19 ms·

Why did the golden age of the Simpsons end?

140 points by nathcun 8y ago

saganus 8y ago
There's a very interesting YouTube video that has a bit more of an explanation on why The Simpsons had a decline. I liked how they analyze the show and IMO it does a great job explaining why lots of people loved the show up until season 9-10. Personally I think I enjoyed up to season 12 or so, but definitely after 10 I noticed the shift in style/quality/whathaveyou. Could never put it into words why it felt like that, until I watched this. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk
- ashrk 8y ago
  See also: Dead Homer Society, if you prefer reading. https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ Pretty compelling argument for the end of the golden age being season 9, maybe 11 or 12 if you're being very generous, including analysis of writer and other personnel changes, and an attempt at explaining what exactly is different about the earlier seasons compared with the later ones. Seems like the video's making similar points.
  - saganus 8y ago
    I wasn't aware of this. Very cool!
  - saganus 8y ago
    Actually, while re-watching the video, I realized that they reference the Dead Homer Society in minute 16:03!
- lordnacho 8y ago
  Just watched this, thanks. My summary: 1) Staff turnover roughly around season 8 caused the writing to change. Jokes got simpler, not as much about the characters' invariants (for lack of a better term). 2) The show was originally successful because it parodied the sitcom era of the mid 1980s. That changed so the context disappeared.
  - saganus 8y ago
    I think your summary is correct, although I would add to point 2 (or a third point) about the complex nature of the jokes. They weren't just one liners but instead would build up gradually. That's what I like about this analysis, it got me to understand something that I somehow felt but had no idea that it was actually happening.
beavisthegenius 8y ago
Because the viewers grew up. Saved you a click.
cabaalis 8y ago
How much of this is not attributable to quality but instead to streaming options? I watched The Simpsons for most of my childhood, up until college when I was too busy working and studying--most of my TV time then went to Stargate SG-1 and other Sci-fi. Futurama and Family Guy were in the mix as well up until that time. However, I HAVE still watched Futurama and Family Guy in adulthood, because they were available to stream online! If there are good Simpsons options to stream, without picking up another monthly charge, I'd probably still watch them.
- grenoire 8y ago
  The average ratings are unlikely to be influenced given the high sample sizes for the ratings on IMDB. I don't really see how else you are connecting ratings to streaming options...
- tombert 8y ago
  In some fairness, buying the DVDs used on eBay for the first 10 seasons isn't terribly expensive. I got some of them as cheap as four dollars. I spent a few afternoons ripping all of them and adding them to my streaming server. I realize that most people don't have streaming servers, but I think most of the people here probably have something that can read off a flash drive?
  - PacifyFish 8y ago
    As crazy as this feels to say, ordering a dvd and figuring out a way to consume it in this day and age is a huge ask! I haven’t had a DVD player in my house for about 6 years now & no CD-ROM drive in my laptop. And, again I can hardly believe I’m saying this, it would be such a hassle to physically insert the disk when I felt like watching! It’s got to be on HBO/Netflix/Hulu/Amazon or available on demand from my tv provider or I won’t watch it outside of theaters. Convenience has bested my better judgement shrugging emoticon
    - Retric 8y ago
      If the show is not worth inserting a DVD then it's probably not worth watching IMO. PS: External DVD drives are ~25$.
j45 8y ago
This reminds me of this video which attributes the decline of the Simpsons to the changes in writers and how the type of comedy itself changed. I still catch episodes when possible, the old ones definitely have a different depth than the current ones. The fall of the Simpsons: How it happened: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk
duxup 8y ago
Whenever we talk about Simpsons decline it always occurs to me that even in decline... the Simpsons is still pretty good. Perhaps that says more about its high points than the "decline".
- jplayer01 8y ago
  I think the decline is largely bullshit nostalgia. I still watch Simpsons and I still think it's great.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    I disagree. I only got cable after '01, so I watched episodes from seasons 13-16 in parallel with reruns of the older ones (sometimes one after the other) and I thought the difference was clear. In fact, I stopped watching when I ran out of unseen reruns.
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    It could be for some, though I remember distinctly feeling, years ago, that the episode called Homer Simpson vs The State of New York was the last solid episode, and the one with N*Sync was the first that I really didn't like and it was a marker for the transition to more farcical humor with celebrity cameos. It's just not my thing, and I gave the Simpsons many chances after that. There's a reason nearly all the current Simpsons memes come from the Golden Era.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    Certain types of humor lend themselves to repeating and reliving, and get funnier that way. Think of all the people who quote the Simpsons to each other, or Family Guy, or heck even going back to Monty Python. It's really hard to account for that aspect of people's feelings about old vs new Simpsons. Some jokes that were probably light chuckles at first viewing, have become iconic fodder for further humor in the years since. This is reinforced by time, but also by syndication. It gets to the point where no possible new Simpsons joke will get the reaction as the old ones. New jokes just work in the brain differently from jokes we've lived with and referenced for years. This is not unique to the Simpsons, it happens with any long-running show. The SNL "cowbell" or "David S. Pumpkins" sketches seemed kind of funny at first viewing, but the constant references since have made them seem way funnier.
w-m 8y ago
Later episodes are rated lower, thus writers who mainly wrote later episodes have contributed to episodes with lower rating. This seems like circular reasoning, and doesn't say anything about an individual writers' contribution to the quality of the show.
- nathcun 8y ago
  While I admit the logic is somewhat tautologous, that's not quite the conclusion I'm drawing. I, first of all, look at the average rating of the writers involved in the show, and then look at how the make-up of the show's writers is substantially different in the early years vs the later years.
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    The only thing this experiment could show is that if the ratings changed, but the writers didn't, then the writers are not responsible. It can't show the reverse. Everything in the article is just properties of arithmatic averages in sorted sequences.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  I don't see how that's circular reasoning. The writers who worked on bad episodes presumably had something to do with making them bad.
  - w-m 8y ago
    Potentially it was bad writers, yes. But this data does not prove this; it just shows that some writers tenure correspond with worse episodes. But so does for example the year, or potentially many other influencing factors.
    - monochromatic 8y ago
      If we’re going down that rabbit hole, it doesn’t even prove there is such a thing as a bad episode. It could just be that people who don’t like the simpsons became more likely to use IMDB as time went on.
gmjoe 8y ago
This analysis doesn't demonstrate anything, unfortunately, except that ratings declined over time and that writers changed over time. Any factor could have caused the show's decline (like less time given for script writing, less collaboration or rewrites, management directives to change aspects of the show, etc.) -- and it would show the same result.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Did you know, there’s a direct correlation between the decline in the perceived quality of the show, and the decline in Spirograph? Think about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IYaftepO-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IYaftepO-s
