The Big Picture: The Simpsons Is Still Funny, Part 2

[ToastiestZombie]

I feel out of touch with the internet in not understanding why there are so many MLP avatars in this thread, nor why they all seem to be genuine

Maybe I need to reinstall stumble

Because there is a good amount of bronies on this site, and on this site it's nice to fit into a group so we get an avatar to tell people how we feel about it things. Also, not many of the pony avatars are actually original and thought out. Some of them are just a meme easily copied from a site such as ponychan, but avatars like mine or Caramel Frappe are actually original and only we have these avatars. So no, not many of the pony avatars are "genuine". But they definetly are real.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Yes! Cape Fear and 22 Short Stories and Springfield are definitely in my top five as well. My hat is off to you good sir.

 

[RaikuFA]

I don't care what anyone says, Adventure Time, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and Regular Show all have a special place in my heart, along with some outliers like Phineas and Ferb and The Amazing World of Gumball. I just love them for how awesomely absurd and weird they are, it's a style I haven't seen in a long time. All of these have quality animation, quality writing, and quality everything else pretty much. They really are much better than they have any business being. The way I see it, I think there's been a revival to the cartoon genre thanks to these shows as they all bring me back to the days where I'd get up for Saturday morning cartoons. I think you'd be able to do an episode on that whole concept of the Saturday cartoon dieing off until this started, but then again this is probably nostalgia talking.

Speaking of nostalgia, that's really the only reason why I watch the Simpsons anymore. It still makes me laugh occasionally, and it's nice to keep up with it and have something stay consistent in our lives. I do agree that it's more everyone else changing rather than the show, but the characters have also changed either for better or worse. Flanders [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization] is an obvious example. Regardless, it will be a sad day in television history when The Simpsons is eventually canceled. Few shows will ever live up to it.

You sir just won the internet, what are you going to do now?

I'll be traveling to the land of OOO and drop by Equestria to see how things are doing, maybe research on what park Regular Show is based on and jump into the internet.

Though I do wonder, how many people really prefer Adventure Time because they watch both shows and prefer it, or just hate My Little Pony by default and automatically give Adventure Time the trophy?

I'm neutral on ponies but I've never seen the show but I did use fluttershy's yay on someone.

 

[BrotherRool]

I feel out of touch with the internet in not understanding why there are so many MLP avatars in this thread, nor why they all seem to be genuine

Maybe I need to reinstall stumble

Because there is a good amount of bronies on this site, and on this site it's nice to fit into a group so we get an avatar to tell people how we feel about it things. Also, not many of the pony avatars are actually original and thought out. Some of them are just a meme easily copied from a site such as ponychan, but avatars like mine or Caramel Frappe are actually original and only we have these avatars. So no, not many of the pony avatars are "genuine". But they definetly are real.

I meant Bryonism in general I've spent the time since my first post reading up on it and I have to admit, from what I remember of the spoof trailers and that one scientific deconstruction I can see the attraction, but it's a strange strange place and maybe crossing over would involve losing all reality

 

[Shadowstar38]

I never really like any episodes before the late 90's and 2000's. I stopped watching it at some point yes, but thats only because I found better things.

Futurama's last season on the other hand...

And that pointless Adventure Time and MLP comparasen. Why must you troll me Bob? Havnt I been good to you? =P

 

[DustyDrB]

"You Only Move Twice" doesn't make the top 5? Well...at least we have the same #1.

Also, I have never heard of Adventure Time and never seen a bit of My Little Pony. There's some evidence of "everything is niche"

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I feel out of touch with the internet in not understanding why there are so many MLP avatars in this thread, nor why they all seem to be genuine

Maybe I need to reinstall stumble

Because there is a good amount of bronies on this site, and on this site it's nice to fit into a group so we get an avatar to tell people how we feel about it things. Also, not many of the pony avatars are actually original and thought out. Some of them are just a meme easily copied from a site such as ponychan, but avatars like mine or Caramel Frappe are actually original and only we have these avatars. So no, not many of the pony avatars are "genuine". But they definetly are real.

