sentiment vs. comedy

What would u rather have an episode feature? I say Sentiment cos Lisas Substitute is better than very funny episodes like Bart Gets Famous. Although Bart Gets Famous is great, Lisa's Substitute just is put together ssooooooooo well and is unlike anything we have ever seen. The Simpsons should be a cartoon where the characters have true emotions.

KARKOOTER wrote:

I can be emotional, but Homer has to do somthing out of this world, or be given mystical powers of the Ninja Force and be more proactive!

Yeah, that's the key! It'll win over the target demographic for sure!

I like there to be emotional episodes, just not episodes that are too obviously moral and mushy, such as season one.

I'm a big fan of the episodes that combine both neatly, like Lisa's Substitute and Summer of Four Foot Two (Sure you do! You've got the dud, right here!).

There were never any "moral" episodes.  There were a few mushy ones though.
________________________________________________________________

The Indian DVD Resource: http://www.fly.to/indiadvd

What happens when you delete the Recycle Bin?

"Gay" is not a synonym for "bad."

Remove "bination" to reply.

How about "Bart Sells His Soul," "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" or "Bart Gets an F"?

Alee

S1.3 FRI*+++ RWG++ GIL-- MIL++ MAG++ TEE+ LIS* f+++ n+ $ 9F01,7F19,7G02,2F10, 2F22,1F02,4F04 F1980

"Katijaikat" wrote in message news:[email]...

or

That was just a bunch of... stuff that happened.

I agree.  You take away all sentimentality and you end up with, well, the last
2 seasons.
________________________________________________________________

The Indian DVD Resource: http://www.fly.to/indiadvd

What happens when you delete the Recycle Bin?

"Gay" is not a synonym for "bad."

Remove "bination" to reply.

Sentiment vs. Comedy? why?

Sentiment and Comedy -- Thats how it goes!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------

John R. McLaughlin [email]

"But Jimmy has Fancy Plans, And Pants to Match." - Jimmy James

"KARKOOTER" wrote in message news:[email]...

Although

ssooooooooo

cartoon

As Mayor Quimby said "It can be two things!"

Out of context, but it applies. :)

Emotions and depth made the Simpsons great and unique back in the good old days so the loss of such qualities destroyed the show.

Sentiment and emotions are very important parts and every good satire is also a moral. It�s not just seasons 1 - 3, take season 7 - it�s full of good and subtle satire and morality and thus way better than current episodes.

Sentiment and comedy are no opponents but parts of every really good Simpsons episode and most of the episodes don�t work without balance between emotion and fun.

Chris

P.S. Anybody read my reviews for season 3? A couple of comments would encourage me to write more reviews for the rest of season 3 and for the later seasons :-)

I'm new to this newsgroup, but this message has inspired me to comment.

I agree with Chris. The Simpsons is always at it's very best when it contains both emotion and humour. If you have an episode with just one or the other it tends to end up being either slightly meaningless or just not fun to watch. The emotional content in an episode always gets to me more when I've just been laughing my head off at something really funny.

Em

"Chris Pfeiler" wrote in message news:[email]...

days

also a

Simpsons

emotion and

encourage

seasons :-)

FYI.

The Simpsons Realism (revised)

An assortment of material I've collected over the years...

QUOTES FROM PEOPLE WORKING ON THE SHOW... Compiled by Dave Hall ([email]) (last updated 24-Aug-99)

===========================================================================

Sam Simon:

"It was Jim Brooks who had the vision of what this series could be. The breakthrough was Jim's marching orders to do a show based on the emotional inner lives of its cartoon characters, and that's really never been done before.

Whereas the show is funny and we told these funny stories, for something to catch on as quickly as it did it has to be that it touched people. They saw themselves in the characters. Some of our initial stories were about a character's right to feel sad. Its not a story you do in a regular cartoon show."

"I don't want to be misunderstood. I think we do have 'issue' shows, and I'm glad the show attracts sufficient interest for people to want to analyse it. For all I know, they may be more correct about their conclusions than the people who write and direct it!

"I'm very proud that we've tackled issues but in American television, when you do a show with a point, it usually becomes one of those 'very special episodes' and you stop being funny for a week to make a statement.

"We frequently make statements, and it's a tribute to how well-executed it is that people often don't realise that we're making a point. We never stop being funny."

David Silverman:

"I say there's more truth in the Simpsons and the way it portrays human beings and life in our country, probably globally - and that to me is far more beneficial than trying to have a false morality that doesn't really exist in the real world."

Yeardley Smith:

"The strength of the show is the characters -- that's the strength of any good show. Since they've gotten more mainstream, they keep wanting to go for the easy laughs, the stupid jokes. I think it's the wrong move, and an insult to the intelligence of the audience.

I'm very Lisa-like, and I try to stick up for the show's humanity. But I think sometimes the forces involved -- not Matt Groening, that's for sure -- are a little like Homer. They don't get it."

(from another interview...)

