell, we see it with videogames.  What generation a person first started playing videogames in has a huge effect on their tastes and preferences.

[Dasmos]

You've got such an old-man mentality and you're only 29. ****, I'd hate to see you at 60.

[Morari]

Get off of his lawn!

[bustin98]

I remember when the Fox channel launched. The only show I watched was Alien Nation. I heard good things about the Tracy Ulman Show, but never watched it. Then they announced a cartoon based on cartoons shown in Tracy's show. How weird is that going to be? And here we are.

I'm not old, either.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I remember when the Fox channel launched. The only show I watched was Alien Nation. I heard good things about the Tracy Ulman Show, but never watched it. Then they announced a cartoon based on cartoons shown in Tracy's show. How weird is that going to be? And here we are.

I'm not old, either.

this post is a paradox.