When did The Simpsons jump the shark for you?

Indeed both of those are essential.
The Yellow Album is dreadful cheese---not really in line with the show to that point but i remember a reviewer pointing out the decline of the show in relation to the album.

 

Just watched last Sunday's episode, and....date I say......
not bad....

 

I've watched from the beginning and still enjoy it but no longer care much if I miss an episode or two.
The one era I don't care for (sorry, don't know what year) is when Homer got mean and was yelling "shut up!" at everyone. IIRC, Groening got annoyed and had to remind the writers that Homer was a lot of things - lazy, stupid, annoying but Homer Simpson was not inherently mean.

 

Well, there are TWO "Shut up"'s, there's the angry "Shut Up!", that the two times he said it over the phone...hilarious!
Then, there's that soft, snarky, "Shut UUuup..." that really started with Carl during that infamous Stonecutters episode!

 

I bailed once they started repeating situations unironically. Season 11-12 or so.

I was bored with the situation and the characters and didn't need "fresh" rehashes of stuff I'd already seen. I watched Futurama instead. New characters, new settings, new approach. Just don't see what's so vital about Simpsons universe, characters, situations that I need to watch 200, 300, 500 episodes of it. They had already deconstructed the whole thing in the ones I watched. Then they just kept making them, and making them...

It's like staying in college too long.

 

What does that have to do with last night's episode not being awful?

 

When they started acting like the Michael Jackson episode never existed, but ignored other accused guest stars (i.e. Charlie Rose, Dustin Hoffman, and John Kricfalusi).

 

Totally forgot this chestnut that got dropped from 'The Yellow Album' when a tie-in with Prince fell through:
The Simpsons - "My Name is Bart"

Reminds me a little of "Do The Bartman" which debuted at the end of 'Bart the Daredevil' back in 1990. 'The Yellow Album' was supposed to be a follow-up to 'The Simpsons Sing the Blues' but was wisely shelved for 5 years and probably should have never come out...

 

I probably watched for the first 10 years that it was on.

 

It means I have burned out on the show, its situation, its characters. I have no desire to see new episodes for the rest of my life. So to me, the new ones can't be good, because I'm full to the brim with this particular concept. Others may differ, but I have no use for this show ever again.

 

I, on the other hand, have still kept watching... like I still listen to new McCartney, when it comes out...
Yup, there's a lot of crap, but, every so often, a whiff of magic appears...
Putting the Simpsons through a McCartney prism, in terms of age, they're in that space between "Flaming Pie" & "Driving Rain";
Paul make some wacky choices between those two albums, and i'm betting The Simpson do, too!

 

This thread has made me want to get DVDs of the first 8 series. Long time since my old VHS tapes went in the bin.

 

Definitely. The first 8 seasons are like The Beatles to me. No matter how much praise they get, they're still underrated. Both are creative genius married to perfectionism. What I might do is go back and listen to the commentaries. I think I've only ever listened to a few.

 

Matt Groaning himself is the subject of allegations from one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers too!

 

Season 9 is still excellent IMO, all these episodes are as funny as most from previous seasons:
E21 Girly Edition -A good story and plenty of fun, Homer's monkey b-story is also a riot
EP18 This Little Wiggy -Ralph gets to some excellent exposure and its all good
E17 Lisa The Simpson -Lisa thinks the Simpson gene will kick in to make her as dim as Homer and bart
E15 The Last Temptation of Krusty -Krusty goes authentic and then sells out as you knew he would
E14 Das Bus -another potential top 10 series episode with their take on Lord Of The Flies
E13 The Joy of Sect -Homer's resistance early on to The Leader is hilarious -a good one
E10 Miracle on Evergreen Terrace -a Christmas episode that ranks as one of their best of that type
E5 The Cartridge Family -stupid can still be very funny as this episode demonstrates
E4 Treehouse of Horror VIII -The Homega Man segment is priceless!
E2 The Principal and The Pauper -dumb story but plenty of laughs for those of us who can stomach the premise
E1 The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson -an amazing episode from start to finish -probably a top 10 series episode for me

 

I stopped when it was still part of the Tracey Ullman Show.

 

I thought Girly Edition was dreadful. Also hated that Krusty episode with Jay Leno. Some of the episodes you mention I liked, but it's worth noting some of them were "holdover" or special episodes made by the showrunners of previous seasons. 7 of the 25 episodes fit this category. I think this is the most episodes in a season up to this point that had a different showrunner from the core season.

The only great episode that I think was produced out of Mike Scully's 18 season 9 episodes was the finale, Natural Born Kissers. In these lesser Simpsons seasons, they seem to put extra care into the season finale. I did like This Little Wiggy, Realty Bites and Bart Carny from Scully's episodes. The other 14 make me cringe.

Even the holdover episodes weren't consistently good...so I can only give thumbs up to 8 of the season's 25 episodes. That's a huge decline from season 8, where I liked about 20 of the 25 episodes.

Season 9 holdovers by Oakley and Weinstein (all pretty solid, with better visual storytelling than the rest of the season):
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
"The Principal and the Pauper"
"Lisa the Simpson" (the very best season 9 episode I think)

Season 9 "bonus episodes" by Jean and Reiss (didn't really like these):
"Lisa's Sax"
"Simpson Tide"

Season 9 "bonus episodes" by David Mirkin (really liked Joy of Sect, not the other one):
"All Singing, All Dancing"
"The Joy of Sect"

 

Seasons 1-8 are more or less perfect...though in the first season, the show wasn't fully baked yet in retrospect.

Seasons 9-12 are mostly excellent, with some real dud episodes scattered throughout.

Seasons 13-15 are often watchable but the show has skidded way off course by this time.

Seasons 16-20 are painful, with only rare glimpses of what once made the show so enjoyable for the first decade or so.

Seasons 21 onward, I find the show to be literally unwatchable.

...so I guess my honest answer is somewhere around season 9 or 10 is where things really started to go awry.

 

I think of seasons one through eight as being the best. If there's one specific moment I always remember feeling like the show was not what it was, it was that whole "Not Lenny!" gag. I know many fans love that bit, but to me it was just too "meta", and it was symptomatic of a trend of the characters acting in uncharacteristic ways, just for a kind of joyless gag. Looking about it online, I see that that was season eleven. Before that I really think it was the characters that made the show's humor work, but sometime around then I think they started sacrificing character-based comedy for cheap hits that didn't really relate.

 

This seems a pretty fair summary I cant disagree with.

 

Thankfully, Bob's Burgers has managed to outshine all of them over the past 12 years. IMO, it's the best prime time animated show, outside of the first decade of The Simpsons...and at times it manages to be just as great.

 

Sadly, "Bob's.." is leaning a little too hard on the songs....
The first three seasons, it was quite cute, simplistic, and didn't take up too much time...
Now, however....

 

I wouldn't say that's the case...most of the time. They have a few episodes scattered through the series that do overuse the songs -- "Flu-ouise" and "The Bleakening", which both happen to be my least favorite episodes of the series, are certainly guilty of that. But I think they're mostly unobtrusive and usually warrant their use when they appear. Much of the music in the show is truly excellent, too!

 

Yeah, I loved Bob's Burgers for the first few years but more and more its turing into a musical and I just don't care for that. I feel like its kind of lazy writing. Lets fill up these 5 minutes basically repeating whats already been done/said by putting it in a song.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong...When they did right, they did it GREAT!
I consider THIS, one of the best albums of 2017!