Four More Years of The Simpsons

[Raph's Girl]

UGH!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...1ca0230b62ca88

After weeks of negotiations, the voice cast of Fox's long-running animated series over the weekend reached a new four-year deal with producing studio 20th Century Fox TV.

Under the new pact, the actors are said to get a significant salary bump to nearly $400,000 per episode.

The voice cast is set to begin work on the show Tuesday with a table read. The upcoming season of "The Simpsons" has been curtailed from 22 to 20 episodes by the contract negotiations.

Additionally, Dan Castellaneta, who voices several characters, including Homer Simpson, and also has penned several scripts for the show over the years, has been named a consulting producer.

[Drtooth]

This next commentary is coming from a life Long Simpsons fan, even since the short rubbery animated 1980's Tracy Ulman shorts....

Make ONE more theatrical movie... and have it serve as the series finalie. We do NOT need 4 more years of bland writing, redone plots, smarmy guest stars that only the Harvard educated writers give a crap about, and over used jokes about how funny people's accents are or mock apple pie.

If we are headed for 4 more years of the Simpsons, here's what I'd like to see:

Homer as smart as he USED to be. And working EXCLUSIVELY at the power plant.

Lisa's ultra lefty buddhist veganism as the butt of jokes, not the source of some whiney agenda based preachiness.

Marge NOT being a joke about beeing a housewife (thankfully, they seem to have moved away from that).

No more episodes that look like they could be Saturday morning cartoons... basically no more pandering to the youngest audiences.

Three cartoons in a half hour should be EXCLUSIVELY for the Halloween special.

And lastly.... Kill off Cletus, or have him leave the show perminantly. he hasn't been funny since the Clinton adminsitration. he's a hillbilly. We get it. And while you're at it, treat characters like Sideshow Mel and Ralph Wiggum as characters. You'll get a richer experiance if they just don't say, "look! I'm saying something funny."

Also... put Spiderpig in the show, for crying out loud. You made a big fuss over him in the film, but other than the cover of a comic book and a couple little 3 second cameos, he's been completely absent.

[Peanut]

Age the god damn family! Jesus!

[poiuytre]

I'd much rather have they made another movie instead of 4 more seasons.

[Ecto Jedi]

Simpsons does continue breaking records, after all. I think it's now officially become the longest-running unwatchable piece of sh*t show on TV.

[The Stryker]

Yup, now they'll have more bad years than good. Christ.

[Ra]

"The Simpsons" has been a zombie of a show for years now, slowly but surely rotting and decaying in front of us, and it's been as painful as hell to watch... and they sign us up for another four years of torture?

I'm tempted to fly over there and strangle the head of Fox with my bare hands, simply to find out the very reason as to why they decided to go through with this clearly disillusioned act. Are they simply misguided in life and thought that the movie would pump new life into this franchise? Are they simply playing the devil's advocate in this degeneration of a once great show, just for the sake of watching everyone squirm? Then again, Fox is already a soulless and avaricious corporation. Surely they have no reason other than "money" to renew the show and give it one last attempt to make it their cash cow once again.

[Aelia]

Doesn't really matter to me. I stopped watching FOX late at night a long time ago, mainly because they have a tendency to cancel most of their good shows.

[Drtooth]

Originally Posted by Ra

"The Simpsons" has been a zombie of a show for years now, slowly but surely rotting and decaying in front of us, and it's been as painful as hell to watch... and they sign us up for another four years of torture?

I'll just come out and say it. If you want the show to gain its former glory, fire the heck out of these new snarky, untalented, egotistical writers and bring back some of the old people.

Look what happened in the film, when they had the old writers back. it was enjoyable. Sure, it had some tell tale signs of the current Simpsons in it, mainly the reliance on throw away characters with funny voices saying things only because they have funny voices, but it was also a great mix of pre-season 10 stuff too.

I agree, it's been nothing but a zombie show, and it's only renewed every 2 years because it's basically Fox's only hit show that doesn't involve Simon Cowell making money off it somehow. Of course, if we had some decent writing, it wouldn't be a problem. Instead, we have to deal with these jokers with zero sense of humor, ellitist attitudes, and annoying political agendas. If I see one more "If you can't afford to eat at the overpriced vegan places we eat at, you're a bad person" type Lisa episode, I'm gonna scream. That one a few weeks back about Bart raising a cow, and rescuing it from a slaughter house was not only poorly written, but preachy up the wazzoo.

What is left for the family to do anyway? it's been going through the motions for years:

Lisa finds a part of the culture far to the left, criticizes everyone about their lifestyles, than learns to accept it, and in the next episode she criticizes everyone again.

Homer for some reason takes a second job doing something stupid, and cracking obvious jokes about how incopitant he is.

And of course, Bart stars in an episode that could clearly be mistaken for a children's Tv show. There was one recently that was almost exactly like an episode of Disney's Recess.

And to break the flow, an episode that's a parody of a musical (we've had at least 3 in the last few years), or one of those 3 part segment episodes with them retelling stories. Something that lost its charm when it was every other episode.

I am a life long fan of the show, but it's time to say goodbye. it's time to end the show, and focus on a new project. Make one more film, and have it serve as the series finalie. Then have Matt Groening come up with something else. We need another Futurama. Something that has a real backbone to itself.

The Simpsons is indeed tired. When you go from Satire to Self satire to satiring the self satire, you know you gotta put an end to it.

[ZariusTwo]

Age the goddamn characters. Now. Even The Flintstones did that (didnt do much for ratings, but at least they were HONEST about their characters doing different things)

All those "possible futures" they show? Settle on one of those and run with it. "Lisa's Wedding" in particular has a good set-up.