"The great thing about the Simpsons is that they were more like real people than most of the people on television. Everything about the story line and the humour were character-driven. Now we often have a joke for the sake of a joke. I take exception to that, whether it's live-action or animation. But the show, I think, is still one of the best on TV."

(from another interview)

"I gather that one of James Brooks' credos in the beginning was that the Simpsons would never do anything that regular live action people couldn't do. That meant all of the stories had to be character-driven as opposed to situation-driven, which is so much easier with an animated show, where you can have them flying off a cliff and survive.

Obviously over the years we had to get away from that somewhat because you run out of things to talk about, but the writers work so hard on that, and again it has to do with the actors not being identified with the characters in the beginning. The Simpsons are an entity, you know, people believe in them and I don't mean in some silly culty way, but they are actually more real than many of the real people on television. Also I think that animation affords you enough distance to say the things you might otherwise not be able to get away with on real television."

Julie Kavner:

"For my taste, when it gets too cartoony -- I don't think that's what the show's about. The reality of it is what made it work in the first place. When they made Homer too stupid, I thought it went too far."

Matt Groening: (when asked about keeping the show fresh...)

"We try to put real human emotion into it. Most other cartoons, except the Disney films, don't seem to do that. They are just about surface emotion. The show has a rubber-band reality. We stretch it way out into the far reaches of human folly, and it snaps back to relative sanity."

(From another interview...)

"What I try to do is remind everybody on the show that we have to stick to certain rules. We're the only cartoon show where, when people hit the ground, they're actually bruised and bloody."

Bill Oakley:

"I think the characters on this show are probably more real than most of the characters you see on TV."

Josh Weinstein:

"One thing about The Simpsons, even though it's a cartoon, in a lot of ways, it's more realistic than a lot of sitcoms."

Josh Weinstein & Bill Oakley:

"The family's very real and a rule we have is that no matter what craziness is going around on the outside, the family always loves each other. There's always sort of a heart tune -- even if it's a twisted heart -- there's still a heart there so people really can relate to it, and even though it is a cartoon in a lot of ways, it's a lot more realistic. Another thing is that we always try to have the family characters relate on an emotional, serious level. Every other show the family members, who ostensibly are meant to be a family, are insulting each other for no apparent reason other than to get a laugh, whereas Bart certainly insults Homer, and vice versa, but it's never without a good reason."

Stephen Hawking (guest on the show):

"I think [The Simpsons] one of the cleverest shows on television, and it always has a moral."

Snipped from David Mirkin's 1995 CJAD radio interview:

 Q: Coming in yourself as an Executive Producer in a show
    that's already been on the air and established for awhile,
    is there anything that you do to put your own stamp on the
    show? Has it changed at all in the years you've taken it
    over?

DM: I think there are definitely changes. It's hard for me to
    absolutely point them out. Other people have told me the
    show became a little bit more story intensive when I came
    aboard. The first season was very, very story oriented and
    very character oriented, but kind of slow moving in the
    first season. Then the pace kept picking up for the second,
    third and fourth season, but by the third and fourth season
    it was going so fast that story got lost a little bit. It
    was almost a series of events then a strong story. I kind
    of brought it back and it was something that I wanted to do
    and Jim Brooks wanted to do.  Wanted to bring it back to
    more of a strong story-character through line and I think
    we did that. Plus, just naturally the events that the
    characters when through started to much more reflect my own
    life in terms of experiences I had or things that happened
    to me as a kid for Bart or unfortunately things that
    happened to me as an adult for Homer.

Snipped from Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein's 1998 tvdads.com's interview:

Bill: [...] what we were most excited about in The Simpsons was
      like, in the second and third seasons, we really liked
      the show when it was very realistic. I mean, it was
      realistic, but there would be occasional grabs out into
      absurdity or whatever, like Homer falling off the cliff,
      or whatever. But then, as the show - even when we were
      there, the show started to become less realistic, and
      people would often become very famous for things that
      would happen like that. So we've - this show is VERY
      realistic, and we try to keep it to that, because that's
      what we like. But there's the occasional jab out into
      craziness. And also, back in the early seasons of The
      Simpsons, it wasn't - the story was the most important
      thing, and it wasn't - even - when we were there - by the
      time we were running it, people were used to "every
      single line had to be a joke." And we felt that got in
      the way of telling the stories, and we preferred the
      episodes from the second and third seasons, where the
      pace was a little slower. There wasn't a joke every
      single line. And that's what we're doing. We prefer to
      let the story breathe, and put the jokes where
      appropriate, not just trying to cram one into every line.

Alf Clausen: (When asked a question about The Simpsons being a sitcom with a live orchestra...)

  "First of all, we are not a sitcom. We are a drama where the
   characters are drawn.  I am a very lucky composer to be able to
   have a 35-piece orchestra to record my music on a weekly basis."

Alf's explanation for his answer above can be found in Film Score Monthly:

  Q: How do you think that your approach to The Simpsons
     differs from something like you approach to The Critic
     or even Moonlighting? What is it about The Simpsons
     that is unique?

