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The Tracy Ullman Years

0 (0%)

The Christmas Special

0 (0%)

Season 1: Homer becomes Safety Inspector, Bleeding Gums, Sideshow Bob goes to jail

0 (0%)

Season 2: Treehouse of Horror 1, Blinky, Homer's brother

0 (0%)

Season 3: Michael Jackson, Krustofsky, Sideshow Bob marries Selma

0 (0%)

Season 4: Klasky-Csupo stops animating, Laura Powers, Ralph Loves Lisa, DENTAL PLAN, April 1st Clip Show

1 (2.7%)

Season 5: Sideshow Bob starts stalking Bart, Ruth Powers, Malibu Stacy

0 (0%)

Season 6: Alison Taylor, Jessica Lovejoy, Homer is accused of sexual harassment, Bleeding Gums dies, Who Shot Mr. Burns?

1 (2.7%)

Season 7: Maggie shot Mr. Burns, Lisa goes veg, Homer in 3D, Homer's Mom, George Bush, Apu is an illegal immigrant

0 (0%)

Season 8: Milhouse's parents divorce, Lisa's crush on Nelson, Ned breaks down, Skinner and Krabappel, Frank Grimes

7 (18.9%)

Season 9: Armin Tamzarian, Apu's gets married, An episode about Homer and Marge's sex life

10 (27%)

Season 10: Homer's middle initial, Homer donates a kidney, Ned and Homer get married in Vegas, Phil Hartman dies

5 (13.5%)

Season 11: Apu has octuplets, Maude dies, Behind the Laughter

8 (21.6%)

Season 12: Krusty's daughter, Homer has a crayon in his brain, Ned's amusement park

1 (2.7%)

Season 13: Smithers' father, Lisa's a buddhist, Greta Wolfcastle, Homer's a pothead, Never Stop the Simpsons, Apu's affair

0 (0%)

Season 14: Frank Grimes Jr., Krabappel dumps Skinner, "300th episode", Luke

0 (0%)

Season 15: Milhouse's dad gets custody, Artie Ziff, Skinner and Krabappel's non-wedding, Everyone as children, Snowball V

0 (0%)

Season 16: The kitchen (doesn't) get remodeled, Barney (doesn't) sober up, Patty is a lesbian, 350th episode

0 (0%)

Season 17: Ripping off Fairly Odd Parents, Milhouse speaks Italian, The Italian Bob, Homer's fake real father

1 (2.7%)

Season 18: Fat Tony's son, Homer's Vegas wife dies, Bart and Skinner's allergies, Grandpa and Selma start dating, 400th ep

0 (0%)

The Simpsons Movie

2 (5.4%)

Season 19: Ralphs runs for President, Marge has a degree, Homer's mom dies

0 (0%)

Season 20: Bart's twin, the opening is changed, Ned buys the Simpson house, Homer and Marge aren't legally married, Jenny

0 (0%)

Season 21: Marge poses for Playboy, Cool Skinner, 450th episode, Princess Penelope, Nikki McKenna

0 (0%)

Season 22: There's gonna be a Twilight parody and Moe's tavern will become a gay bar, among other bullshit

0 (0%)

It's still good!

1 (2.7%)

Total Members Voted: 37

[TA]

Kind of.  The strict definition (of which there probably shouldn't be one) is the point at which the show stops either improving or staying level, and starts degrading.  Most people forget that the original shark-jump was supposed to be the HIGH point of Happy Days, and everything after that didn't measure up.

I had always understood it to mean almost the opposite.  The shark-jumping moment is the moment where it becomes truly apparent that the show is completely out of ideas.  It's where a show stops really being original, or edgy, or anything but just episodes cranked out according to formula.

I'd pick the Behind the Laughter episode.  While that is a fantastic episode, it's kind of a capper, and continuing past it is just grinding out the paychecks.

[Mongrel]

That's the definition that I'm familiar with. While a show may have ups and downs even in it's prime, there's always a chance it can do as well or even scale new heights. The the jump-the-shark moment is the one that makes it absolutely clear that there will be no more meaningful ups.

