All right, I'm one of the fans who enjoys every episode in one way or another (except All Singing, All Dancing and Simpsons Bible Stories). I get a laugh or two out of even the worst shows, such as Saddlesore Gallactica. For instance, Bart combing Furious D with a toilet brush, all the inside jokes with CBG were great, and the Furious D as Rodman was hilarious. However, overall I thought this episode was very weak (the jockey song was painfully unfunny). Interestingly enough, my girlfriend who doesn't like the show and gets annoyed because I watch it everyday, laughed her ass off to this episode. The jokes that I thought were brutal (the track announcer for example) she loved. I wonder, does this reflect the show moving away from the regular fan to appeal to more people, therefore maybe alienating a lot of the hardcore fans as we've seen here? Discuss amongst yourselves. But don't get me wrong, I'll still watch Saddlesore over most any other network programming. Sincerely, Little Girl
Saddle-snore Galactica (get it?)
"Internet King" wrote in message news:[email]...
I'm with you; there's generally good in every episode (even 5F20). I liked "horse dealies" and Homer feeding Furious D the tacos, as well.
annoyed
jokes that I thought
Everyone from Matthew Kurth, to Ondre Lombard, to Chris Pfeiler, to Jake Lennington has been saying that. Our money is as good as anyone else's. A wider audience means more bucks, simply put. The show now is primarily a money-maker, whereas in the past it was a very high-quality show first, and a money maker because of that. I remember Matt Groening interviews (in Simpsons Illustrated and others) where he stated point blank how opposed he and Sam Simon and James L. Brooks were to merchandising the show. Bart dolls and Homer T-Shirts were only sparsely created, because Groening felt that merchandising the show would compromise its integrity. He was probably right.
In 5F10, Krusty says "Comedy ain't funny, anymore." That same episode satirizes what happens to comedy when "selling out" becomes more important. Possibly the writers of that episode were letting everyone know (through that plot) that this was actually happening to "The Simpsons". It wasn't long after 5F10 that action figures, and pez despensers, and trivia games, and skateboards, and The Simpsons Global fan fest happened.
Now that there's all this so-called collectible "stuff", the market for The Simpsons will surely widen. To keep this merchandise-hungry audience happy, you have to make the show more accessible. Not everyone is going to enjoy a tongue-in-cheek satire of America, because it takes real smarts and life-experience to understand such a show. Not everyone will enjoy a comedy show that features strong characters, real conflict and true emotion either, because most people watch cartoons to laugh. Enter Homer the super-buffoon, fart jokes, and easy humor.
This argument is starting to sound pat, because it's been used so often. But, it used to be more true. Many new episodes are destroyed in quality by a show like Family Guy, for instance.
Whoa... a discussion-type post from the Internet King. What next, a talking banana?
On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, The Rack wrote:
Yeah, anything can happen. Even *I* deliver a discussion-type post... from time to time.
/ Kristian
+-------------------------------------------------------+ |Kristian Ronge | |[email] [email] | |(civil) (skola) |
|d99, datateknik, KTH (Kungliga Tekniska H�gskolan) | |d99, Computer Science, Royal Institute of Technology | +-------------------------------------------------------+
The Rack wrote:
Well, everyone once in awhile I do have an original thought or comment. Now back to random quotes...snuh. Sincerely, Little Girl