I’ve never seen The Simpsons movie and I’m ok with that.
For me the drop off happens in season 10 but, golly gee, seasons 3-7 might be the funniest work our species has ever created. (No hyperbole)
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season 10 is when it starts, but season 10 also has one of the funniest lines of the show:
we’ll live like kings. damn hell ass kings.
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i’ve just been informed this actually happens in season 9
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I have a weird brain that seems bottomlessly filled with Simpsons references and I don’t know why. Love the show, haven’t watched much of it in a very long time. It’s probably because of CRTs. This is why they said not to sit too close.
On the other hand, I’m currently rewatching King of the Hill which still slaps. Simpsons will be next.
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For me S7 is the point where I noticed Lisa stops being the audience surrogate and turns into a straw liberal feminist killjoy and Homer goes from being a likeable oaf who is forced to learn from his mistakes into just an asshole, and his callousness is where the jokes begin and end. You can see examples of what I’m talking about in Lisa the Vegetarian (the whole episode) and Much Apu About Nothing (Homer learns Apu is an undocumented and puts up his prop 24 poster anyway, cut to commercial).
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i’m with you on this - season 8 still has some all-timers but the tone has definitely changed. for example, the frank grimes episode has goated one-liners (i live above a bowling alley and beneath another bowling alley), but the whole epsiode is so cruel that i rarely if ever rewatch it.
perhaps some of that james l brooks influence fading away
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You both get a Smash TV “BINGO!” from me.
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@connrrr @tomjonjon hope you don’t mind i moved our simpsons discussion to the tv thread 
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My favourite episodes are like Homer Defined (S3) and Lisa on Ice (S6) with so much hot shit in the middle what would be the point of dropping that many favourite episode titles? Nothing after that even comes close, and I think a big part of that is yeah the show just lost its heart.
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Losing its heart is a perfect way of describing it. I also think Groening starting work on Futurama hastened the decline.
The episode in which Homer gets a job at Burns’ casino is a favorite of mine. The scene where he throws the shotgun down after freaking out about the boogeyman is delightful.
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So we can all reminisce and say “yeah love that one”
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I can’t pick a favorite episode but there are so many little quirks that make me laugh whenever I think about them. One example on top of mind is in the episode Bart Gets an Elephant and Homer shouts:
“That wasn’t part of the deal, Blackheart! THAT. WASN’T. PAAARRTTTT!”
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I don’t know enough about The Simpsons to be able to answer this question, but I wonder if wherever one feels the show has started its decline is informed by the incoming waxing or waning of a particular writer or showrunner.
Also gotta define terms and establish parameters very carefully to not be talking past one another. Is a Season defined by its singular best episodes? Or is it an averaging of all of them? Or, is a Season where we can point to the beginning of the end because of notably bad episodes?
I think in the strict definition of the “jump the shark” moment, which is, not necessarily when the show is still at the height of its powers, but is a moment that makes it absolutely clear that it will never again be as good as it was, Maude dying is the obvious choice (Season 11). But I think it’s also fair to say that the decline was already well underway for at least one but probably more seasons.
My heart tells me Season 8 is too early but my brain tells me it probably isn’t. And in fact now that I try and think about watching a new episode Sunday evening, and thinking, hm, well, that wasn’t as funny as it could have been, I actually think of Lost Our Lisa, an episode I could have sworn would have been post Maude Death, but is in fact in Season 9…!
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Actually it’s the critic crossover episode. That one is the best.
(Also lol at Groening leaving his name off the credits because he thought it was a money grab)
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OH MY GOD….WHERE DID YOU GET THAT BROWNIE
Over there, there’s a whole pile of em.
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Gee, I don’t know what you have planned for tonight Homer but count me out.
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An interesting facet of The Simpsons to think about might be, in the waning days of the Silver Age, how the bizarrely convoluted setups occurring in the first minute or so of the episode can end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the entire episode. For instance, looking over Season 9, I’m reminded about how mostly dumb Bart Carney (S09E12) is, but someone was fucking cooking when they came up with this opener:
While the family is at a traveling carnival, Bart accidentally crashes Adolf Hitler’s car.
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Dude not joking “as a writer” I’ve thought about simpsons episode structures pretty heavily. You’re absolutely right they take some brazen turns.
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