The Simpsons Movie

[bbobb]

Some of us old fogey's still like Green Day, and have since way back when.

[MechDeus]

That's why we shipped you to a far-off country, so you could feel trendy again.

[bbobb]

Fuck, I could never be trendy here, nor would I ever want to. Japanese fashion sense is frightening. Only one who is patently insane (such as Shidoshi) could actually like it.

[Boy Named Sue]

At least this Simpsonizer came out of it (i'm easily amused). There's also a great Anchorizer for Back To You (http://backtoyouanchorizer.com/). Anyone try this yet?

[Tommy Tallarico]

Your friend's an idiot if I read that correctly.

In the first 6 seasons of the show, which are inarguably the greatest in the history of the series and some of the best television episodes to ever air on television in general, Homer was a caring, loving father. He was a stupid, lazy oaf who was clearly in over his head but the important moral was that he tried, cared and did the right thing (like working 2 jobs to give Lisa a pony for example). He tried to make The Powerplant Safer as Mr. Safety but ultimately took a job to better his life and his families lives (and got Lisa her dental plan). He also saved Christmas in the very first episode after working 2 jobs to try to save up enough money to buy nice gifts by bringing home Santa's Little Helper.

The episodes originally run dealt with issues like infidelity, parenting before Homer was ready for it and poverty -- something a lot people can relate to in North America and they dealt with these issues in a fun, yet serious way. Today The Simpsons are a running gag of how much Homer can be a jerk and not care about anything. The new episodes might get a cheap laugh every now and then, mostly because of the hard work a few talented people did back in the day to establish good stereotypical parodies (Barney the drunk, Apu, Otto the slacker busdriver, Smithers the closet gay, Burns the evil, greedy nuclear power entrepreneur).

It's like a generation of writers grew up with Homer-isms in their mind and instead of forging new dialogue in that dumb-yet-witty way The Simpsons were known for they go for the lazy and easy me-Homer-me-idiot approach and it's not the same. I have yet to see this movie but I plan to get around to it, and I don't necessarily have the highest expectations. Jonas is a Simpsons fan through-and-through. He's always held it in high esteem. I think I'm a bit pickier when it comes to one of my favorite childhood shows being dragged through the mud. I don't care about Family Guy because it's unapologetic in its shallow nature, but this is The Simpsons, which single handedly brought the cheesy song and dance numbers in the midst of a serious show back to the forefront of television and had President Bush not only guest star but also get in an actual fight with Homer.

Keep the shallow funny stuff to American Dad and Family Guy on the whole (some shallow funny is fine) and try a little harder with The Simpsons.

So Dolemite's right. Whether Groening stopped caring about the property is really irrelevant -- it's not the same show on nearly the same caliber is once was. The well may not be dry but it's definitely getting muddy.

Tommy Tallarico doesn't understand why you wrote so many words just to tell all of us that you're dumb enough to think that was the real George Bush.

Hey jonas:

Your friend's an idiot if I read that correctly.

Tommy Tallarico

[Rumpy]

Finally got around to seeing this and it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. They avoided a lot of the shit that has ruined the show and the animation was great too.