I did as well when I watched every episode earlier this year. I kept on scrutinizing it (and I am normally a hyper-critical TV viewer) but aside from some sligh

I did as well when I watched every episode earlier this year. I kept on scrutinizing it (and I am normally a hyper-critical TV viewer) but aside from some slight "off-ness" in a few episodes roughly around the time they changed the intro, season after season passed with me still waiting for this decline to occur. Well it never arrived. Did the show change over time? Of course it did I don't know any long-running anything that didn't evolve. I just never noticed it getting less funny, less clever, or less Simpsonesque. So I brought it up to my brother, who used to watch it with me from its debut until around 2000, and is way more of a Simpsons nut than I am. He explained the decline to me, when it was and what it entailed, from his perspective, which I think more or less vibed with what most fans say. After he explained it, I could kind of sort of see it that way, at least to understand why a person might hold the 'decline opinion'. But I wouldn't have made that judgement on my own. It still doesn't seem notable enough to me to have turned into "what everyone says". Oh well. More chuckles for me!