I meant Bryonism in general I've spent the time since my first post reading up on it and I have to admit, from what I remember of the spoof trailers and that one scientific deconstruction I can see the attraction, but it's a strange strange place and maybe crossing over would involve losing all reality

It's not all that strange, just the internet being the internet. Some brony made things are amazing, such as some of the songs and there is even a show on youtube called "Friendship is Witchcraft" which redubs entire episodes, puts in original songs and gives each character a decent backstory. But there is also some really weird and messed up stuff, like "Cupcakes" and the whole "Clopping" thing, those two sicken me and the brony community really does not like to talk about them. But other than the tiny bit of messed up stuff there is, there really isn't anything else you wouldn't see a fan of another show doing.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Bob, did you throw in that bit about Adventure Time vs. Friendship Is Magic just to divert people's attention and prevent a flame war over The Simpsons?

I want to say that was brilliant, if you did, but I think you might have blown up a dam to extinguish a brush fire. Or whatever the popular expression is.

Personally I wish I liked Adventure Time more than I did. I LOVED the original short that got leaked onto YouTube ages ago, and the concept of a kid living in a wacky, modernized sort of Never-Never-Land setting seemed to have a lot of promise, but after I saw the first couple episodes of the actual show, I gave up because it felt so bland by comparison. (Funnily enough, those episodes were also written by everyone's most unfavorite Friendship Is Magic writer, Merriweather Williams. So maybe that's got something to do with it.)

But there is also some really weird and messed up stuff, like "Cupcakes" and the whole "Clopping" thing, those two sicken me and for some bizarre reason the brony community loves to talk about them.

Fixed that for you. At least based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Right Hook]

I'm not going to say Bob is correct in assuming Adventure Time is the better show, at least not on an individual basis, I think that comes down to personal preference. What I will say is that this probably makes it the more witty, well written show, since Bob usually has really good opinions on most things. I've never watched Ponies and I most likely never will, I have watched Adventure Time and at first dismissed it as a childrens show with no real value to me but after a while it completely sucked me in, it's an amazing show and the fact that it has John Di Maggio as the voice of Jake is enough to proclaim it the better show in my opinion.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Bob, did you throw in that bit about Adventure Time vs. Friendship Is Magic just to divert people's attention and prevent a flame war over The Simpsons?

I want to say that was brilliant, if you did, but I think you might have blown up a dam to extinguish a brush fire. Or whatever the popular expression is.

Personally I wish I liked Adventure Time more than I did. I LOVED the original short that got leaked onto YouTube ages ago, and the concept of a kid living in a wacky, modernized sort of Never-Never-Land setting seemed to have a lot of promise, but after I saw the first couple episodes of the actual show, I gave up because it felt so bland by comparison. (Funnily enough, those episodes were also written by everyone's most unfavorite Friendship Is Magic writer, Merriweather Williams. So maybe that's got something to do with it.)

But there is also some really weird and messed up stuff, like "Cupcakes" and the whole "Clopping" thing, those two sicken me and for some bizarre reason the brony community loves to talk about them.

Fixed that for you. At least based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.

Well I've only really had interactions with bronies through the user group and Equestria Daily, so I haven't really seen any of the more "weird" sections of brony culture. I have read Cupcakes but haven't actually stumbled on any clop pictures so far, so I consider myself rather lucky.

 

[Something Amyss]

I disagree hard. The thing is, there is still a strong, relatively monolithic popular culture and public consciousness. Its focus may have changed, but for a long time the Simpsons kept up with that change. The more recent seasons have failed to keep up, yes, but not because of a fragmented culture.

Do we have more diverse interests? Yes. Did we during the time the Simpsons was still considered funny? Yes, unless your idea of a good Simpsons run was like the first three seasons.

