When did The Simpsons jump the shark for you?

1999 would have been a great time to end it. There was nothing left to do with the characters. They had done episodes where Marge wants to do something different, like the one where she joins the police force. They had done all sorts of episodes about Homer doing crazy stuff, like enrolling in clown college or the one where he gets even fatter or when he became a bodybuilder. Tons of episodes about Bart’s shenanigans with teachers, Sideshow Bob, Sideshow Mel, bullies, etc. They did a wild episode where Homer crossed over into the 3D world. They did an episode set 15 years in the future where Lisa gets married and we see Bart as a loafer still underachieving. Every character had been explored in hilarious ways. Also, that was the time the new series Futurama was coming in. Instead of letting it end with dignity they decided to keep it going and milk it for all it’s worth. I catch glimpses of it now and then and wonder why on earth it’s still on the air.

 

I have enjoyed the Simpsons every week from the beginning up to the present day.

 

I still watch the annual Treehouse Of Horror, Sideshow Bob and the musical episodes but stopped watching the series after Season 10. I have seasons 1 through 10 on DVD.

 

They've pulled at the 'Simpson-kids-as-adults' thread at least 4 (or 5) times now....
What they NEED to do is pull BENDER out of the basement!

 

Not only were they losing writers to other shows, they were cannibalizing their own staff to do Futurama. Futurama maintained the same quality level as Simpsons seasons 7-8 even while The Simpsons was sinking like a stone. Meanwhile all the other animated cartoon imitators The Simpsons spawned also siphoned off staff, and probably created more competition to recruit writers.

Greg Daniels left to do King of the Hill and eventually The Office and Parks and Recreation. His Simpsons episodes as the credited writer were some of the best ones. He started in season 5 and stopped working on the show after season 8, except for a couple holdover season 9 episodes. Another huge blow to the show at that time.

I do think it would've been very interesting to start aging the characters. The future flash-forward shows were some of the better episodes. They could've created an epic feel to the show by gradually moving it forward in time, as happens in comic books when Spider-Man slowly graduated high school and college.

 

I'm not one of those "the show has sucked for 20 years, please put it out of its misery" guys, but I don't watch the Simpsons nearly as religiously as I used to, either.
When I do catch a current episode every now and again, I can usually still get at least one or two decent laughs out of it. So I guess I'm still a fan, just not a fan-boy like I was twenty years ago.

 

Season 9. The cracks were there in s8, but s9 was where the drop in quality began in earnest. It’s mostly been crap since 2001 and I stopped making the show appointment television shortly after that point.

 

The other good thing about season 7 and 8 was that they showed growth in the show. The show started to have a more experimental feel, including doing more episodes that broke the format, some that were very high-concept, and some that were focused more on telling a story than generating a laugh a minute. Season 9 seemed to just be saying, let's revert back to the style of season 5, and try to do premises that can lead to one joke after another. But the jokes weren't very good anymore, and the premises weren't strong enough to stand on their own or to support the jokes. Season 8 had an awareness that the show was on the brink of getting stale, and tried lots of different ideas to prevent that. Season 9 didn't have the same canny awareness of that risk.

 

When you could really tell the series was animated digitally and not on cells. Another particular down for me for BART-MANGLED BANNER with it's predictable conservative-bashing. The Government doesn't put Micheal Moore or Janeane Garofalo in maximum-security prisons, and that's why it's not funny. And the extended patriotic song medley was just painful; imitating flag-waving corniness isn't as funny as the real thing(I laughed at those Teenage Girls doing their Trump "enemies everywhere" campaign song more than the labored parody Colbert put on).

 

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed some of the episodes after season 10 when casually watching not too long ago on tv. But this is probably in reference to around seasons 11-14 or so and certainly not more recent ones. It's not like the show went from amazing to terrible overnight or anything but consistency waned over time.

 

I gradually lost interest in the show in the late 90's and stopped watching completely around 1999, but always intended to catch up once it ended because it MUST be ending soon. It never jumped the shark for me, I just had other, better things to do.

Now that seems like an insurmountable task and I'd have to be retired and sitting in a chair all day to even begin that project.

 

"In hell, they make you watch 'em all in a row!"- a line from an actual episode!

 

They jumped when they ceased simply being shorts on the Tracey Ullman Show.

There's never been enough substance to maintain the longer format.

Or as Bart would say:

"Eat my longer format, man!"

 

I ... don't know.

I simply ceased watching it years and years ago. It was not a conscious decision. I keep saying I should get back into it or at least show my kid some episodes. I still make lots of cultural or satirical references pertaining to the show.

 

Like those people who say The Beatles went downhill after they left Hamburg!
...I actually heard someone say that.

 

I'm pretty sure The Simpsons jumped the shark in season 2 with Captain Lance Murdock...

 

I don’t know that it has because I haven’t watched it in 15 years.

 

Stu or die!!!

 

When they killed Maud Flanders (and not when "she died" because that would assume it made sense or had a narrative purpose, which it didn't).

 

There was a contract dispute with Maggie Roswell, voice of Maude and other minor characters, during the Mike Scully era (seasons 9-12). The fact that it wasn't resolved, I attribute to his poor leadership. It was resolved and she returned to the show by season 14, after Al Jean had replaced Scully. I also remember hearing that the writers would often just leave early and call it a day during the Scully era.

 

'The 'Simpsons' never jumped the shark.
Maybe it's not the show it used to be but what does that mean anyway?
Watched a few recent episodes not too long ago and had a laugh at them.

 

I've liked what I've seen of Season 33 so far, which is everything but the debut musical episode. Don't think I'll go back and watch that one anytime soon, since it's got a 4.4 rating on imdb.

 

I'm pretty sure it did though

 

Last Sunday's episode, with Patty & Selma singing, "This is the dawning of the age of 'Who gives a crap'!" really made me laugh!

 

Bart is 42. Move on...please

But to answer the question, I gave up around S11 and 12 sealed the deal. So, the last century.