josephv 8y ago
I ravenously consumed The Simpsons for most of my youth and loved it. I watch it now whenever I get the chance and love it, but life happened. I don't like my kids to watch it so they don't grow up Fd in the brain like me. Having a bad kid as a role model I think does impact children. It's also not the only game in town. Cartoon network quality has gone way way up. I used to watch 3-hour cartoons on Saturday morning, and the simpsons et. al on Sunday night. That was it for cartoons on TV. Grandparents broke out VHS tapes occasionally as well. We didn't have a lot of options so The Simpsons was mind blowing. Not so much anymore.
- xfitm3 8y ago
  What about the simpsons is unhealthy for kids?
  - ip26 8y ago
    Having a bad kid as a role model I think does impact children. I.e., Bart. Edit: I'm not sure people realize I'm not the grandparent, or that I was directly quoting him to answer the question?
    - justtopost 8y ago
      So, all cartoons then? Bart is the archtype for screwing up amd learning your lesson. Omitting that seems worse parenting.
      - josephv 8y ago
        My kids have had no trouble screwing up and I try to help them learn lessons. There are many other shows that teach that same lesson without a cartoon cat and mouse filleting each other, dad drinking and bumbling around and choking their kids out. I love The Simpsons; honestly I like Bob's Burgers more, but both shows live on a line between acceptable and unacceptable, like all adult cartoons do. They will find things that do the same and I won't know about it. But I don't spoon feed it to them. I already give them all the vidya games in the world so they aren't starved for crude content. Also just living with me is all the crude TV-MA content they can handle. Mom and Dad are sort of fun to hang around (at least for Mom and Dad).
patorjk 8y ago
One possible problem with this - I listened to the Simpsons commentary tracks a long time ago and one comment the writers gave was that episodes were hashed out in the writers room, and everyone contributed jokes. Once an episode was hashed out, one or two people would then be assigned to put it together. This would mean an episode could be listed as written by a specific person, but the best jokes in that episode could have been written by someone else. One of the writers mentioned they'd often get comments about how funny their episodes were, but then the person they were talking to would bring up jokes that were written by the other writers. However, the graph at the end kind of shows this, the earlier people had the best episodes. It may have been that they had better chemistry.
- netsharc 8y ago
  Futurama got cancelled and they made 3 straight to DVD movies which was supposed to be 26 episodes worth of content, and IIRC you could see it, each "movie" had 4 stories. The bad thing was, the humor got so so bad, with predictable lame one liners (Big Bang Theory-level lame). I wonder what sort of groupthink thought those jokes were funny, and what sort of dynamics the early Simpsons/Futurama writers group had to be able to output high quality humor...
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    I wonder how much of that was a format issue, though? The Futurama movies were definitely weaker than the episodes, but I remember the Comedy Central revival being better than most or all of the movies. Maybe not up to their Season Four heights, but definitely enough better to make me think the movie style was causing them problems in either writing or editing.
    - lostgame 8y ago
      I have the opposite experience. I find the Comedy Central reboot episodes, for the most part, to feel strange and 'off'. I can't even put my finger on it. Even the animation seems wonky to me. Eh, to be honest, the movies weren't great, either. Seasons 1-4 really were kind of 'Futurama's run, I guess.
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
I listened to the DVD commentaries of many of the early seasons and the writers/showrunners complained about how the episode length was slowly cut back (though I'm having a hard time finding good data online about how much) and this directly impacted the quality of the show. They specifically called out the inability to write compelling "B" stories within the episode, which often are what gave episodes some greater depth.
stupidbird 8y ago
There are a lot of shifts that changed The Simpsons, but the biggest one for me was the shift to being almost constantly satirical. Classic Simpsons would occasionally get a bit satirical or referential (like when Bush Sr made a guest appearance), but modern Simpsons seems more satirical than not. Episodes like the one featuring the "MyPod" with "Steve Mobs" basically had my eyes rolling into the back of my head. That's such low-hanging fruit that they're picking it up off the ground. It's not even good enough to be considered sophomoric. I want to watch The Simpsons and be entertained about ridiculous situations in _their_ world, and sure, throw in a wink to reality now and then. I don't really care for the family-friendly The Onion-light treatment.
- bradleyankrom 8y ago
  > Classic Simpsons would occasionally get a bit satirical or referential (like when Bush Sr made a guest appearance), but modern Simpsons seems more satirical than not. Episodes like the one featuring the "MyPod" with "Steve Mobs" basically had my eyes rolling into the back of my head. That's such low-hanging fruit that they're picking it up off the ground. It's not even good enough to be considered sophomoric. And the Futurama take on this was just as bad (and I love Futurama). IMO, South Park is the best at doing this kind of satire... I can't point to exactly why, though. Being on cable allows them to push edgier jokes, but I'm sure it's more than that.
  - lostgame 8y ago
    I think it's because South Park has always been a vehicle to comment, usually specifically, on current events and popular culture. The world of South Park is really a sandbox for Trey and Matt to caricature whatever they're choosing to ream on that particular week. The Simpsons, Futurama, when they address these kinds of issues, they feel like they're 'reaching' for it. Or, worse, just 'not trying'. Someone else here mentioned The Simpsons, and the Family Guy, were much better at the time that they focused on the struggles of the families themselves. I believe that this is because unlike South Park, where, even from the name, the town itself seems to be the focus. Which allows it to be moreso whatever they want it to be. 'The Simpsons' and the 'Family Guy', are meant to satirize, or at least revolve around, the daily struggles of the 'American Middle Class Family'. When they don't, and they reach for 'current' events, which often usually feel dated by the episode release due to the extended 6-9 month production period, they seem stale and unfunny. South Park's 6-day production period, awesomely described in the fantastic documentary 'Six Days to Air', allows South Park to comment literally on things that happened the day before. It's incredibly hard to make that feel 'stale.' Really, worst-case scenario, South Park just doesn't seem 'funny' enough sometimes (this season hasn't been great), but definitely never 'irrelevant'. The early seasons and episodes of the Simpsons are timeless. Many of them could've happened any time over the last three or four decades. • 'Homer's Enemy' (S08E23) - A new employee at work gets jealous of Homer's 'easy' life. • 'Mr. Plow' (S04E09) - Hijinks occur when Homer and Barney start competing snow removal businesses. • 'Homer the Heretic' (S04E03) - Homer decides he doesn't need to attend church any more, and Marge doesn't like the example that demonstrates for the kids. • 'You Only Move Twice' (S08E02) - Homer is offered a new work opportunity in a 'perfect' town. This episode does involve satire, but James Bond is such an old trope, and the films are still coming out, therefore it doesn't seem 'stale'. None of these classic and fan favourite episodes rely on tropes of the era. They're still as funny today as when they were released. (Especially 'You Only Move Twice'. What a gem. Oh, Scorpio.) Futurama, as well, does best when it focuses on it's sci-fi premise. It's supposed to be the future. We don't need comments about Apple products in there, we want the mind-bending 'Rick and Morty'-level plots of 'Roswell that Ends Well', or the genuine moments of emotion like Fry's dog at the end of 'Jurassic Bark'. Again, it seems like early seasons of these cartoon sitcoms have a habit of sticking to their initial premise, and maybe perhaps the creator's visions. There's tons of reasons for this, but in 'The Simpsons' case, the death of Phil Hartman in 1998 drastically affected the show as a whole. I think a lot of the spirit was lost along with him. RIP, Troy McClure.
