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FXX airing every Simpsons in a 544 episode marathon, started 10am today! (1 Viewer)

Sam Posten

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TravisR

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If I could physically stay away awake long enough, I would love to watch like the first decade or so.

It's too bad that they've cropped about 20 seasons worth of episodes to 1.78. Since Matt Groening has specifically said how The Simpsons is a 4:3 show (the first 19 production seasons anyway), I just assumed that the framing would be respected and not tossed to placate people who want to fill their widescreen TVs.
 

Walter C

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Wow, it's basically going through the history of the Simpsons!

And it does look like the original couch gags were put back in, judging by the one or two episodes that I caught. In the syndicated versions, they always seem to insert the one where the Simpson family runs into another Simpson family.

Strangely enough, the best part of the current season of the Simpsons, have been the couch gags, as it seems like more effort gets put into that than the actual episodes themselves.
 

TravisR

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Walter C said:
And it does look like the original couch gags were put back in, judging by the one or two episodes that I caught. In the syndicated versions, they always seem to insert the one where the Simpson family runs into another Simpson family.
I'm not sitting there with a stopwatch but when I was watching a couple episodes yesterday, I was taken aback by how quickly the commercial breaks were since the early seasons run 2 or 3 minutes longer than TV shows today.

As for the modern day episodes, I know I'll watch until either I or the show dies. I've made peace with the fact that The Simpsons is never going to be as good as it was but it has improved over the last few years (from the nadir of the mid-2000's) and each episode still has at least one really solid laugh so, with adjusted expectations, I'm still a reasonably happy viewer. The funny thing is that there's kids out there today that love the modern episodes and think the first decade isn't that good.

If I had to mark the end of the 'classic' period of the series, I'd say it was Behind The Laughter (the Behind The Music-style episode that was the S11 finale). That brings in a number of weak episodes (most of S11 isn't anything to write home about) but that episode seems like a fitting end point too.
 

Josh Dial

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The DVDs are dirt cheap. I've been working my way through the entire series now for a few months. I'm currently just finishing season 11. Honestly, while there are certainly a few duds, these past few seasons have held up.
 

DaveF

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If I had the 2TB drive in my Tivo, I'd record the whole shebang. I figure if I ever want to rematch, I'll buy the discs.
 

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I think one's love of The Simpsons' off-the-wall humor can be pretty well summed up by whether you find the rake-gag in "Cape Feare" funny or not.



You know, as great as "Marge vs. the Monorail" is, I think I might have to give my vote for All-Time Greatest Simpsons Episode™ to "Lemon Of Troy."

It has so many moments of wonderful absurdity, plus the revelation that Shelbyville was founded to protect a man's God-given right to marry his cousins. We are also now closer than any of us would like to admit to experiencing the actual Rocky VII: Adrian's Revenge.

- "Hey everybody, an old man's talking!"

- "Who will come with me to live a life devoted to chastity, abstinence, and a flavorless mush I call 'root marm'?"

- "STUPIDER LIKE A FOX!!"

- The animation of the Shelbyville dad's face puckering up and eyes watering as he tries to smugly chow on a lemon.

And of course, it has given us the immortal invocation to "shake harder, boy!", as well as teaching me to add, "...or we'll choke their rivers with our dead!" to the end of any rant about a trivial topic.

My life is better for "Lemon Of Troy." Fact.


Sam Posten said:
For the record, the best ever made is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Viaje_Misterioso_de_Nuestro_Jomer_%28The_Mysterious_Voyage_of_Homer%29

It airs on Sunday August 24th at 6:30 EST. Set your DVRs, cause even Youtube won't let you see this amazing sequence in full!


That episode (Homer and the chili-cookoff) was really where The Simpsons started to get into the weeds of having great, epic ideas for sequences, but struggling to find emotional, satirical, or even just narratively-solid premises to tie their episodes together with.

The vision-quest is amazing and clearly something the animators came up with as an excuse to go nuts, but the actual mystic revelation is totally pointless. I guess one could maybe argue that's the whole point, but it wasn't really at all dramatically or comedically satisfying, either.
 

TravisR

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joshEH said:
You know, as great as "Marge vs. the Monorail" is, I think I might have to give my vote for All-Time Greatest Simpsons Episode™ to "Lemon Of Troy."
Just thinking about "There's a lemon behind that rock!" makes me laugh.

There's probably 25 episodes of The Simpsons that I could entertain as being the best but if I had to pick one, I'd say Bart The Daredevil. Homer falling down and especially getting airlifted out of Springfield Gorge is priceless.
 

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There's a classic scene from an early season where Bart and Homer are in the woods. They set a tree snare to catch a rabbit. A rabbit jumps into the trap, and it goes off, flinging the rabbit essentially into the next state.