Dan as a producer only means more "stupid Homer" storylines...

[Spike Spiegel]

Originally Posted by Drtooth

I am a life long fan of the show, but it's time to say goodbye. it's time to end the show, and focus on a new project. Make one more film, and have it serve as the series finalie. Then have Matt Groening come up with something else. We need another Futurama. Something that has a real backbone to itself.

The Simpsons is indeed tired. When you go from Satire to Self satire to satiring the self satire, you know you gotta put an end to it.

I honestly can't stand to watch it anymore. When I was younger, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, a cartoon for adults. Now I have to watch how far TV animation has fallen and witness its degradation...on both ends of the spectrum, kids' and "adult" genres.

As a nostalgic 90s kid (those of you who grew up during this time or remember when not just kids' stuff but ALL cartoons had meaning know what I mean),it really makes me cringe.

*waits for the inevitable Zarius post*

[ZariusTwo]

Already inevitably posted

I you mean the state of current animation, things are roughly fine, but with KND, Avatar, and GAOBAM ended, the cancelations of 12 Oz Mouse and Wonder Showzen...and ATHF having never topped the movie...I see your point.

[Ninjinister]

I'm probably the only one to say this, but...

Woo hoo!

[Drtooth]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

I honestly can't stand to watch it anymore. When I was younger, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, a cartoon for adults. Now I have to watch how far TV animation has fallen and witness its degradation...on both ends of the spectrum, kids' and "adult" genres.

I you mean the state of current animation, things are roughly fine, but with KND, Avatar, and GAOBAM ended, the cancelations of 12 Oz Mouse and Wonder Showzen...and ATHF having never topped the movie...I see your point.

There's nothing but terrible chaos in cartoons right now. Because less companies own more stations, there are less choices as these companies want to own as many networks as they possibly can, but don't want to be their own competition. Why do you think they got rid of the profitable Kid's WB line ups? Cartoon network is struggling to find itself as it is, why should Time Warner compete with its own ratings? Face it, cable is supposed to give us more choices, but we end up with less and less. Syndicated cartoons used to be the biggest thing there was. Transformers, TMNT, and the Disney Afternoon line up were not attached to any network. Any station could air them. But then, when kid's programming became unprofitable (due to various FCC rulings, all blind sighting the general public to the real goal of letting massive corporations buy up as many networks as possible), they blanketed afternoon syndication with endless lowest common denominator crap like Judge fill in the blank. Cheap to produce garbage like that.

And the little places that air cartoons that we have left run throwaway programming that isn't clever, or has an audience. Look at Cartoon network the last couple of years when they canned B&M and KND. My Gym Partner's a Monkey? That sounds like one of those scribbly looking T-shirts that you see at Target or Kohls. The fact of the matter is, no one is trying anymore, and the quality shows. No wonder why WB wanted to abandon TV animation, and head for the far more profitable DC DTVs. Loonatics Unleashed? Coconut Fred? lame, derivative , unwatchable, and unmarketable. And Loonatices was pretty much made TO sell toys. No toy line came out of it, and it was double fail.

You can even see they ceased to care, since most of the line up this year was shows that weren't even produced by Warners, and most of them were from Canada, one form Ireland, and one from Hong Kong. Spidey's pretty much all they got now.

The irony of all this is that the Adult cartoons are the most profitable, and they pretty much just fall for the same routine frat boy humor. Assy MaGee? Oh... the character's a butt. That's funny for five minutes... especially since butt characters are nothing new (Ultimate Muscle... cough cough).

But getting back to the subject, I want to see the characters do something amazing. There were some good moments and a few good plots this season. I think that the episode where Homer's mother dies for real, and even uses her death to stop Mr. Burns's evil desires was epic. But then we had a horrible Halloween episode, more "Homer has a new job" bits (though the season opener, where he had no new job was a slightly clever spin on it), and more Eco-Preachy Lisa episodes.

Even a potentially great episode became an unfinnished mess. I'm talking about the new Comic book store episode. There was so much potential in seeing the Comic Book Guy get revenge on the cool new comic shop (somehow), but someone said, "Hey! Instead of finishing the episode and giving closure, let's make fun of Curves gyms!" Feh... Hard hitting satire, no doubt.

What we need is someone to come in, toss these writers aside and bring it back to its former glory and wind it down with an epic ending.

[Ecto Jedi]

Originally Posted by The S

I'm probably the only one to say this, but...

Woo hoo!

You sad, sick, twisted individual.

[Guitar_Raph]

In the mid to late 90's, they dethroned The Flintstones . In 2004, they dethroned My Three Sons, Ozzie & Harriet and Bonanza for longevity.

When it comes fall 2010, it will dethrone Gunsmoke as the longest running prime time series

[Ninjinister]

Originally Posted by Ecto Jedi

You sad, sick, twisted individual.

I don't see why I am. The Simpsons may not be as great as it once was, but it is still better than a majority of the crap on TV today. Hell, it's better than anything in its programming block.

[Ra]

I'm just amazed that people are still watching the Simpsons. Or TV in general right now.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by Ra

Or TV in general right now.

LOST! *bites j00*

But seriously, even Lost kinda blows now.

[Roseangelo]

Originally Posted by Peanut

LOST! *bites j00*

But seriously, even Lost kinda blows now.

No way. Season 4 kicked ass!

I haven't watched The Simpsons in probably 10 years. LOST is actually the only American TV show that interests me ATM.