T3RMINATED 8y ago
it ended because they are trying to keep up with current political events instead of just inventing their own stories. Just like south park.
s_kilk 8y ago
My theory is that the show started to decline after about eight or nine years on the air, which is just about enough time for young fans to grow up, go to college, start their career in writing, and then end up on the Simpsons team. The last person you want writing on a show like that is a life-long super-fan.
- probably_wrong 8y ago
  I cannot say whether your theory is correct or not, but your theory resonates with something director Hayao Miyazaki said[1]: that the Japanese animation industry is suffering because the staff of a modern studio is full of people who grew up watching anime rather than looking at real people. [1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131872-Hayao-Miyazaki-Anime-Suffers-Because-the-Industry-is-Full-of-Otaku https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131872-Hayao-Miya...
- egypturnash 8y ago
  This is a good theory. Just look at the shitshow superhero comics have become after a couple of cycles of this.
drchiu 8y ago
Purely anecdotal, but as a Simpsons fans many years ago (and not really following the show anymore), I think there are many of us who grew up with the Simpsons who simply don't have the time (as we've gotten older and have other chores and priorities to take care of first) to follow the show anymore.
- daneyh 8y ago
  not a time issue...the show just became not funny and kinda lame. I pinpoint it ~5 years before the movie came out.
- nathcun 8y ago
  I still watch the old episodes on an almost daily basis, so I don't know if that's true for everyone.
jason46 8y ago
It hasn't ended, still by far one of the best shows on cable TV.
thrower123 8y ago
If you'd like to see something really terrible, try watching the fantasy Simpsons/Futurama-esque mess that is Disenchanted on Netflix.
- nathcun 8y ago
  Some of the top writers I picked out (Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, David X/S Cohen) are involved in it, but I agree it's not great.
  - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
    It started out pretty weak, but I think it's fair to admit it got a lot better by the last 3 episodes or so when it got a little more invested in the characters. But the real test has been the fact that I haven't bothered to watch it again. I'd rather watch "The Simpsons" or "Futurama" for the N plus 1th time.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
HillaryBriss 8y ago
> I gathered the average rating across all episodes by writers contributing more than ten episodes. why 10? why not 12 or 8 or 5 ... ?
- nathcun 8y ago
  Our number system is base 10. The choice was arbitrary, I just wanted enough episodes to reduce the noise in the average ratings.
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    thanks for your reply! When I learned that Conan O'Brien had only 4 writing credits, I wondered if perhaps 3 would be an appropriate threshold. More generally, I was wondering how the results vary with different choices for this threshold.
bliblah 8y ago
Nothing lasts forever. Plain and simple. I really dislike TV/Anime that never ends, seems to be the modus operandi for pretty much every mainstream show despite how bad the quality gets after 2-3 seasons. Simpsons is a great showcase of the homogenization that every sitcom will go through given enough time. It starts out as a comedy with some wholesome family moments to bring it together but eventually every character is distilled to their most basic formula Homer -> Idiot who causes events to happen Bart -> Same as above Marge -> Straight man / Voice of reason or Satire of moralistic conservative adults depending on the situation Lisa -> same as marge but liberal piñata Old episodes had genuine moments where you saw them become closer as family, now every episode is a hodgepodge of nonstop comedy. Family Guy also went through this, especially after they got revived. The early episodes focused on the trials of the family with some goofy humor peppered throughout (Peter getting fired, Louis dealing with being a bored housewife) but now its just nonstop comedy. Once you get syndicated it's not about making good episodes just churning out 26 more a year and cashing in that paycheck. Even Steven Universe which has a very straightforward story with an end planned feels bloated with a bunch of filler episodes and lazy character development.
- Jun8 8y ago
  Exactly, and you have to know when to let go, a la Seinfeld. Adventure Time handled this very well, I think: told what they had to tell and ended after that. Another canonical good example exiting at the right time is Calvin and Hobbes.
  - lostgame 8y ago
    Calvin and Hobbes also managed to avoid selling out. Bill Watterson was a genius for sure. Due to his actions, Calvin and Hobbes has retained it's wholesome charm, and as far as I can see, will for many years to come.
- adzm 8y ago
  > Even Steven Universe which has a very straightforward story with an end planned feels bloated with a bunch of filler episodes and lazy character development. The filler episodes are some of my family's favorites, however. I think the comparison is a bit premature compared to something like the Simpsons where every episode pretty much can stand alone.
turdnagel 8y ago
Great analysis - but I also wonder if IMDb ratings have a bit (or more than a bit) of selection bias, where people rating the episodes are the "hardcore fans" who've already established the narrative the idea that the show was in decline past season 10, 11, 13 - and so since the data has potentially already been shaped by bias around a narrative, it can't reveal anything more than hardcore Simpsons fans prevailing attitudes. In other words, you're asking a bunch of people who are obsessed with The Simpsons for their episode ratings; of course you're going to see a decline.
m23khan 8y ago
Maybe it is just me but in older episodes of Simpsons, there was a lot more music for different situations and at times, classic or what I would term 'wholesome' music was played to highlight cathartic situations or trials/tribulations of human lives. These are things that to me play a major part as a viewer. To me, a TV serial is not about 30 min episode, it is a mini-play or chapter in a play. Think back to days of Tom and Jerry (the ones before mid-1960s) as well as the older Mickey Mouse & Co (up till 1970s) and you will see the recurring pattern -- music was just great and played a huge part in involving the user. That and also, there is something about the super-sharp, ultra modern type of animation modern day Simpsons have. I understand it is high-tech and latest stuff, but it does take away from the art and appreciation of what the viewer experiences. If you don't believe me, watch an episode of 1940s/1950s Mickey Mouse or Tom & Jerry and compare with their modern day renditions.
reaperducer 8y ago
Because the humor went from funny and light-hearted to mean and angry in order to seem "edgy" and "current." See also: Saturday Night Live See also: Comedy Central
- eloisant 8y ago
  I think it was always edgy, a bit shocking, and what was edgy and shocking when they started became normal later on so they had to push the envelope a bit further.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
ask fox
JoeAltmaier 8y ago
When Conan quit writing
- daotoad 8y ago
  What is best in life? To crush your comedy, to see played out before you, and to hear the felicitations of your patrons.
Quanttek 8y ago