That was one of the single hardest laughs that I've ever had in my entire life. I don't care if you tell me that the rest of the episode sucked, that moment made life worth living.

Also, "Bart's Inner Child" --the whole trampoline-thing throughout that episode fucking killed me:



TravisR said:
There's probably 25 episodes of The Simpsons that I could entertain as being the best but if I had to pick one, I'd say Bart The Daredevil. Homer falling down and especially getting airlifted out of Springfield Gorge is priceless.
I have a confession.

The first time I saw Homer fall down the gorge, and then again on the stretcher because the ambulance immediately hit a tree, I literally laughed so hard I wet my pants. That's an overused expression for sure, but literally, my bladder failed me due to laughter.

I didn't mind, as I was so damn happy at the gag...
 

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I may have to scratch all of the above, and go with "$pringfield":

Mr-Burns.gif


...Or possibly "Homer Bad Man," which was a terrific indictment of the media as it existed at the time. Of course, things have gotten much worse since.


Also in this ep: the action-film parody at the candy convention, the Gummi Venus de Milo, "Under The Sea," Rock Bottom. All that good stuff.

Kent Brockman: "This is Hour 57 of our live, round-the-clock coverage outside the Simpson estate. Remember, by the way, to tune in at 8:00 for highlights of today's vigil, including when the garbage man came, and when Marge Simpson put the cat out...possibly because it was harassed; we don't know."
 

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My favourite episode is "Homer at the Bat," followed by "Lemon of Troy." "Homer at the Bat" is almost literally an entire episode of nothing by quotable lines.
 

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Just typing about it again compelled me to go back and rewatch "Homer Bad Man" this morning.

We're talking about episodes and exchanges being the best ever, but I can remember when Homer's drastically re-edited interview with Rock Bottom ending with, "DRAMATIZATION: MAY NOT HAVE HAPPENED" had me literally unable to breathe for five minutes afterwards.

Everything that airs on TV in that episode, the candy convention, Homer's homemade Prozac, "Homer, this is God...frey Jones," the list of on-air corrections, the sorghum farm, all totally freaking golden.

But perhaps the absolute masterpiece (from the episode "Bart of Darkness"):

"You have dialed the Springfield Police Emergency Hotline. If you know the name of the felony being committed, press one. To choose from a list of felonies, press two. If you are being murdered, or are calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line."

(BART MASHES BUTTONS)

"You have selected 'Regicide.' If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one."

Josh Dial said:
My favourite episode is "Homer at the Bat," followed by "Lemon of Troy." "Homer at the Bat" is almost literally an entire episode of nothing by quotable lines.
I couldn't agree more with this -- everything from Mr. Burns's old-timey deceased early 20th Century "ringers" scheme to "DAAAAAARRRRYLLLLLL..." is phenomenal.

Homer_at_the_Bat.jpg


Just noticed in that pic, Strawberry is still seething over being taken out of the game.
 

WillG

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TravisR said:
If I could physically stay away awake long enough, I would love to watch like the first decade or so.

It's too bad that they've cropped about 20 seasons worth of episodes to 1.78. Since Matt Groening has specifically said how The Simpsons is a 4:3 show (the first 19 production seasons anyway), I just assumed that the framing would be respected and not tossed to placate people who want to fill their widescreen TVs.
It's weird, it seems to me they are using a combination of cropping and stretching to fill the 16:9 ratio. Stretching seems to be the case mostly when opening credits are on screen (makes sense since they can't crop out the credits). Also I noticed that some shots where we are seeing a view of something on a television are shown correctly in 4:3. Which makes me wonder, why go through all that reframing trouble in the first place?

Also, was watching "Bart vs. Austrailia".. What's with the pink bar on the right side of the screen (see image below)

imagejpg1_zps110b5b13.jpg


One good thing though (I've heard, but haven't been able to personally confirm) is that the episodes are uncut.

Edit: yes the episodes do appear to be uncut. I recognized a scene fron "Lisa's Wedding" that was list in syndication (virtual darts and pool at Moe's)
 

joshEH

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WillG said:
One good thing though (I've heard, but haven't been able to personally confirm) is that the episodes are uncut.Edit: yes the episodes do appear to be uncut. I recognized a scene fron "Lisa's Wedding" that was list in syndication (virtual darts and pool at Moe's)
Sadly, Indiewire also confirmed that subsequent airings will be the "cut" syndicated versions of episodes (edited for more commercials), with the "uncut" versions only getting trotted out by FXX on "special occasions."

Between the cropping and the syndicated edits, at least I still have my DVDs, which contain neither. Ah, well.
 

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