Is Anyone A Fan Of The Mike Scully Era Simpsons?

Besides me of course.

I know that it's considered the moment that The Simpsons finally Jumped The Shark, but I quite enjoy these episodes. I thought at first that it was just the Nostalgia Filter, since Season 11 aired when I was eleven, but I watched the entire season just recently and I have to say...pretty funny stuff. Not all of it, mind you, but a lot of the episodes were really pretty good. I know that they are more outright wacky then the so called Golden Age episodes of the show, but to be honest, I don't really care. As heartwarming or interesting as some of the characterizations from the earlier seasons were, they can only go so far, and I don't think that Homer being an occasional jerkass takes away from the way he was nicer and more consistent in prior seasons. In fact, it makes Homer being a good father in those earlier episodes even more crucial to his character since most of the time he's so horribly stupid. And when I look at [[http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/NoHomers.net's_50_Worst_episodes this]] list of the so called worst episodes, a number of them happened to be the ones I laughed at the most. What say you?

I find most of them to be decently funny, just not as good as the stuff that came before them.

He's hit-and-miss with me

His work with Season's 9 and 10 was brilliant for the most part,had he stopped there he still would've been funnier,more accesible,and far smarter than David Mirkin who ran Seasons 5 and 6,which were my least favorite thanks to the ridiculuos amount of politics put into it,and the beginning of characterization derailment was in these seasons.

Before the big turning point for Scully,it was Season 5 that was dense,and Season 6 that was kind of boring.

But Season 10 started going a little downward toward the end with all the Homer-centric episodes like "Maximum Homerdrive","Monty Can't Buy Me Love", "Viva Ned Flanders",and "Make Room For Lisa",however it was still really good,far better than anything Mirkin ever ran. "Bart the Mother

Then came Seasons 11 and 12,at which point Scully seemingly ran out of ideas and starting taking an "anything-for-laughs" approach with maybe two actually good episodes. The only good things out of this part were the episode where:

-Homer starts a motorcycle gang -Homer becomes a genius -Homer babyproofs Springfield -Maude dies -Comic Book Guy almost dies -Homer starts a daycare -Homer becomes a food critic -Bart takes drugs -Krusty tries to bond with his daughter -Barney goes sober while Bart and Lisa try to take a good picture for the phonebook

Everything else was tainted by jokes that fell flat,dumb twist endings,Flanderization,and gags that consisted of crap like panda rape or badger clawing.

However this stands testament that Simpson's should change hands every now and then,Scully figured that out eventually,now if only Al Jean would either do that or just end it.

I felt like the show was at its worst in the late 90s/early 2000s. It had a bit of a rebound in the lead up to the movie, then this past year it took a bit of a hit where the season seemed to start off trying too hard to emulate Family Guy's randomness.

On a side note, the Art Upgrade they got for HDTV is terrific, to the point that I almost can't watch stuff from before it now to the degree that the first two seasons are horrendous in relation to the rest.

edited 7th Nov '11 9:23:32 PM by TParadox

My family and I loved the first 10 seasons, and we found a lot of the "declining" seasons 9 and 10 to be hilarious.

The past seasons of Simpsons have actually been pretty good,Season 21 was better than even most Golden Age seasons (especially those overrated ones run by Dave Mirkin)

Season 22 was pretty good,except it had as many Lisa episodes as the tenth had Homer episodes,and Homer is just a much better character than Lisa.

Season 19 was fairly decent to

Every other season since Scully left has been abysmal.

Man, what the hell is with you and Mirkin? Seasons 5 and 6 were awesome. Deep Space Homer, Homer's Barbershop Quartet, the Stonecutters episode, Fear of Flying... The episodes from that era are consistently great. My favorites are the Oakley and Weinstein seasons (7 and 8), though.

As for Scully, I've only watched up to season 10. I noticed that season 10 wasn't as good as the previous seasons had been, so I didn't get the next season when the box set came out, but it still had a lot of episodes that were good. After that, I obviously can't comment, but I've heard from a lot of people that it's just not as good. The Simpsons Movie was very good, though.

edited 8th Nov '11 3:26:53 PM by Sporkaganza

The movie was a little disappointing because I like the show's variety in that one week they're doing a Bart episode, another week they're doing a Skinner episode, then Moe gets a focus, and so forth. The movie was three or four episodes' worth of hammering on just the family, while everyone else is just Springfield Under Glass.

The movie is probably the closest we'll ever see the show return to the glory days. The early seasons were focused mostly around the family and the movie made sure to satisfy the people who'd given up on the show.

