Simpsons, Trailer Park Boys, and SpongeBob are three shows where you know what you’re getting based on the aspect ratio.
Oh no did they dirty my boy spongebob
What happened with SpongeBob?
Whatever happened to Spongebob, the strong silent type?
Ricky falling is probably my favorite joke in TPB
The Simpsons turned to crap long before they changed the aspect ratio.
Damn, the top one doesn’t even really look like a modern TV, either. It’s like they tried to update it while trying to do it in a way that most people didn’t notice. What a cop out.
It actually just looks like a pre-flat, wide-screen TV to me.
Looks more like a rear projection set.
Ah yeah, that’s what I was thinking of when I said plasma. Although typically those were much bigger than the Simpsons could afford.
I’m sure Homer could fall for a con and buy a rear projection off a truck.
The picture.on those things was horrible compared to CRTs. I don’t understand why anyone bought one. Must have tapped into that American attitude of “bigger is better even if it’s shit”. Same reason we keep Texas around.
Lol
Even if we take it to be a modern TV: How the hell did they manage to put a VCR on that thing?
There was a weird transition era where some flat screens still weren’t super skinny.
There were also those big ass plasma TVs and stuff.
Yea but a VCR or even a DVD still wouldn’t have fit on top
Man, you could have had a mini golf course on top of those TVs!
Could be a DVD player.
I don’t think that’s what they meant, rather how could you fit any device on top of a flat screen TV?
“Flat” and “flat screen” arent the same thing. CRT TVs had a curved glass screen. Due to the fact that the rear projection could just project across the curve. With technology advancements they were able to improve picture clarity while flattening the screen. These were still bulky projection style TVs, but were called flat screen. But then when actual “flat” TVs (in the form of LCD, etc) came around people kept using the term. So a flat screen TV could be very thick.
They had to work like hell to modify the analog signal to project the curved image on the flat screen.
TBH it didn’t affect the viewing experience.
My first LCD TV is pretty chonky, you can definitely put one there, though it’d probably be at an angle
Rumor has it that season 33 is speckled with passable episodes, and season 34 in generally considered a minor come back of the series. I’m watching 34 and yeah, it’s pretty alright.
I’ll take today’s Simpsons over today’s Family Guy. Family Guy today is just being used as someone’s soapbox through shitty gags that are thought up in under a minute.
I find it hard to believe Family Guy is still on. It stopped being funny like 15 years ago.
I read simmering a while ago that McFarlane wanted to stop the show years ago because it had run its course but the studio threw a ton of money at him to keep going so he did.
Of course money would talk.
Though any other Family Guy fan would say that it ran it’s course shortly after the third season. That’s 19 years ago.
Cost to produce it < money it makes
As long as that holds true.
That’s true only true if there’s not a show people would watch instead. At this point they’re hoping these shows act as anchors for their streaming service. I just suspect they over invested in “what do millennials use as sleep aids” will come crashing down
someone’s soapbox
That’s been Lisa Simpson since like season 3
It’s called “Simpsoning” or “Groening” in the entertaining industry: do something really great, then do it for so long and get worse and worse for so long, that people actually forget that it was great at some point in time.
The clarity and lack of phosphor glow is depressing
the newest season was actually pretty good, if you get a chance i’d give it a whirl
I feel like I’ve been hearing this for a decade. Not that the show has been good for the last decade, but that the latest season is always the one that was pretty good.
The last time someone I knew told me this, I pressed for details. I tried to get examples of good episodes vs bad episodes, and a sense of the ratio between the two. The impression I got was that each recent season had a few episodes that stood out as pretty good, and the rest were either forgettable or kind of crap, but not as bad as the worst episodes in the show’s history.
They had a couple strong seasons roughly 10 years ago IMO. Good enough to keeping me watching again consistently for a few years. Then one day I realized that we were 5 episodes into a season and every single episode had been an alternate universe style episode. Like, oh hey, this week’s episode is The Simpsons but it’s a spaghetti western for absolutely no reason and with no explanation.
I remember asking my wife it she could remember the last time we actually saw Homer at the power plant. Did he still work there? Did he finally get permanently fired and this season represents his decent into madness as he realizes there’s no coming back this time? Or maybe he never worked there and I’m the one who’s gone crazy.
She said, “Let’s watch something else.”
Haven’t watched it since then.
I remember asking my wife it she could remember the last time we actually saw Homer at the power plant. Did he still work there? Did he finally get permanently fired and this season represents his decent into madness as he realizes there’s no coming back this time? Or maybe he never worked there and I’m the one who’s gone crazy.
They joked about that exact issue 24 years ago!
Just watch the first 9.5 seasons and call it a day. There is enough good content out there that you don’t have to subject yourself to hours of unfunny brain rot just to find the one or two jokes that make you chuckle.
I’ve heard that rhetoric thrown around a lot and so I watched it and I will say that no, no it is not. It’s just eh, instead of a machine gun of disjointed jokes like the last 23 seasons
Thanks. I think the likelihood of me diving back in went from 5% back to 0%. I’ve heard similar sentiments as well and then getting all defensive. I don’t begrudge anyone for enjoying the new Simpsons but it’s not for me. Also, I’ve been listening to clips here and there. Homer and Marge’s voice sound rougher, which makes sense given the amount of time that’s passed but yeah…
The Simpsons has not been particularly funny since season 9, and I’m willing to die in this hill.
It started going seriously downhill in season 7.
Ok, I’ve seen this take recently, but what made the newest season better? I’m probably going to give it a shot anyhow. I really hope I’m not let down. I still recite the old episodes like religion.
It’s going back to actual story telling instead of trying to just insert as many jokes as possible.
In the bad seasons, you’d have so many plotlines that just didn’t make sense and characters doing things they simply wouldn’t do. For example, Marge is not the absent minded idiot that Homer is, but if the joke needs her to be, then that’s exactly what she’d be turned into, without any explanation. They do the same with the overall plot too
Lower joke count so some of them actually have time to land.
The writing seems to try to tell a good story first and then add jokes in where they work, unlike trying to put as many jokes in a flimsy story as possible. They also handle character like Marge a lot more like the early seasons.
Fron what I heard it’s because the pandemic forced them to have less writers with more agency on each episode. It’s not every episode, but there are definitely a handful of banger.
A Serious Flanders works way better than it has any right to do so