It would've been interesting to run a regression on the results, seeing if the writers were actually the largest contributing factor. Additionally, that graph with the average expected ratings should have the actual ratings in there for comparisons
rs23296008n1 8y ago
Cutbacks on writers, simplistic plot story arcs, worshipping celebrity... I probably missed a few. Simpson's ended in season 8 as far as I'm concerned.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lostgame 8y ago
Nobody here seems to be mentioning the death of Phil Hartman[1] in 1998. The article, as well, staggeringly, doesn't mention his name. There's a video[2], 'The Fall of the Simpsons', which is one of my favourite videos on the internet. It explains and describes with utmost clarity the issues that led to the series 'demise', which, ultimately, boils down to 'bad writing'. However, in interviews, and comments from the showrunners and staff, it seems like Phil Hartman's death, who voiced the characters of Troy McCleur, and Lionel Hutz, as well as the voice of Lyle Lanley, from the fantastic classic episode 'Marge vs. the Monorail'. When Hartman died, they retired Troy's character. His absence alone is strongly felt when viewing the first several seasons against the others. His voice is certainly missed. Said Groening of Hartman: "[I] took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time," and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. I mean, this was 1998. Most folks consider season 8-9 to have some of the last 'great' episodes of the series, or at least the last 'great' seasons. There's absolutely no way this is a coincidence, and the affect of his death on the series has been verified by countless staff. I often think of Hartman's death as equivalent to Brian Epstein's death in '67. Similar to the Simpsons, there are a million reasons why the Beatles went to shit (even if their output for three years after that was still phenomenal), but if you have to look at the thing that really 'started' it, Epstein's or Hartman's deaths are good places to start looking, and it's easy to see how things went downhill from there in both cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk
ilamont 8y ago
A built a framework called Lean Media for producing entertainment and informational media works (linked in my sig, for those who are interested) and did quite a bit of research on The Simpson's early years as well as other creative groups and solo creators. While I didn't look into these media team's later development, I think the catalysts which helped them get early success may point the way to why their later output is not so consistently impressive. The three early catalysts are: 1. Early audience feedback loops to help guide and validate media prototypes 2. Minimal business interference 3. Really strong creative core In the case of The Simpsons, it wasn't Matt Groening (who had previously been a cartoonist, not an animator) who single-handedly made the show. Director James L. Brooks and showrunner Sam Simon built out the team of animators and writers. They had early audience feedback from the early animated shorts that appeared in the middle of the Tracey Ullman Show from 1987-1989. These shorts were bundled into 20-minute reels that were shown to Ullman's live studio audiences while there were set changes, and they laughter and cheering helped validate the idea of doing the Simpsons as a standalone half-hour show. Importantly, once The Simpsons was launched in 1989, Brooks protected the writing crew from Fox TV executives' attempt at interference. Similarly, for the band Led Zeppelin, the same three catalysts were in place from the start. Early creative feedback came during their first Scandinavian tour in September 1968, which directly shaped the arrangements and songs that made it onto Led Zeppelin I. They didn't even have a record company when they recorded the album with Glyn Johns that October, so the leader -- Jimmy Page -- could really follow his own production instincts. Later on, what happened with these two teams? Certainly, they continued to make great media, but things weren't quite the same. The Simpsons team broke up -- there was a lot of tension between Simon and Groening, and Simon left after three or four seasons. Other writers went on to different shows. Fox also started to exercise more control over the production, which became more corporate. Led Zeppelin's team remained intact, but over time productions became more bloated (LZ1 recorded in 10 days, Physical Grafitti in 18 months) and I think like many 70s hard rock groups they lost touch with their audiences. After 1977 they did not tour much, and albums like In Through The Out Door and Presence are more musically experimental and influenced by the Plant and Jones than Page and Bonham.
NoNameHaveI 8y ago
There are 2 reasons a show are cancelled: #1, and the reason in the majority of cases: not enough people watch. It doesn't matter if you think the current season of The Simpsons is good, terrible, or whatever. It only matters that you watch. If few enough people watch, it WILL be cancelled. This is NOT public access or PBS. #2, the artist's discretion. Rare, but occasionally an artist decides to "go out on top". Jackie Gleason and "The Honeymooners" comes to mind. Seinfeld too. I'm sure there are others you will point out. Point is, keep watching and they'll keep pumping out crap.
richardboegli 8y ago
Skim read the article and I would suggest watching these videos on YouTube. The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk The Day The Simpsons Died https://youtu.be/I-TS-92KVDA https://youtu.be/I-TS-92KVDA
ggggtez 8y ago
It's a bit confusing. The author starts with the assumption the show got worse, and assumed a causal relation with an random piece of data. This is not proper Bayesian statistics. The author claims there is no principled way, but there is. Confidence bounds are the way to measure what affect a variable had on an outcome.
- nathcun 8y ago
  I didn't assume a causal relationship. In the last line I state that a change in writers may not have caused a decline in quality, but the change in the make-up of the writing team around the team most people agree the show went downhill would lend some credibility to the idea. What about that article suggested I was attempting to do proper Bayesian statistics? It's an exploratory analysis, I'm just looking at the data. And where did I claim there was no principled way of doing this analysis?
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    To be fair, you said "There’s not really a principled way of doing this" but you were referring to cleaning up the data, not the analysis itself. My bad. That said, you started with the following prior: Simpson ratings went down over time. Then you looked at 1 variable: The writing staff. You noticed: Aha, if we assign each writer a rating, then we see that later writers have lower ratings than writers that only worked on early episodes! However that's a tautology. Of course the writers that worked on later episodes have lower scores than those that worked on earlier episodes. The fact the ratings went down over time was the prior we started with! This is the natural result of taking averages. The experimental setup was wrong from the beginning. As for why I think you would want to do proper statistics, the reason is simple: I assume that people who publish these things are well intentioned, and they want to show off actual statistical correlations.
kentbrew 8y ago
Also graphed and discussed by diffuseprior some time ago, here: https://diffuseprior.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kalkalash-pinpointing-the-moments-the-simpsons-became-less-cromulent/ https://diffuseprior.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kalkalash-pinp...
sireat 8y ago
Curious how much longer/shorter the code would have been had Python been used instead of R.
- nathcun 8y ago
  Or if I'd just used R correctly. The code surely isn't best practice in R, just kind of hashed together. I had actually started doing this in Python, but my limited knowledge of Python meant I was resorting to two different libraries to scrape the two data tables.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I'm not a regular watcher any more, but I'll surely be watching at least one episode soon. The annual 'TreeHouse of Horrors' Simpson Halloween special is must-see tv.