 AC: It's funny, I've been asked that before, and I relate
     back to my very first meeting with the producers on The
     Simpsons, including Matt Groening, the creator. He,
     from our very first meeting, said to me, "We don't look
     upon our show as a cartoon, we look upon it as a drama
     where the characters are drawn," and that always stuck
     with me. He said, "As long as you treat your musical
     approach in that manner I don't think you'll go wrong
     with us," and it's really served me well because, as
     you know, most animated shows come from a history of
     Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd where
     there's a lot of catching of various action scenes.
     They really don't like me to do that with The Simpsons.
     They like me to score the emotion of it and it has
     really turned out to a be an interesting way to
     approach an animated show.  [...]

David Silverman quote from 1998:

   "And many of us, Brad Bird always points out he's our
    Executive Consultant, very good artist and a brilliant
    director, he always felt that the second season the
    episodes were all great. Great storylines, every episode
    seemed to cover a great emotion or a great arc of
    character and just really funny and some really cool
    direction from the various directors. [...]"

Matt Groening:

   "Jim Brooks, a true genius, gave me my first break on The
    Tracey Ullman Show.  And he's always fought to maintain
    a level of emotional realism in The Simpsons when the
    temptation is to just go wacky."

===========================================================================

ARTICLES

Ed Bishop (The Riverfront Times, June 3rd, 1992): I know other shows on television are funny. But the appeal of The Simpsons goes beyond its humor. There's an angst, a kind of doom, in The Simpsons that's unlike anything else on television. The Simpsons are a family of losers and they know it. Homer and Marge will never get beyond their debts and the middle-class values they actually hate. Lisa will grow up and marry someone like her father, never opening up the poet inside her. Bart will likely die in a drag-racing accident. Yet, though there's angst and even self-pity in these characters, they are not defeated. Their awareness of their limitations and their struggle against them are a rare combination for television sitcoms. This is not a humorous twist on what psychologists like to call a dysfunctional family. On The Simpsons, it's the world that's dysfunctional. In other words, unlike the narrative neatness on even the best TV shows, these cartoon characters have a reality about them. A kind of joy exists in that.

Tom Shales (Washington Post, September 24, 1992): What's especially admirable about "The Simpsons" is the way satiric asides are tucked into every corner. In the [4th] season premiere, Krusty the Klown, Bart's favorite idiotic TV personality, beckons children to his Kamp Krusty with a TV commercial promising fat kids that they'll get to take part in "an exclusive program of diet and ridicule."

Krusty figures in the [A Streetcar Named Marge] episode as well. Baby Maggie pulls the string of a talking Krusty doll and hears it say, "If I break, buy a new one!" She's been salted away in the Ayn Rand School for Tots, and its Nietzschean matron has done the unthinkable: taken away Maggie's precious pacifier.

Maggie liberates the pacifier and those of her fellow babies while the theme music to "The Great Escape" plays on the soundtrack. [...]

John Cassidy (The New Yorker, Oct. 16th, 1995): In Hollywood, where pandering to market forces has been raised to an art form, the wake-up call came years ago. Prime-time sitcom producers, in particular have long been aware of the truth that the poliicians dare not utter. As a result, the Simpsons, the Bundys and the Conners have replaced the Cleavers, the Stones and the Nelsons as the archetypical American families. These shows are well-grounded in reality....Homer Simpson, Al Bundy, and Dan Conner are excellent examples of the 75 percent of American men who do not have a college degree and are feeling the pinch...

Richard Corliss (Time Inc., May 2, 1994):

Ten reasons the Simpsons are America's ideal family [..] 10. They have heart. One of Brooks' cardinal rules: Let's not be afraid of emotion. The strongest episodes are those (like "Lisa's Substitute," "Homer Alone," "Like Father, Like Clown" and "Bart the Lover") that reveal the bedrock fondness, desperation and loyalty that bond this or any other frazzled clan. A viewer can feel awe at the show's cascading wit and still purr at the sweet, deep sentiment. Hail, Simpsons! May you live another 100 episodes at the same apex of quality.

Yep, these are some of my favourite episodes. There�s a lot of truth in all the material you collected and it�s good to read that many people from the production staff see that something�s wrong with the show in these days and they also seem to know what the problem is - the loss of balance.

I miss a quote from Al Jean. What does he think about emotions and wackyness? Well, I guess his current episodes have shown it :-(

Chris

Agreed. The sentimentalness (is that a word?) mixed with the ingenuis comedy is what makes you really care about OFF and what happens to the characters, rather than just have a passing interest in them. Otherwise, I wouldn't be bothered by Homer being such a jerk to his family in recent episodes.

Betsy "The Simpsons are my family, oh I'm pathetic" Where

S1.3: LIS+++ FRI++@! The Ramones (RIP Joey)+++ HIB-- CBG+++!!!!* NSync-- Ron Howard++ f++ n- $+++ 4F05, 7F09, 8F15 F1981