People criticized the Mike Scully era of the Simpsons, but they should realize this was when edgy things like South Park, Jackass, the Attitude Era were popular and made the Classic Simpsons look meek.
Stuff like Bart Gets an F was out of style in the late 90s, the writers saw the need to adapt to edginess and move away from weepy feels.
It's kinda obvious that by the late 90s/early 2000s, The Simpsons' writers were insecure that there were edgier animated shows, and they wanted to stay relevant. Being "Family Guy light" is big indicator of zombie Simpsons.
But that episode wasn't all that edgy. It just had Kid Rock not doing anything really. It's basically like the Poochie episode in that it's obviously a shallow appeal at being hip and with it. The irony in that it's more out of touch than it was 3 or so seasons earlier, where it made fun of this exact thing.
It had 13 boobs
David Mirkin and Mike Scully years were the best. Al Jean created zombie simpsons.
edgy =/= funny.
the real issue was that George Meyer left the show and took a lot of its edge with it. they had nothing left but Al Jean's corny Reddit humor.
Mike Scully hated The Simpsons and just handwaved most of the theming and storylines built into the series during the Oakley and Weinstein years
"Why is the family always hugging and why are these characters not one dimensional stereotypes? WE NEED MORE SIDE CHARACTERS, CATCH PHRASES, AND CELEBRITY CAMEOS" which were all things the previous seasons lampooned
it's not an accident that he went on to write for the most soulless family sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond which has no shred of anything genuine
Scully was not like most of the writers who were Harvard-educated kids from upper middle class homes, he was working class Irish trash from New England who didn't have a college degree. It can be see in how his sense of humor was generally more lowbrow than a guy like Al Jean or Bill Oakley.
I mean David Mirkin (who hired him) was also a traditional sitcom writer who spent years working on "Newhart." Granted that was a better show than Scully's pre-Simpsons credits, but some of that is luck.
I would say though, judging from their commentaries as well as the episodes they showran, Oakley and Weinstein had stronger ideas about characterization and theme than Scully did. Greg Daniels, who might have got the Simpsons job if not for King of the Hill, is even more like that, constantly trying to give every episode a theme or larger point. Scully seems more like he would start with a fairly conventional story and then just keep ramping up the action and violence with every rewrite, and "what is this episode about" doesn't seem to be much on his radar.
think he's a Republican as well while many of the writers were Democrats. in short a basic b***h blue collar boomer who likes 70s rock and wants you to know about it in every episode.
i mean, he clearly envisioned the show as something like Homer's Wacky Saturday Morning Cartoon Adventures
He didn't hate it, just had a different vision for it
Is Kid Rock something that only Americans like?
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Without_a_Cause
>Certified units/sales
>United States 11,000,000
>United Kingdom 60,000
I've never known anyone that listens to his stuff.
Nobody with taste likes him. Country rock appeals to people that are dumb as rocks.
>that only Americans like?
Technically yes, but it's a specific subset of Americans.
0.00332% of the total US population bought that record. So it’s not really popular, it’s just that the United States of America is the third most populous nation in the world.
and don't forget to cram in as many dadrock references per episode as you can
>"Marge Be Not Proud" was inspired by an incident when Mike Scully was 12 and got caught shoplifting from a department store. "Some other boys dared me to do it, I did, and they caught me. It was one of the worst days of my life. The great thing about writing for TV is that it lets you work out all of your traumas in life."[4]
i'm sure we've all had stuff like that happen to us when we were 12 and some butthole told you you had to do something stupid/dangerous/illegal or you weren't cool enough to hang out with him
Usually, those were the same exact people who would tell on you.
Nobody ever tells stories to his grandkids about sitting in front of a screen all day. Life is only lived and lessons learned by breaking the rules or being a complete idiot sometimes.
And "Bart Sells His Soul" was based on something Greg Daniels did when he was a kid, where he convinced a kid to sell him his soul and eventually (he claims) the kid got so scared he bought it back from him at a profit.
You're right, in this day and age needs more penises and usage of the word "frick".
The biggest difference between Scully and the previous showrunners is the others were single men (except Sam Simon whose marriage broke up while he was working on the show) who mostly hired other single men and worked everyone until they dropped. That's why no one lasted more than two years at the showrunner job, it was designed to consume your entire life.
Scully was married (to another TV writer) and had several children, so he restructured the show to make it possible to run it and still have a life. Al Jean built on that, and between the two of them they made the show into a perpetual-motion machine where you never have to leave.
Unfortunately I think there probably is an inverse relationship between how good the show is and how much of a life the showrunners are allowed to have.
fricking nepotism, man. he hired his wife and brother as writers and also consulted his kids for advice which led to him believing what everyone wanted to see was Homer getting injured as many times as possible per episode.
Bill Oakley was also married to a writer he hired (Rachel Pulido) though I don't know if they were married already when they were on the show.