140 points by nathcun 8y ago

There's a very interesting YouTube video that has a bit more of an explanation on why The Simpsons had a decline. I liked how they analyze the show and IMO it does a great job explaining why lots of people loved the show up until season 9-10. Personally I think I enjoyed up to season 12 or so, but definitely after 10 I noticed the shift in style/quality/whathaveyou. Could never put it into words why it felt like that, until I watched this. [0] [0] https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk

ashrk 8y ago
See also: Dead Homer Society, if you prefer reading. https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/ Pretty compelling argument for the end of the golden age being season 9, maybe 11 or 12 if you're being very generous, including analysis of writer and other personnel changes, and an attempt at explaining what exactly is different about the earlier seasons compared with the later ones. Seems like the video's making similar points.
- saganus 8y ago
  I wasn't aware of this. Very cool!
- saganus 8y ago
  Actually, while re-watching the video, I realized that they reference the Dead Homer Society in minute 16:03!
lordnacho 8y ago
Just watched this, thanks. My summary: 1) Staff turnover roughly around season 8 caused the writing to change. Jokes got simpler, not as much about the characters' invariants (for lack of a better term). 2) The show was originally successful because it parodied the sitcom era of the mid 1980s. That changed so the context disappeared.
- saganus 8y ago
  I think your summary is correct, although I would add to point 2 (or a third point) about the complex nature of the jokes. They weren't just one liners but instead would build up gradually. That's what I like about this analysis, it got me to understand something that I somehow felt but had no idea that it was actually happening.

beavisthegenius 8y ago

Because the viewers grew up. Saved you a click.

cabaalis 8y ago

How much of this is not attributable to quality but instead to streaming options? I watched The Simpsons for most of my childhood, up until college when I was too busy working and studying--most of my TV time then went to Stargate SG-1 and other Sci-fi. Futurama and Family Guy were in the mix as well up until that time. However, I HAVE still watched Futurama and Family Guy in adulthood, because they were available to stream online! If there are good Simpsons options to stream, without picking up another monthly charge, I'd probably still watch them.

grenoire 8y ago
The average ratings are unlikely to be influenced given the high sample sizes for the ratings on IMDB. I don't really see how else you are connecting ratings to streaming options...
tombert 8y ago
In some fairness, buying the DVDs used on eBay for the first 10 seasons isn't terribly expensive. I got some of them as cheap as four dollars. I spent a few afternoons ripping all of them and adding them to my streaming server. I realize that most people don't have streaming servers, but I think most of the people here probably have something that can read off a flash drive?
- PacifyFish 8y ago
  As crazy as this feels to say, ordering a dvd and figuring out a way to consume it in this day and age is a huge ask! I haven’t had a DVD player in my house for about 6 years now & no CD-ROM drive in my laptop. And, again I can hardly believe I’m saying this, it would be such a hassle to physically insert the disk when I felt like watching! It’s got to be on HBO/Netflix/Hulu/Amazon or available on demand from my tv provider or I won’t watch it outside of theaters. Convenience has bested my better judgement shrugging emoticon
  - Retric 8y ago
    If the show is not worth inserting a DVD then it's probably not worth watching IMO. PS: External DVD drives are ~25$.

j45 8y ago

This reminds me of this video which attributes the decline of the Simpsons to the changes in writers and how the type of comedy itself changed. I still catch episodes when possible, the old ones definitely have a different depth than the current ones. The fall of the Simpsons: How it happened: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk

duxup 8y ago

Whenever we talk about Simpsons decline it always occurs to me that even in decline... the Simpsons is still pretty good. Perhaps that says more about its high points than the "decline".

jplayer01 8y ago
I think the decline is largely bullshit nostalgia. I still watch Simpsons and I still think it's great.
- icebraining 8y ago
  I disagree. I only got cable after '01, so I watched episodes from seasons 13-16 in parallel with reruns of the older ones (sometimes one after the other) and I thought the difference was clear. In fact, I stopped watching when I ran out of unseen reruns.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  It could be for some, though I remember distinctly feeling, years ago, that the episode called Homer Simpson vs The State of New York was the last solid episode, and the one with N*Sync was the first that I really didn't like and it was a marker for the transition to more farcical humor with celebrity cameos. It's just not my thing, and I gave the Simpsons many chances after that. There's a reason nearly all the current Simpsons memes come from the Golden Era.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Certain types of humor lend themselves to repeating and reliving, and get funnier that way. Think of all the people who quote the Simpsons to each other, or Family Guy, or heck even going back to Monty Python. It's really hard to account for that aspect of people's feelings about old vs new Simpsons. Some jokes that were probably light chuckles at first viewing, have become iconic fodder for further humor in the years since. This is reinforced by time, but also by syndication. It gets to the point where no possible new Simpsons joke will get the reaction as the old ones. New jokes just work in the brain differently from jokes we've lived with and referenced for years. This is not unique to the Simpsons, it happens with any long-running show. The SNL "cowbell" or "David S. Pumpkins" sketches seemed kind of funny at first viewing, but the constant references since have made them seem way funnier.

w-m 8y ago

Later episodes are rated lower, thus writers who mainly wrote later episodes have contributed to episodes with lower rating. This seems like circular reasoning, and doesn't say anything about an individual writers' contribution to the quality of the show.

nathcun 8y ago
While I admit the logic is somewhat tautologous, that's not quite the conclusion I'm drawing. I, first of all, look at the average rating of the writers involved in the show, and then look at how the make-up of the show's writers is substantially different in the early years vs the later years.
- ggggtez 8y ago
  The only thing this experiment could show is that if the ratings changed, but the writers didn't, then the writers are not responsible. It can't show the reverse. Everything in the article is just properties of arithmatic averages in sorted sequences.
monochromatic 8y ago
I don't see how that's circular reasoning. The writers who worked on bad episodes presumably had something to do with making them bad.
- w-m 8y ago
  Potentially it was bad writers, yes. But this data does not prove this; it just shows that some writers tenure correspond with worse episodes. But so does for example the year, or potentially many other influencing factors.
  - monochromatic 8y ago
    If we’re going down that rabbit hole, it doesn’t even prove there is such a thing as a bad episode. It could just be that people who don’t like the simpsons became more likely to use IMDB as time went on.

gmjoe 8y ago

This analysis doesn't demonstrate anything, unfortunately, except that ratings declined over time and that writers changed over time. Any factor could have caused the show's decline (like less time given for script writing, less collaboration or rewrites, management directives to change aspects of the show, etc.) -- and it would show the same result.

