Early Simpsons had so much FEELS

Early Simpsons had so much FEELS

Seasons 1&2 are unironically the best Simpsons, comedy ruined its comfiness from season 3 onwards

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Homer's mom leaving always got me

You do notice the animation got less interesting by Season 5, fewer dramatic shots and other things like that, as the writing became more comedy and less drama-focused.

Reminder that they wanted to open Season 2 with Simpson and Delilah, but Fox insisted on Bart Gets an F instead because gotta milk the Bart fad for all it's worth.

The darker tone of Seasons 1-2 had a lot to do with James L. Brooks's influence--he loves his dramas and fwiw it was his idea to do an episode where Homer has a heart attack.

Mike & Al's record is kind of weird, it seems doing The Critic changed them in a way they never since came back from, although there were signs of it in season 4, but the s6, 8 & 9 episodes by them, often seem to take all the wackiest stuff from s4, and focus and exaggerate on that a lot.

FWIW Mike Reiss was always against the Simpsons having ultra-cartoony humor; he thought it should be more grounded. For example he didn't like the Mary Poppins parody but reluctantly agreed to it provided she didn't do anything magical.

The humor of seasons 7 and 8 was very much a return to the strong character based humor of the first two/ three seasons. Al and Mike's love for the isolated gag became more evident in season four when they were running the show with a lot more cutaways and far more wackiness in general becoming prominent. This penchant was even more notable in the episodes they produced in season eight (Oakley, Weinstein era). Episodes like "The Springfield Files", "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala-D'ohcious", "Lisa's Sax" and "Simpson Tide" were notably wackier/ more gag based than anything Bill and Josh were producing at the time. Actually, I don't know if it was to do with different writers or just the shows evolution but Al and Mike's season 8 episodes were far wackier than stuff from season four. So in closing, yes I believe your theory is correct in that Bill and Josh favored the down to earth character/plot based humor whilst Jean and Reiss are more partial to gag runs.

Pointless episode. Bart never advances from the 4th grade

I will never understand season 1&2 fags. Just watch a sitcom if you want "realistic" dramedy, animation should be able to bend the rules and do things you can't do in live action.

While I agree with some of your points, I still disagree that Jean and Reiss ever got as silly as Season 5's episodes. Even when they did do wacky stuff, they never lost sight of the plot. Take for example Duffless which has lots of gags yet the plot stays perfectly focused from beginning to end. The only Season 3-4 episodes that really went off the rails were Marge vs the Monorail since the plot sort of meandered directionlessly towards the end, Krusty Gets Kancelled, and The Front, in those cases because both episodes had paper-thin plots to begin with. And neither ever got as crazy as Mirkin or Scully's episodes.

Also note that while Oakley and Weinstein's slower-paced style worked great throughout Season 7, by the second half of Season 8 it got really, really plodding and caused episodes to just drag on forever eg. The Canine Mutiny, Summer of 4'2" and The Secret War of Lisa Simpson.

Eh, I wasn't a fan of the seriousness of the first couple seasons, I liked it at it's peak of humour in the seasons directly after

>y the second half of Season 8 it got really, really plodding and caused episodes to just drag on forever eg. The Canine Mutiny, Summer of 4'2" and The Secret War of Lisa Simpson.
Oh yeah. Those episodes are absolutely a slog to sit through.

Yeah they weren't as surreal as the Mirkin episodes, but they did have some fairly ridiculous ones like Marge in Chains and Marge Gets a Job. Marge in Chains could even be the wackiest episode of eason 4, chaotic mob scenes, a flu, Marge being busted because of shoplifting (it's not really clear, perhaps she didn't notice the bottle), etc.

Let's go down the negatives of each showrunner's tenure:

Groening/Brooks/Simon: Seasons 1-2 ran on sitcom cliches rather than satirizing them, particularly in Season 1, but 2 also had the very sitcomy Bart's Dog Gets an F. Homer's characterization wasn't quite solidified and he's often Generic Sitcom Dad.

Jean and Reiss: I think their run had the most consistent quality and the fewest mistakes. A few episodes can't decide whether they want to adopt the more wacky style that was coming in Season 5 or the more dark Season 2 style. Examples of this are When Flanders Failed/Marge in Chains and Whacking Day. Now that I think about there are hardly any episodes in this era that handle satire well at all.