[Mongrel]

Crayon in Brain makes me want to puke it is so bad.

Crayon in Brain is actually a pretty straight takeoff of Flowers for Algernon... but I suppose that only serves to reinforce the point.

[Classic]

I don't know, literary homage/lifting is not really a sign of shows deteriorating. ... Then again, I don't remember that episode.

[jsnlxndrlv]

Updates from Julie: "consensus states that Season 9 is the last truly good season"; "season 10 or 11 are probably the point where the series turned bad"; upon reading her your list of sample incidents, she said to vote season 11, although "Behind the Laughter was really good".

[Brentai]

Crayon in Brain is actually a pretty straight takeoff of Flowers for Algernon... but I suppose that only serves to reinforce the point.

Only mechanically, since the main tragedy in Flowers for Algernon is that he only has his clarity for a short time and is utterly miserable once he reverts (or utterly dead, depending on the version).  Homer's brain-crayon is another one of those "smart people are never happy" aesops which tend to sound like crap if you're not an idiot yourself.

It'd be hilarious if someone could prove unarguably that that episode is where Homer's stupidity became more exaggerated though.

"consensus states that Season 9 is the last truly good season"

Out of honest curiosity, please ask her what was good about Season 9, because I looked after being reminded that Season 8 had Scorpio and couldn't find anything nearly as redeeming.

[Zaratustra]

Which season had the "previously unadressed part of our past" in the 90s?

[Brentai]

I think that's the "Marge has a degree" in Season 19.

[Friday]

"smart people are never happy" aesops

I think this aesop evolved out of a good one (That smart people are not necessarily happier than dumb people) but has since been twisted, somehow, into the current "smart people are never happy" tripe that seems to dominate now.

[TA]

Out of honest curiosity, please ask her what was good about Season 9, because I looked after being reminded that Season 8 had Scorpio and couldn't find anything nearly as redeeming.

Homer gets a gun, the Movementarians, the Lord of the Flies episode, Homer joins the Navy, Lisa's Sax, the Carnies episode.  There were some stinkers - Principal and the Pauper might have been a worse episode but The Last Temptation of Krust was just emblematic of the pits the show would dive to six years down the line, even if it did give us the Canyonero song - but the season has some damn fine episodes in it.

[Mothra]

If Homer joins the Navy is the one with the penguins then yes, perhaps season 9 could be redeemed.

[Frocto]

the simpsons canyonero

[Disposable Ninja]

Grandpa and Selma start dating

... wait what

WHAT

[Brentai]

That "Homer enters whistling and immediately leaves whistling" image macro was his reaction to walking in on them.

[Detonator]

That "Homer enters whistling and immediately leaves whistling" image macro was his reaction to walking in on them.

I don't know that image, but it sounds a lot like the "Grandpa entering and leaving" image macro from "Bart of Darkness".

[Brentai]

It was either a callback or my terrible memory has more subtlety than the Simpsons writing team.  Find out for yourselves, kids!

[Lobst]

My roommate has a pretty complete set of all the Simpsons seasons released to date. There's a pretty sharp decline in quality from season 9 onward, though each season after that (at least that I've seen so far) has like one or two good episodes. They start to fall into this awful storytelling structure where the first act is totally random, the second act is filler, and the third leaves you wondering, "seriously, this is what the episode is about?"

If Homer and Marge were teenagers in the early '90s, why is Close To You their love song in the movie?

[Shinra]

Them being teenagers in the early 90s makes even less sense if you go back and watch any of the flashback episodes. Homer and Marge were clearly in their teens during the 70s, and it gets brought up multiple times during the original ten seasons.

This is the kind of stupid shit that is ruining the show. I think it's pretty clear that Groenig is on autopilot at this point and has been for a while.

[Classic]

I wasn't aware Groening had any creative input on the show. Not even in a "rubber stamp" capacity.

[Frocto]

He currently serves at The Simpsons as an executive producer and creative consultant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Groening