Most people cite a range of ten or eleven seasons. that's a decade. A decade of rapid change. Few things like the internet came out of nowhere. The "splintering" of the cable market began with shows like the Simpsons allowing Fox to get its foot in the door. In fact, the Simpsons is pretty much the only reason Fox got its foot in the door. Other networks had tried and failed. This was about the time of the first real intruders into the market.

Have things changed more now? Yes, but that kind of relative change really is beside the point.

We may have more stuff that panders to our individual tastes, but our public consciousness is almost as strong as it was back when the Simpsons was still on. Not quite as strong, but nowhere near as fragmented as Bob would put it.

Also, I really do love a steamed ham.

Living not too far from Albany, I enjoy a nice steamed ham while kicking back and watching the Northern Lights in my kitchen.

 

[guise709]

Adventure Time and Friendship is Magic are both good shows and equal standing as far as I'm concerned. They both handle comedy and scenarios differently and everyone has a right to like one over the other it SHOULD NOT AFFECT YOUR VIEWING OF SAID SHOW.

This was a message to all past and future crybabies on this board/thread

 

[Nouw]

I always relate this to Spongebob rather than the Simpsons for some reason. Hmmm...

 

[SnakeoilSage]

A well-research theory, Bob, but I think you're reading too much into it. You can put together a reasoned argument with plenty of circumstantial evidence to back it up, but saying people don't "get" the Simpsons anymore because of the internet really seems to be reaching for a sociological reason for people to find the Simpsons tedious. And really, when you get right down to it, you're just saying "the Simpsons got old" in a way that's about as roundabout and polite as you can get without using Gabriel Iglesias' five levels of fatness.

If you like it, you like it. You don't have to defend your right to like it. But the truth is after 20+ years of The Simpsons, with absolutely no breaks in-between, people are tired of it. If it had ended ten or even five years ago, the nostalgic fans would be all over it. But it hasn't. It's trudged on long past its due, bringing nothing of interest to the table except for a cookie-cutter feature-length film (which literally is just a mash-up of about a dozen pre-existing Simpsons plots) and half a second of Bart's wang on the big screen.

When Matt Groening (the man with the hardest name to pronounce vocally since Clive Cussler) told Jon Stewart that the reason it took twenty years to make The Simpsons Movie was because "they had to decide on a name first" everyone laughed, as I did, but I think it was "honesty for irony's sake" funny, rather than "distracting from the real reason" funny.

 

[Hobonicus]

I'm still not buying it. Sure, maybe our tastes have evolved, but the older episodes are still funny and you can't assume every single Simpsons fan became blinded by nostalgia at the same time. Newer seasons just don't have writing as funny as the older ones. Maybe you could point at us for making the writers change their style to better fit a Family Guy generation, but the writers are still to blame.

Could be you honestly still think The Simpsons is funny. Could be you just conceptually think they're still decently written, which is more how this Big Picture episode played out. We may not be able to relate to the parodies as well anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that the show is designed differently now. Conceptually, you're spot on, but if I compare an episode from season 8 with one from season 18, I'll constantly be saying to myself "Wow, do they honestly expect me to laugh at that clumsy joke? This is almost embarrassing."

Shows lose their spark more often than entire populations change perspectives while retaining perfect nostalgia. There's little to theorize here. It's just no longer funny.

 

[Hitchmeister]

Ah! I get it now. SOPA is a massive plot to save The Simpsons by destroying the internet.

 

[The_Echo]

(The douche in me would like to point out that, out of the five episodes he picked at the end, only one was fairly recent.)

I think Bob overcomplicated the subject here.

For me, The Simpsons died. It didn't stop being funny, it just died. The show being written now is a ghost of its former self, lacking the same substance or heart that the original had. Imagine taking an actor's corpse, stringing it up and making it do that actor's most notable work as a puppet. That's essentially how I view The Simpsons as it is today.