Mirkin: The most glaringly obvious fault here is Homer's characterization in a lot of episodes like Homer Goes To College, Boy Scoutz'N'The Hood, Homer the Vigilante, etc which feel like Season 11 asshole Homer. Admittedly Mirkin was able to make sure Homer didn't go too far off the rails, but he does cross the line from dimwit dad to jackass quite a bit. The Mirkin era is also very thin on character-driven plots, although there were still some great ones like Secrets of a Successful Marriage and Sweet Seymour Skinner. Also the satire, especially in Season 6, gets a little over the top eg. Sideshow Bob Roberts and Lisa on Ice.

They made the right decision
As a kid I loved that episode because i related to Bart a lot

Oakley and Weinstein: Way too many experimental plots and meta episodes. Sometimes it works (Homer's Enemy and A Milhouse Divided), other times it falls flat (Burns Baby Burns). Also I don't really like stretching characterization for an episode or to provide a foil for an episode (Lisa the Simpson/My Sister, My Sitter/Two Bad Neighbours/Lisa the Vegetarian). It also seemed in Season 8 they really couldn't do normal episodes well anymore (Lisa's Date with Density/Mysterious Voyage of Homer/The Secret War of Lisa Simpson).

Scully: 'Nuff said.

Early Jean seasons (13-17): Uneven as fuck. Sometimes a great episode would come up that almost felt like you were back in Season 6 interspersed with a lot of bland/awful garbage.

Late Jean seasons (18-): 'Nuff said.

Best episodes from each showrunner:

Groening/Brooks/Simon: Lisa's Substitute. This episode contained the best use of the show's emotional core IMO. Mr. Bergstrom was a very good "eccentric, yet wise" type of character and the scene with the goodbye at the train station remains one of my picks for some of the saddest cartoon moments (that line "That’s the problem with being middle class, anybody who really cares will abandon you for those who need it more." Powerful stuff.) The subplot also provided some great comic relief for the serious main plot. Definite top 5 material.

Jean/Reiss: Radio Bart. A great show of the type of humor that was a staple of early seasons. Bart playing with the label maker and microphone was a lot of fun and it's also chock full of great Homer material ("Aww, there's only one beer left and it's Bart's."), the scene where he grabs a gun because he thinks aliens are attacking). Not to mention, the whole "well" thing, while a bit over the top, was very captivating nonetheless.

Mirkin: Lemon of Troy. My personal favorite episode of the series. The caper plot was very well done and I loved how realistically the kids were portrayed here. I wish this episode's kid portrayal was used in other episodes - Zombie Simpsons or otherwise, but what are you going to do? In addition to the plot keeping you on the edge of your seat, there are some great and memorable lines and gags in every single scene.

Oakley/Weinstein: Homer vs. The 18th Amendment, This was a tough one. O&W are my favorite showrunners, so there are tons of episodes to choose from, but I chose this. Like Lemon of Troy, the plot is very suspenseful and there are also some memorable moments in every scene, but I have to praise Oakley and Weinstein for showing Homer's cunning and genius side without turning him into a jerk. Just think how terrible this episode would be if this was in Season 11. Then again, that could be said about a lot of episodes, but I think this shows that.

Scully: Lisa Gets an A. Best post-classic episode without a doubt. This episode and Treehouse of Horror 9 are the only post-season 9 episodes I could see fitting into the classic era seamlessly. The humor was in the wittier classic era vein, the characters weren't annoying (except for a few scenes, such as Homer shoving Lisa into a freezer or guzzling beer through a hole he made), and I genuinely cared for Lisa in this episode.

Jean: Half-Decent Proposal. Really, it's a tie between this and Eternal Moonshine, but I picked HDP because the plot felt like something that could have been done in the classic era and it was just as captivating as any "big" plot from back then. The episode its self was far from classic, but by Zombie Simpsons standards, this was incredible.

>Jean: Half-Decent Proposal. Really, it's a tie between this and Eternal Moonshine, but I picked HDP because the plot felt like something that could have been done in the classic era and it was just as captivating as any "big" plot from back then. The episode its self was far from classic, but by Zombie Simpsons standards, this was incredible.

Me, I like Midnight Rx or maybe Girls Just Wanna Have Sums.

Groening/Brooks/Simon: Three Men and a Comic Book
Jean/Reiss: Last Exit to Springfield
Mirkin: Marge on the Lam
Oakley & Weinstein: Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming
Scully: Bart Star
Jean: Girls Just Wanna Have Sums

FEELS = boring

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there an actual mandate from Fox to the studio to knock off the human drama stuff and stick to comedy?

I seem to recall shit Fox told them lead to Grandpa Simpson becoming little more than a senile old coot with the Hellfish episode being one of the few exceptions...

Sneed

lisa gets a pearl necklace

>Sneed
cringe