Al Jean was married too and the show ruined his marriage. He married a different woman years later and she sometimes writes episodes.
I'm watching through the classic seasons for the first time now and its insane the level of quality they got while making new episodes every year. And with everyone in the writers room working together too.
didn't come cheap. the writers and voice actors were running themselves ragged and getting like 4 hours of sleep a night, even bringing hammocks into the office and sleeping there. Season 3 was the very worst as it had 24 episodes and was so exhausting that half the writers left the following season because they'd had all they could take.
I don't think the staff had to work quite as hard by the Scully era as a lot of the show's production process had been solved by that point and they could crank out episodes quickly and efficiently which they couldn't do in Season 3. Another thing that helped was the animation being cleaner and more standardized, which made episodes quicker and cheaper to produce even if a lot more soulless and stiff-looking.
>the writers saw the need to adapt to edginess and move away from weepy feels.
Or the could have accepted their time was past and let the show end with dignity.
yeah they were worked like dogs.
>Bill Oakley: I felt the writing started to slip a bit in [Season 8] and wasn't as sharp as it had been. We were going great guns in Season 7 because when we first started on those scripts, Dave was still running the show so we had all the time in the world to sit back and write. After me and Josh became showrunners we were just always busy and didn't have as much time to go over the scripts. You want to sit back and enjoy a nice quiet Saturday and suddenly a box of storyboards arrives at your doorstep and you have to spend the whole afternoon going over them.
i agree that that turn of the millenium era was when edgy grossout stuff like American Pie and Tom Green comedies were hot and the writers were trying to adapt to the times, but that still doesn't mean i have to like Children of a Lesser Clod or Homer getting disemboweled by a badger.
Indeed but some people think the tone shift was for no reason or because Mike Scully was insane. When it has more to do with "it was the style of the Y2K era" than anything. If Scully ran the show today it probably wouldn't be like Kill the Alligator and Run, and would be more like Al Jean's cornball humor.
>Stuff like Bart Gets an F was out of style in the late 90s, the writers saw the need to adapt to edginess and move away from weepy feels
the early 90s were kind of somnambulant because there was an economic recession and the social climate in America was pretty conservative after 12 years of Republican rule. the late 90s were good times and dudeXtreme stuff was in style.
There's no way Saddlesore Galactica was written as a parody, I think that was a cope from the writers.
Magic Jockeys are played entirely straight and they want Homer's horse to lose because...they just do? And the horse wins anyways and nothing happens? And the last 30 seconds Bill Clinton knocks on the door with the entire family saying in unison "IT'S BILL CLINTON!" and resolves a B plot that hadn't been referenced since the first 5 minutes of the episode? Terrible
It was and they openly admitted that they deliberately did stupid episodes like that as a huge frick you to Internet Simpsons fans.
>Saddlesore Galactica
I fricking HATE that episode.
I honestly prefer this era of the Simpsons over the "so heckin' wholesome" schpile they're going with now to make up for the fact that the writers can't write jokes that aren't meta anymore.
>I honestly prefer this era of the Simpsons over the "so heckin' wholesome" schpile they're going with now to
That was the first three seasons, dum dum. lots of maudlin sitcom sap.
>That was the first three seasons, dum dum.
Suicide is so wholesome
The third season was pretty joke packed, but yeah, the second season is sort of the road not taken for the show, much more of a bittersweet comedy like James L. Brooks usually makes.
I remember back in the '90s alt.tv.simpsons had a number of posters who had imprinted on the second season and considered episodes like "Bart vs. Thanksgiving," which is very downbeat and has few jokes in the traditional sense, to be the apex of the show and didn't like how silly it got in seasons 3/4/5. I wonder how they feel about the show sort of returning to that style after all these years.
yeah JLB is the king of sitcom sap. the show did get lighter in tone in Season 3 onward.
>first three seasons
>Lisa its okay to be sad we'll just deal with it together
>Bart you're just stupid. That's the episode.
>Our family may be dysfunctional and an embarrassment on every level....where was I going with this?
Ironically enough the only episode that falls in line with what the current season are going with is War On The Simpsons an episode Matt infamously hated for being too schmaltzy everything else from the classic seasons are way less idealistic and more grounded. Also the lack of jokes were more of a creative choice before the series found its footing they weren't trying and failing at it and used the sentimental moments as a crutch it came with the humor.
So what the frick is the current of the show a adaption for?
Twitter/reddit cornball humor
what
I meant to say "current version" I have a brain problem where sometimes I think I wrote a word when I didn't.
oh ok
carry on anon
Drinking game to see how longer Julie Kavner's voice can last.
It's honestly not that bad.
Joe C has been dead for almost 23 years
on November 24, 2026 Joe C will have been dead for as many days as he was alive
>simpsons has been shit for over 25 years
it wasn't all bad. Mike Scully didn't give a shit about Lisa so his episodes gave her the least screentime of the entire series.
and at least the voice actors at that time were still at the top of their game