jonathankoren 8y ago
Did you know, there’s a direct correlation between the decline in the perceived quality of the show, and the decline in Spirograph? Think about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IYaftepO-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IYaftepO-s

josephv 8y ago

I ravenously consumed The Simpsons for most of my youth and loved it. I watch it now whenever I get the chance and love it, but life happened. I don't like my kids to watch it so they don't grow up Fd in the brain like me. Having a bad kid as a role model I think does impact children. It's also not the only game in town. Cartoon network quality has gone way way up. I used to watch 3-hour cartoons on Saturday morning, and the simpsons et. al on Sunday night. That was it for cartoons on TV. Grandparents broke out VHS tapes occasionally as well. We didn't have a lot of options so The Simpsons was mind blowing. Not so much anymore.

xfitm3 8y ago
What about the simpsons is unhealthy for kids?
- ip26 8y ago
  Having a bad kid as a role model I think does impact children. I.e., Bart. Edit: I'm not sure people realize I'm not the grandparent, or that I was directly quoting him to answer the question?
  - justtopost 8y ago
    So, all cartoons then? Bart is the archtype for screwing up amd learning your lesson. Omitting that seems worse parenting.
    - josephv 8y ago
      My kids have had no trouble screwing up and I try to help them learn lessons. There are many other shows that teach that same lesson without a cartoon cat and mouse filleting each other, dad drinking and bumbling around and choking their kids out. I love The Simpsons; honestly I like Bob's Burgers more, but both shows live on a line between acceptable and unacceptable, like all adult cartoons do. They will find things that do the same and I won't know about it. But I don't spoon feed it to them. I already give them all the vidya games in the world so they aren't starved for crude content. Also just living with me is all the crude TV-MA content they can handle. Mom and Dad are sort of fun to hang around (at least for Mom and Dad).

patorjk 8y ago

One possible problem with this - I listened to the Simpsons commentary tracks a long time ago and one comment the writers gave was that episodes were hashed out in the writers room, and everyone contributed jokes. Once an episode was hashed out, one or two people would then be assigned to put it together. This would mean an episode could be listed as written by a specific person, but the best jokes in that episode could have been written by someone else. One of the writers mentioned they'd often get comments about how funny their episodes were, but then the person they were talking to would bring up jokes that were written by the other writers. However, the graph at the end kind of shows this, the earlier people had the best episodes. It may have been that they had better chemistry.

netsharc 8y ago
Futurama got cancelled and they made 3 straight to DVD movies which was supposed to be 26 episodes worth of content, and IIRC you could see it, each "movie" had 4 stories. The bad thing was, the humor got so so bad, with predictable lame one liners (Big Bang Theory-level lame). I wonder what sort of groupthink thought those jokes were funny, and what sort of dynamics the early Simpsons/Futurama writers group had to be able to output high quality humor...
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  I wonder how much of that was a format issue, though? The Futurama movies were definitely weaker than the episodes, but I remember the Comedy Central revival being better than most or all of the movies. Maybe not up to their Season Four heights, but definitely enough better to make me think the movie style was causing them problems in either writing or editing.
  - lostgame 8y ago
    I have the opposite experience. I find the Comedy Central reboot episodes, for the most part, to feel strange and 'off'. I can't even put my finger on it. Even the animation seems wonky to me. Eh, to be honest, the movies weren't great, either. Seasons 1-4 really were kind of 'Futurama's run, I guess.

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

I listened to the DVD commentaries of many of the early seasons and the writers/showrunners complained about how the episode length was slowly cut back (though I'm having a hard time finding good data online about how much) and this directly impacted the quality of the show. They specifically called out the inability to write compelling "B" stories within the episode, which often are what gave episodes some greater depth.

stupidbird 8y ago

There are a lot of shifts that changed The Simpsons, but the biggest one for me was the shift to being almost constantly satirical. Classic Simpsons would occasionally get a bit satirical or referential (like when Bush Sr made a guest appearance), but modern Simpsons seems more satirical than not. Episodes like the one featuring the "MyPod" with "Steve Mobs" basically had my eyes rolling into the back of my head. That's such low-hanging fruit that they're picking it up off the ground. It's not even good enough to be considered sophomoric. I want to watch The Simpsons and be entertained about ridiculous situations in _their_ world, and sure, throw in a wink to reality now and then. I don't really care for the family-friendly The Onion-light treatment.

bradleyankrom 8y ago
> Classic Simpsons would occasionally get a bit satirical or referential (like when Bush Sr made a guest appearance), but modern Simpsons seems more satirical than not. Episodes like the one featuring the "MyPod" with "Steve Mobs" basically had my eyes rolling into the back of my head. That's such low-hanging fruit that they're picking it up off the ground. It's not even good enough to be considered sophomoric. And the Futurama take on this was just as bad (and I love Futurama). IMO, South Park is the best at doing this kind of satire... I can't point to exactly why, though. Being on cable allows them to push edgier jokes, but I'm sure it's more than that.
- lostgame 8y ago
  I think it's because South Park has always been a vehicle to comment, usually specifically, on current events and popular culture. The world of South Park is really a sandbox for Trey and Matt to caricature whatever they're choosing to ream on that particular week. The Simpsons, Futurama, when they address these kinds of issues, they feel like they're 'reaching' for it. Or, worse, just 'not trying'. Someone else here mentioned The Simpsons, and the Family Guy, were much better at the time that they focused on the struggles of the families themselves. I believe that this is because unlike South Park, where, even from the name, the town itself seems to be the focus. Which allows it to be moreso whatever they want it to be. 'The Simpsons' and the 'Family Guy', are meant to satirize, or at least revolve around, the daily struggles of the 'American Middle Class Family'. When they don't, and they reach for 'current' events, which often usually feel dated by the episode release due to the extended 6-9 month production period, they seem stale and unfunny. South Park's 6-day production period, awesomely described in the fantastic documentary 'Six Days to Air', allows South Park to comment literally on things that happened the day before. It's incredibly hard to make that feel 'stale.' Really, worst-case scenario, South Park just doesn't seem 'funny' enough sometimes (this season hasn't been great), but definitely never 'irrelevant'. The early seasons and episodes of the Simpsons are timeless. Many of them could've happened any time over the last three or four decades. • 'Homer's Enemy' (S08E23) - A new employee at work gets jealous of Homer's 'easy' life. • 'Mr. Plow' (S04E09) - Hijinks occur when Homer and Barney start competing snow removal businesses. • 'Homer the Heretic' (S04E03) - Homer decides he doesn't need to attend church any more, and Marge doesn't like the example that demonstrates for the kids. • 'You Only Move Twice' (S08E02) - Homer is offered a new work opportunity in a 'perfect' town. This episode does involve satire, but James Bond is such an old trope, and the films are still coming out, therefore it doesn't seem 'stale'. None of these classic and fan favourite episodes rely on tropes of the era. They're still as funny today as when they were released. (Especially 'You Only Move Twice'. What a gem. Oh, Scorpio.) Futurama, as well, does best when it focuses on it's sci-fi premise. It's supposed to be the future. We don't need comments about Apple products in there, we want the mind-bending 'Rick and Morty'-level plots of 'Roswell that Ends Well', or the genuine moments of emotion like Fry's dog at the end of 'Jurassic Bark'. Again, it seems like early seasons of these cartoon sitcoms have a habit of sticking to their initial premise, and maybe perhaps the creator's visions. There's tons of reasons for this, but in 'The Simpsons' case, the death of Phil Hartman in 1998 drastically affected the show as a whole. I think a lot of the spirit was lost along with him. RIP, Troy McClure.

