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Any factor could have caused the show's decline (like less time given for script writing, less collaboration or rewrites, management directives to change aspects of the show, etc.) -- and it would show the same result.
There's a very interesting YouTube video that has a bit more of an explanation on why The Simpsons had a decline. I liked how they analyze the show and IMO it does a great job explaining why lots of people loved the show up until season 9-10. Personally I think I enjoyed up to season 12 or so, but definitely after 10 I noticed the shift in style/quality/whathaveyou. Could never put it into words why it felt like that…
https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/
Pretty compelling argument for the end of the golden age being season 9, maybe 11 or 12 if you're being very generous, including analysis of writer and other personnel changes, and an attempt at explaining what exactly is different about the earlier seasons compared with the later ones.
Seems like the video's making similar points.
Whenever we talk about Simpsons decline it always occurs to me that even in decline... the Simpsons is still pretty good. Perhaps that says more about its high points than the "decline".
How much of this is not attributable to quality but instead to streaming options? I watched The Simpsons for most of my childhood, up until college when I was too busy working and studying--most of my TV time then went to Stargate SG-1 and other Sci-fi. Futurama and Family Guy were in the mix as well up until that time. However, I HAVE still watched Futurama and Family Guy in adulthood, because they were available to…
This is not to say, by any means, that the humor doesn’t hold up. It does! But it doesn’t help soothe living in a capitalist-realist society the way, say, Futurama or Idiocracy do. It seems to more address the anxiety of trying to meet the impossible standards of society.
EDIT: meanwhile, someone in another thread introduced me to Max Headroom. That still holds up today.
It's also not the only game in town. Cartoon network quality has gone way way up. I used to watch 3-hour cartoons on Saturday morning, and the simpsons et. al on Sunday night. That was it for cartoons on TV. Grandparents broke out VHS tapes occasionally as well. We didn't have a lot of options so The Simpsons was mind blowing. Not so much anymore.
However, the graph at the end kind of shows this, the earlier people had the best episodes. It may have been that they had better chemistry.
Later episodes are rated lower, thus writers who mainly wrote later episodes have contributed to episodes with lower rating. This seems like circular reasoning, and doesn't say anything about an individual writers' contribution to the quality of the show.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In some fairness, buying the DVDs used on eBay for the first 10 seasons isn't terribly expensive. I got some of them as cheap as four dollars. I spent a few afternoons ripping all of them and adding them to my streaming server. I realize that most people don't have streaming servers, but I think most of the people here probably have something that can read off a flash drive?
As crazy as this feels to say, ordering a dvd and figuring out a way to consume it in this day and age is a huge ask! I haven’t had a DVD player in my house for about 6 years now & no CD-ROM drive in my laptop. And, again I can hardly believe I’m saying this, it would be such a hassle to physically insert the disk when I felt like watching! It’s got to be on HBO/Netflix/Hulu/Amazon or available on demand from my tv p…
PS: External DVD drives are ~25$.
I ravenously consumed The Simpsons for most of my youth and loved it. I watch it now whenever I get the chance and love it, but life happened. I don't like my kids to watch it so they don't grow up Fd in the brain like me. Having a bad kid as a role model I think does impact children. It's also not the only game in town. Cartoon network quality has gone way way up. I used to watch 3-hour cartoons on Saturday morning,…
How much of this is not attributable to quality but instead to streaming options? I watched The Simpsons for most of my childhood, up until college when I was too busy working and studying--most of my TV time then went to Stargate SG-1 and other Sci-fi. Futurama and Family Guy were in the mix as well up until that time. However, I HAVE still watched Futurama and Family Guy in adulthood, because they were available to…