Also, the movie could have been much worse. The filmmakers recorded enough dialogue for three movies and the unused audio was basically the festival of guest stars that the later seasons became (one of the unused premises had the real Erin Brockovich front and center for some bizarre reason).

With the movie, the guest stars were kept to a minimum (Albert Brooks as the villain, which was a nice throwback to Brooks being the show's first guest star, and Tom Hanks Adam Westing).

I like many episodes over most seasons except the last one which I haven't watched the latest season ye. Everything I heard about the Halloween episode is that it blew. If the current powers that be cannot make a good Halloween episode then I'd say the Simpsons' don't have a lot of seasons left.

However, albeit each season has at least couple of episodes I like. I would only buy the DV Ds for seasons 3 to 10. Cause they have a good density of good episodes. Edit: Actually, after reading the episodes list in wikipedia I'll raise it to season 11, even. Many of the season 11 episodes I would not mind watching again. Edit: Actually, let me extend it to season 12, any season that has Trilogy of error in it is a fine season in my book.

edited 9th Nov '11 5:28:21 AM by nabaduco

What is it with me and Mirkin? First most of those episodes began the great decline,secondly some of those terrible episodes people just let off easy becuase of one reference. Try that with Season 12 and people harp away

"Computer Wore Menace Shoes" people seem to hate,they don't let The Prisoner reference alter such judgment. "Insane Clown Poppy" people seem to hate because of celebrity cameos at the beginning even if it nicely moves away from that. It's not like celebrity cameos being tacked on started in Season 10,we always have "Lisa the Vegetarian" to thank for that.

Meanwhile "Bart of Darkness" begins the JerkAss Lisa and like a season 11 episode has that useless sugar subplot. And after that "Homer Goes to College" mirrors "Beyond Blunderdome" by a surprising amount. And the Boy Scout episode,...I almost gave up on Homer after that one aired.

Not to mention "Homer Badman"

And "Deep Space Homer" began the cycle of "Homer-Gets-A-Job-" episodes. I never said I hated the episode,I said it was overrated,and really it is. A better episode once again found in the Scully arc would be "Mayored to the Mob".

The Barbershop and first Sideshow Bob episode were holdovers from Season 4,run by Al Jean before he went downhill.

Nextly I admit those are good episodes,and I'll admit most of the terrible episodes have some laughs in 5 and 6. Like I said it wasn't til the 11th season Simpsons went downhill. But well Seasons 9 and 10 were simply easier to watch.

I'll give the guy credit for "Lisa's Rival","Who Shot Mr. Burns","The Boy Who Knew Too Much" that episode with Mindy,and "Rosebud",but really the resemblance between Season 5 on a bad episode and Season 11 on a mediocre one is uncanny.

I hate "Homer badman". I really do. People seem to like it because of how it parodies the media. Well, guess what? That wasn't an original concept. "Bart the Murderer" did it the one previous season.

"Computer Wore Menace Shoes", on the other hand, is actually fun to watch. The Prisoner stuff was entertaining even though I had no idea what the Prisoner was and I still don't.

edited 9th Nov '11 5:22:12 PM by nabaduco

I love "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" for the The Prisoner references. I get them now, but even at the time the episode was aired and I never saw The Prisoner, I still "got" the joke and thought it was pretty cool. The German Homer Expy and that weird koala with the glasses that randomly shows up when people get gassed were also hilariously random.

One episode that angers me is Lisa The Simpson for being blatantly sexist against males. I like 95% of the episode, but I can't ever watch that ending again.

edited 10th Nov '11 7:51:54 PM by DrWillHatch45

That's not a Scully episode,that along with "Principal and the Pauper","City of New York vs Homer","All Singing,All Dancing","Joy of Sect","Simpson Tide","Lisa's Sax" all them were holdovers from miscellaneous seasons for some reason stuffed into the 9th.

Normally people just want to blame Scully for everything,but it was under his tenure that we have a reason to no longer consider that episode canon,that episode is "HOMR"

The problem with "Homer Bad Man" was the setup was contrived, which affected the whole episode from its foundations. Otherwise, it was a fine and funny episode.

How many episodes don't have a contrived setup, though?

"Homer Badman" is actually an episode that's more relevant today than when it aired.

Though it's a little weird that Homer gets in trouble for accidentally groping a woman but not for blowing up a candy convention. Would that count as Law of Conservation of Normality?

edited 11th Nov '11 11:02:41 AM by RavenWilder

I like Seasons 9 and 10, but 11 and 12 show an extreme downturn in quality.