T3RMINATED 8y ago

it ended because they are trying to keep up with current political events instead of just inventing their own stories. Just like south park.

s_kilk 8y ago

My theory is that the show started to decline after about eight or nine years on the air, which is just about enough time for young fans to grow up, go to college, start their career in writing, and then end up on the Simpsons team. The last person you want writing on a show like that is a life-long super-fan.

probably_wrong 8y ago
I cannot say whether your theory is correct or not, but your theory resonates with something director Hayao Miyazaki said[1]: that the Japanese animation industry is suffering because the staff of a modern studio is full of people who grew up watching anime rather than looking at real people. [1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131872-Hayao-Miyazaki-Anime-Suffers-Because-the-Industry-is-Full-of-Otaku https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131872-Hayao-Miya...
egypturnash 8y ago
This is a good theory. Just look at the shitshow superhero comics have become after a couple of cycles of this.

drchiu 8y ago

Purely anecdotal, but as a Simpsons fans many years ago (and not really following the show anymore), I think there are many of us who grew up with the Simpsons who simply don't have the time (as we've gotten older and have other chores and priorities to take care of first) to follow the show anymore.

daneyh 8y ago
not a time issue...the show just became not funny and kinda lame. I pinpoint it ~5 years before the movie came out.
nathcun 8y ago
I still watch the old episodes on an almost daily basis, so I don't know if that's true for everyone.

jason46 8y ago

It hasn't ended, still by far one of the best shows on cable TV.

thrower123 8y ago

If you'd like to see something really terrible, try watching the fantasy Simpsons/Futurama-esque mess that is Disenchanted on Netflix.

nathcun 8y ago
Some of the top writers I picked out (Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, David X/S Cohen) are involved in it, but I agree it's not great.
- ConceptJunkie 8y ago
  It started out pretty weak, but I think it's fair to admit it got a lot better by the last 3 episodes or so when it got a little more invested in the characters. But the real test has been the fact that I haven't bothered to watch it again. I'd rather watch "The Simpsons" or "Futurama" for the N plus 1th time.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

HillaryBriss 8y ago

> I gathered the average rating across all episodes by writers contributing more than ten episodes. why 10? why not 12 or 8 or 5 ... ?

nathcun 8y ago
Our number system is base 10. The choice was arbitrary, I just wanted enough episodes to reduce the noise in the average ratings.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  thanks for your reply! When I learned that Conan O'Brien had only 4 writing credits, I wondered if perhaps 3 would be an appropriate threshold. More generally, I was wondering how the results vary with different choices for this threshold.

bliblah 8y ago

Nothing lasts forever. Plain and simple. I really dislike TV/Anime that never ends, seems to be the modus operandi for pretty much every mainstream show despite how bad the quality gets after 2-3 seasons. Simpsons is a great showcase of the homogenization that every sitcom will go through given enough time. It starts out as a comedy with some wholesome family moments to bring it together but eventually every character is distilled to their most basic formula Homer -> Idiot who causes events to happen Bart -> Same as above Marge -> Straight man / Voice of reason or Satire of moralistic conservative adults depending on the situation Lisa -> same as marge but liberal piñata Old episodes had genuine moments where you saw them become closer as family, now every episode is a hodgepodge of nonstop comedy. Family Guy also went through this, especially after they got revived. The early episodes focused on the trials of the family with some goofy humor peppered throughout (Peter getting fired, Louis dealing with being a bored housewife) but now its just nonstop comedy. Once you get syndicated it's not about making good episodes just churning out 26 more a year and cashing in that paycheck. Even Steven Universe which has a very straightforward story with an end planned feels bloated with a bunch of filler episodes and lazy character development.

Jun8 8y ago
Exactly, and you have to know when to let go, a la Seinfeld. Adventure Time handled this very well, I think: told what they had to tell and ended after that. Another canonical good example exiting at the right time is Calvin and Hobbes.
- lostgame 8y ago
  Calvin and Hobbes also managed to avoid selling out. Bill Watterson was a genius for sure. Due to his actions, Calvin and Hobbes has retained it's wholesome charm, and as far as I can see, will for many years to come.
adzm 8y ago
> Even Steven Universe which has a very straightforward story with an end planned feels bloated with a bunch of filler episodes and lazy character development. The filler episodes are some of my family's favorites, however. I think the comparison is a bit premature compared to something like the Simpsons where every episode pretty much can stand alone.

turdnagel 8y ago

Great analysis - but I also wonder if IMDb ratings have a bit (or more than a bit) of selection bias, where people rating the episodes are the "hardcore fans" who've already established the narrative the idea that the show was in decline past season 10, 11, 13 - and so since the data has potentially already been shaped by bias around a narrative, it can't reveal anything more than hardcore Simpsons fans prevailing attitudes. In other words, you're asking a bunch of people who are obsessed with The Simpsons for their episode ratings; of course you're going to see a decline.

m23khan 8y ago

Maybe it is just me but in older episodes of Simpsons, there was a lot more music for different situations and at times, classic or what I would term 'wholesome' music was played to highlight cathartic situations or trials/tribulations of human lives. These are things that to me play a major part as a viewer. To me, a TV serial is not about 30 min episode, it is a mini-play or chapter in a play. Think back to days of Tom and Jerry (the ones before mid-1960s) as well as the older Mickey Mouse & Co (up till 1970s) and you will see the recurring pattern -- music was just great and played a huge part in involving the user. That and also, there is something about the super-sharp, ultra modern type of animation modern day Simpsons have. I understand it is high-tech and latest stuff, but it does take away from the art and appreciation of what the viewer experiences. If you don't believe me, watch an episode of 1940s/1950s Mickey Mouse or Tom & Jerry and compare with their modern day renditions.

reaperducer 8y ago

Because the humor went from funny and light-hearted to mean and angry in order to seem "edgy" and "current." See also: Saturday Night Live See also: Comedy Central

eloisant 8y ago
I think it was always edgy, a bit shocking, and what was edgy and shocking when they started became normal later on so they had to push the envelope a bit further.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

ask fox

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

When Conan quit writing

daotoad 8y ago
What is best in life? To crush your comedy, to see played out before you, and to hear the felicitations of your patrons.

