First "Worst Episode Ever" at ats.
Gander a guess at what year?
Try 1992:
Newsgroups: alt.tv.simpsons
From: [email] (John R. Donald)
Subject: I&STM
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Summary: Worst Episode ever - Itchy & Scratchy the movie
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Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 20:28:47 GMT
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Intense? I thought this was easily the worst episode ever. Simply not funny. "Where did he put the firecracker?" I can't imagine child abuse being funny. Now, somebody being eaten by a gorilla, somebody being hit by lightning, that's funny. Child abuse is not. The way I interpreted it, this was a reference to a standard technique of using dolls to get physically/ sexually abused children to talk about the abuse incidents.
Bart dropping his pants. How many times is this funny? Well, it was funny when we saw it in a previous episode. But I don't think that Bart's butt is inherintly funny. Also, we have never actually seen Homer spank Bart, have we? So why does Bart expect it so readily?
Bart as a stripper. Really more repulsive than funny. The bad thing about things like this is that I used to disagree with parents who didn't let their children watch the Simpsons - I no longer disagre with them. I would not have wanted my children (if I had any) to watch that scene.
Star Trek. In Living Color has done it. Saturday Night Live has done it. Mad magazine has done it. Local high school talent shows have done it. Now, the Simpsons have done it, and they didn't do it any better than anyone else. Should have left it alone, and come up with something original.
Homer being very familiar with Chief Justices. (BTW, the title is 'Chief Justice of the United States', not 'Chief Justice of the Supreme Court' - don't know if this error was intentional or not, it's not really important.) Once in a while, when Homer throws out something like that, it is funny. Yes, it is out of character for Homer to say anything too intellectual, but I admit one of my favorite Simpson's moment is when Homer is intervening in an argument between Lisa and the Albanian kid (Adil?) and he says something about 'the blood of the workers oiling the machinery of capitalism'. But that was just a one time thing. maybe it was something that Homer heard once, and it got stuck somewhere in his brain. But we know that this is an aberration, Homer is simply not a bright guy. I can't believe he is that familiar with the names of the Supreme court justices. (However, I did laugh at 'Warren Burger...Mmmmm....Burger...') It would have been more in character if Lisa had recited the names...
And I didn't like the bit about 40 years from now, although I don't really have an argument against it. I just didn't like it.
This episode was an appeal to the lowest common denominator. It exploited cliches instead of exposing them. It twisted character traits in order to go after laughs. It relied on gimmicks that got a laugh in the past. It became a parody of itself. I repeat, this was by far the worst episode ever. I hope it was an aberration - I don't think I have seen these trends in other recent episodes, so I am hopeful.
-JD