I watched a new episode about a month or two ago, wherein Flanders becomes enamored with Bart's teacher. Or something close to that. While this was a humorous concept, the execution just didn't cut it. The episode as a whole hardly left a smirk on my face, even though I could point out exactly where all the jokes were, how they were supposed to be funny and why I, personally, would have found them funny.

There's just no heart left, that's the real problem.

 

[BrotherRool]

I feel out of touch with the internet in not understanding why there are so many MLP avatars in this thread, nor why they all seem to be genuine

Maybe I need to reinstall stumble

Because there is a good amount of bronies on this site, and on this site it's nice to fit into a group so we get an avatar to tell people how we feel about it things. Also, not many of the pony avatars are actually original and thought out. Some of them are just a meme easily copied from a site such as ponychan, but avatars like mine or Caramel Frappe are actually original and only we have these avatars. So no, not many of the pony avatars are "genuine". But they definetly are real.

I meant Bryonism in general I've spent the time since my first post reading up on it and I have to admit, from what I remember of the spoof trailers and that one scientific deconstruction I can see the attraction, but it's a strange strange place and maybe crossing over would involve losing all reality

It's not all that strange, just the internet being the internet. Some brony made things are amazing, such as some of the songs and there is even a show on youtube called "Friendship is Witchcraft" which redubs entire episodes, puts in original songs and gives each character a decent backstory. But there is also some really weird and messed up stuff, like "Cupcakes" and the whole "Clopping" thing, those two sicken me and the brony community really does not like to talk about them. But other than the tiny bit of messed up stuff there is, there really isn't anything else you wouldn't see a fan of another show doing.

I completely agree it's just the internet being the internet, but the whole thing that it's My Little Pony makes it weird, I think I can see it (and my information search even took me to the wikipedia page on New Sincerity) but it's still... what it is

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I feel out of touch with the internet in not understanding why there are so many MLP avatars in this thread, nor why they all seem to be genuine

Maybe I need to reinstall stumble

Because there is a good amount of bronies on this site, and on this site it's nice to fit into a group so we get an avatar to tell people how we feel about it things. Also, not many of the pony avatars are actually original and thought out. Some of them are just a meme easily copied from a site such as ponychan, but avatars like mine or Caramel Frappe are actually original and only we have these avatars. So no, not many of the pony avatars are "genuine". But they definetly are real.

I meant Bryonism in general I've spent the time since my first post reading up on it and I have to admit, from what I remember of the spoof trailers and that one scientific deconstruction I can see the attraction, but it's a strange strange place and maybe crossing over would involve losing all reality

It's not all that strange, just the internet being the internet. Some brony made things are amazing, such as some of the songs and there is even a show on youtube called "Friendship is Witchcraft" which redubs entire episodes, puts in original songs and gives each character a decent backstory. But there is also some really weird and messed up stuff, like "Cupcakes" and the whole "Clopping" thing, those two sicken me and the brony community really does not like to talk about them. But other than the tiny bit of messed up stuff there is, there really isn't anything else you wouldn't see a fan of another show doing.

I completely agree it's just the internet being the internet, but the whole thing that it's My Little Pony makes it weird, I think I can see it (and my information search even took me to the wikipedia page on New Sincerity) but it's still... what it is

I don't think many bronies and MLP fans (Like myself) really care about the part about ponies. We just want a good animation show to watch that doesn't have bullshit, has good jokes and lightens up you're day. I don't think as MLP fans as people who like it because there are ponies, but I think it's because they like it because they like good animation. So if you think like that, then the reason why we all love the show becomes very clear, the fact the main cast are ponies is a side bit.

EDIT: I just thought of something. You could replace the part of MLP with something else, like dogs or spongebob characters and you would still have an awesome show.

EDIT 2: Also, this is a prime example of the people who hate MLP

Spoiler

Call us weird all you want, at least we are not as negative as people like this.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

I'll give you this: 24 Minutes was really good despite being a modern episode.