Quanttek 8y ago

It would've been interesting to run a regression on the results, seeing if the writers were actually the largest contributing factor. Additionally, that graph with the average expected ratings should have the actual ratings in there for comparisons

rs23296008n1 8y ago

Cutbacks on writers, simplistic plot story arcs, worshipping celebrity... I probably missed a few. Simpson's ended in season 8 as far as I'm concerned.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lostgame 8y ago

Nobody here seems to be mentioning the death of Phil Hartman[1] in 1998. The article, as well, staggeringly, doesn't mention his name. There's a video[2], 'The Fall of the Simpsons', which is one of my favourite videos on the internet. It explains and describes with utmost clarity the issues that led to the series 'demise', which, ultimately, boils down to 'bad writing'. However, in interviews, and comments from the showrunners and staff, it seems like Phil Hartman's death, who voiced the characters of Troy McCleur, and Lionel Hutz, as well as the voice of Lyle Lanley, from the fantastic classic episode 'Marge vs. the Monorail'. When Hartman died, they retired Troy's character. His absence alone is strongly felt when viewing the first several seasons against the others. His voice is certainly missed. Said Groening of Hartman: "[I] took [Hartman] for granted because he nailed the joke every time," and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. I mean, this was 1998. Most folks consider season 8-9 to have some of the last 'great' episodes of the series, or at least the last 'great' seasons. There's absolutely no way this is a coincidence, and the affect of his death on the series has been verified by countless staff. I often think of Hartman's death as equivalent to Brian Epstein's death in '67. Similar to the Simpsons, there are a million reasons why the Beatles went to shit (even if their output for three years after that was still phenomenal), but if you have to look at the thing that really 'started' it, Epstein's or Hartman's deaths are good places to start looking, and it's easy to see how things went downhill from there in both cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk

ilamont 8y ago

A built a framework called Lean Media for producing entertainment and informational media works (linked in my sig, for those who are interested) and did quite a bit of research on The Simpson's early years as well as other creative groups and solo creators. While I didn't look into these media team's later development, I think the catalysts which helped them get early success may point the way to why their later output is not so consistently impressive. The three early catalysts are: 1. Early audience feedback loops to help guide and validate media prototypes 2. Minimal business interference 3. Really strong creative core In the case of The Simpsons, it wasn't Matt Groening (who had previously been a cartoonist, not an animator) who single-handedly made the show. Director James L. Brooks and showrunner Sam Simon built out the team of animators and writers. They had early audience feedback from the early animated shorts that appeared in the middle of the Tracey Ullman Show from 1987-1989. These shorts were bundled into 20-minute reels that were shown to Ullman's live studio audiences while there were set changes, and they laughter and cheering helped validate the idea of doing the Simpsons as a standalone half-hour show. Importantly, once The Simpsons was launched in 1989, Brooks protected the writing crew from Fox TV executives' attempt at interference. Similarly, for the band Led Zeppelin, the same three catalysts were in place from the start. Early creative feedback came during their first Scandinavian tour in September 1968, which directly shaped the arrangements and songs that made it onto Led Zeppelin I. They didn't even have a record company when they recorded the album with Glyn Johns that October, so the leader -- Jimmy Page -- could really follow his own production instincts. Later on, what happened with these two teams? Certainly, they continued to make great media, but things weren't quite the same. The Simpsons team broke up -- there was a lot of tension between Simon and Groening, and Simon left after three or four seasons. Other writers went on to different shows. Fox also started to exercise more control over the production, which became more corporate. Led Zeppelin's team remained intact, but over time productions became more bloated (LZ1 recorded in 10 days, Physical Grafitti in 18 months) and I think like many 70s hard rock groups they lost touch with their audiences. After 1977 they did not tour much, and albums like In Through The Out Door and Presence are more musically experimental and influenced by the Plant and Jones than Page and Bonham.

NoNameHaveI 8y ago

There are 2 reasons a show are cancelled: #1, and the reason in the majority of cases: not enough people watch. It doesn't matter if you think the current season of The Simpsons is good, terrible, or whatever. It only matters that you watch. If few enough people watch, it WILL be cancelled. This is NOT public access or PBS. #2, the artist's discretion. Rare, but occasionally an artist decides to "go out on top". Jackie Gleason and "The Honeymooners" comes to mind. Seinfeld too. I'm sure there are others you will point out. Point is, keep watching and they'll keep pumping out crap.

richardboegli 8y ago

Skim read the article and I would suggest watching these videos on YouTube. The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk The Day The Simpsons Died https://youtu.be/I-TS-92KVDA https://youtu.be/I-TS-92KVDA

ggggtez 8y ago

It's a bit confusing. The author starts with the assumption the show got worse, and assumed a causal relation with an random piece of data. This is not proper Bayesian statistics. The author claims there is no principled way, but there is. Confidence bounds are the way to measure what affect a variable had on an outcome.

nathcun 8y ago
I didn't assume a causal relationship. In the last line I state that a change in writers may not have caused a decline in quality, but the change in the make-up of the writing team around the team most people agree the show went downhill would lend some credibility to the idea. What about that article suggested I was attempting to do proper Bayesian statistics? It's an exploratory analysis, I'm just looking at the data. And where did I claim there was no principled way of doing this analysis?
- ggggtez 8y ago
  To be fair, you said "There’s not really a principled way of doing this" but you were referring to cleaning up the data, not the analysis itself. My bad. That said, you started with the following prior: Simpson ratings went down over time. Then you looked at 1 variable: The writing staff. You noticed: Aha, if we assign each writer a rating, then we see that later writers have lower ratings than writers that only worked on early episodes! However that's a tautology. Of course the writers that worked on later episodes have lower scores than those that worked on earlier episodes. The fact the ratings went down over time was the prior we started with! This is the natural result of taking averages. The experimental setup was wrong from the beginning. As for why I think you would want to do proper statistics, the reason is simple: I assume that people who publish these things are well intentioned, and they want to show off actual statistical correlations.

kentbrew 8y ago

Also graphed and discussed by diffuseprior some time ago, here: https://diffuseprior.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kalkalash-pinpointing-the-moments-the-simpsons-became-less-cromulent/ https://diffuseprior.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kalkalash-pinp...

sireat 8y ago

Curious how much longer/shorter the code would have been had Python been used instead of R.

nathcun 8y ago
Or if I'd just used R correctly. The code surely isn't best practice in R, just kind of hashed together. I had actually started doing this in Python, but my limited knowledge of Python meant I was resorting to two different libraries to scrape the two data tables.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I'm not a regular watcher any more, but I'll surely be watching at least one episode soon. The annual 'TreeHouse of Horrors' Simpson Halloween special is must-see tv.