When you look at most of Scully's other works when he called the shots, you can tell he's a Denser and Wackier guy. Unfortunately, that's not a good thing all the time.

And... Mirkin's my favorite of the showrunners. I absolutely love Seasons 5 and 6. "Homer Badman" is one of my favorite episodes due to the fact that it wasn't trying to make Homer into a Butt-Monkey via Kafka Comedy as much as it was slamming the media in general (Sally Jesse Raphael saying "your teams say more than hard evidence ever could" and Gentle Ben having his own talk show). And this is a person who detests all other variants of Kafka Comedy.

edited 28th Feb '14 8:46:18 AM by JDogindy

I feel like everything in the first 300 episodes, barring bits of the first season, is printed on gold, myself. It was after that point (the episode where Bart emancipates himself, which is also good) that the show starts to lose the plot.

the 2011-2012 season (or the parts of it i saw) seemed to be the first notable improvement since that point. I really haven't watched the 12-13 or present seasons, though.

I'm a roughly equal fan of every era of The Simpsons, with the exception of the episodes from around the time GW Bush was reelected. As far as dividing the show into eras otherwise is concerned... it really doesn't matter to me. My favorite episodes in most seasons are ones with extensive focus on members of the supporting cast, which is one of the show's strongest selling points in my opinion.

Yes and no

I loved what he and his writing team did in Seasons 9 and 10,and to a far far lesser extent 11-12 and would gladly take any of the 4 seasons then,over just about any Simpsons season afterwards (except maybe the Seasons that happened just after The Movie).

They knew how to do great meta-stuff,knew how to really get into some of the Darker and Edgier topics (such as killing off Maude Flanders), and when they had something to say that was good,they really got it right (such as the MENSA episode or the Tokyo episode or the Guns episode).

Honestly the first half of the Scully era was far more interesting than the entire Mirkin era or the first Season. Seasons 5 and 6 were guilty of half the wacky crap 11 and 12 had as well.

The problem was,like every other showrunner the ideas ran out quickly,but rather than stepping down after the 10th,he kept going. And therefore they went for the least common denominator,which was "Laugh at Homer being a Jerkass idiot". Which was starting to show in the 10th.

And when they didn't go for that,they started rolling in the celebrity cameos.

And it did have some of the worst episodes to date (looking at you episode where Marge-goes-crazy-and-needs-a-tranquilizer-dart)

That said, the episodes written by Al Jean and Scully himself were usually a barrel of laughs. Also that was the era when Dan Castelleneta wrote episodes himself (such as the burning forest-sober Barney episode) which were pretty good.

I'll also note that it ended on a great note in the middle of Season 13,where the best episodes that season were (the Jean half were absolutely lifeless,except for the Brazil episode and "Jaws Wired Shut" and that Homer-almost-dies-but-it's-a-setup BS).

And finally how in flying hell can you honestly hate the era that brought us The Comic Book Guy episode (ironically titled "Worst Episode Ever"),or the Trilogy of Errors

Here's a better question,is anyone a fan of the Post-Scully era? Because I haven't heard a single person leap in to defend the last slough of episodes,or anything right after 12. I mean for all the somewhat unjustified hatred this era gets,at least people remember the episodes or still have a laugh here and there.

Seems like beyond maybe "Moe Baby Blues" and the Lady Gaga episode,no one can really manage to get any kind of passion for an episode anymore.

There's a sizable amount of people who think the show has improved since the movie, but those people always end up being disappointed at some point. I've seen a few comments about the HD era starting off well but fizzling out around late 2010.

edited 28th Feb '14 3:46:11 PM by RembrandtQEinstein

I think Scully's era bothered me since it was sorta the point they took the zaniness to too over the top a level for me to really take anymore. Characters endlessly lampshading everything or talking into the screen, the dialogue becoming more forced, one liner-ish and mock-presenter style. It was hardly the start of this happening, but it was the point I thought any sense of reality to the characters seemed to disappear. I think the quintuplets episode was the defining point of this.

I did notice there were some episodes that actually started off on par, but then botched it with a stupid climax (eg. the 'Surf's up!' ending).

edited 28th Feb '14 4:33:51 PM by Psi001

Me. Some of my faves are "Homer vs. Dignity", "Saddlesore Galactice" and "Mom and Pop Art".

The only episodes I remember from this period of the Simpsons (at least, the ones that left an impact on me) were "Das Bus" (Which is one of my favourite episodes) and Saddlesore Galatica (which is one of my least favourite episodes of anything ever). Most of the other infamous stuff like "Principal and the Pauper" I remember being forgettably boring.