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Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

nathancunn.com

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Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#131

Post by saganus »

lordnacho wrote: post #59
saganus wrote: post #2

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…

Just watched this, thanks. My summary: 1) Staff turnover roughly around season 8 caused the writing to change. Jokes got simpler, not as much about the characters' invariants (for lack of a better term). 2) The show was originally successful because it parodied the sitcom era of the mid 1980s. That changed so the context disappeared.

I think your summary is correct, although I would add to point 2 (or a third point) about the complex nature of the jokes.

They weren't just one liners but instead would build up gradually.

That's what I like about this analysis, it got me to understand something that I somehow felt but had no idea that it was actually happening.

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#133

Post by NoNameHaveI »

There are 2 reasons a show are cancelled: #1, and the reason in the majority of cases: not enough people watch. It doesn't matter if you think the current season of The Simpsons is good, terrible, or whatever. It only matters that you watch. If few enough people watch, it WILL be cancelled. This is NOT public access or PBS. #2, the artist's discretion. Rare, but occasionally an artist decides to "go out on top". Jackie Gleason and "The Honeymooners" comes to mind. Seinfeld too. I'm sure there are others you will point out.

Point is, keep watching and they'll keep pumping out crap.

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#134

Post by beatgammit »

monetus wrote: post #101
dmortin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really dislike TV/Anime that never ends, seems to be the modus operandi for pretty much every mainstream show despite how bad the quality gets after 2-3 seasons. Isn't this an American thing where TV/movie things are primarily for money making? I mean the British Office had 2 seasons and 12 episodes. The US version had 9 seasons and 200 episodes. I didn't watch The Office, so I don't know if the US version got wo…

Maybe not British, but it is very much a Japanese tendecy, ime. If I see a good anime/comic, I try to appreciate what I saw and expect no resolution. I'm curious how often they even have resolution in the outline.

I just can't do that. I typically only watch anime that has ended so I know that there will be resolution. I really appreciate well thought out series.

In short, I appreciate the story far more than the story telling. The longer the story is, the bigger the payoff needs to be.

Perhaps that's the difference between British and Japanese audiences?

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#136

Post by saganus »

ashrk wrote: post #12
saganus wrote: post #2

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…

See also: Dead Homer Society, if you prefer reading. 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 simi…

Actually, while re-watching the video, I realized that they reference the Dead Homer Society in minute 16:03!

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#137

Post by monochromatic »

w-m wrote: post #69
monochromatic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's circular reasoning. The writers who worked on bad episodes presumably had something to do with making them bad.

Potentially it was bad writers, yes. But this data does not prove this; it just shows that some writers tenure correspond with worse episodes. But so does for example the year, or potentially many other influencing factors.

If we’re going down that rabbit hole, it doesn’t even prove there is such a thing as a bad episode. It could just be that people who don’t like the simpsons became more likely to use IMDB as time went on.

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#139

Post by poisonarena »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #119
poisonarena wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong based off the wealth of Simpsons Instagram Meme accounts there are.. I am talking thousands of memes... Zero of them based off content past season 9 .. Why is that?

Because most people who saw the first 9 seasons over and over and over, thanks to syndication and DVDs, etc., haven't seen the seasons past 9 nearly as much. That's certainly true for me. I haven't seen most episodes in the past 5 years more than once or twice. Also, the first 9 seasons were just that much better.

Thats a good point, but I have tried to watch the the show every year or two, just to see if it got funny again.. And the jokes are all bad, all satirical, homer is too stupid now.. also the characters voices are starting to sound weird and old..

Re: Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

#140

Post by nathcun »

ggggtez wrote: post #107

It's a bit confusing. The author starts with the assumption the show got worse, and assumed a causal relation with an random piece of data. This is not proper Bayesian statistics. The author claims there is no principled way, but there is. Confidence bounds are the way to measure what affect a variable had on an outcome.

I didn't assume a causal relationship. In the last line I state that a change in writers may not have caused a decline in quality, but the change in the make-up of the writing team around the team most people agree the show went downhill would lend some credibility to the idea.

What about that article suggested I was attempting to do proper Bayesian statistics? It's an exploratory analysis, I'm just looking at the data.

And where did I claim there was no principled way of doing this analysis?

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