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“Go apple!” – Bart Simpson
“Go orange!” – Nelson Muntz
“Go banana!” – Ralph Wiggum
This was originally going to be part of today’s Reading Digest, but this silly Warming Glow clickbait is making the rounds and needs a more thorough rebuttal:
REMINDER: The Internet Hated On ‘The Simpsons’ During The Golden Era
Let’s get started, shall we?:
As it’s been noted around these parts, FXX will be airing all episodes of The Simpsons over 12 days in August along with an all encompassing website. As with anything regarding The Simpsons on the internet, there are also plenty of comments about it being nowhere near as good as it used to be (“So only three days of good episodes?,” “It’s all downhill after season x.” etc.). It made me wonder what the internet thought of the classic episodes when they first aired. Well thanks to The Simpsons Archive, we can observe just that, via the Usenet reviews in their episode capsules.
So far, so good. But this particular Spruce Caboose is about to jump the tracks:
The results were as expected: while there was plenty of praise to go around, many episodes highly regarded today were drawing as much ire as the more recent ones.
No, they weren’t. In fact, this premise is so thin that it falls apart right here in this single sentence. Not only do they have to note the praise first, but to say these were drawing “as much ire” is just transparently false.
Don’t take my word for it, the author, “Chet Manly” (<- great screen name), has some examples:
Here are some criticisms starting in season four:
Larry Schwimmer {las}: Kamp Krusty had a few good gags and a lot of potential, but
it was often predictable and drawn out.Chris Baird {cjb}: Rushed. In the past I’ve attributed poor storylines to
the unsuccess of a show, but the voice direction for the first part of
this episode (including that from the usually splendid Ms. Smith) was
that abysmal, it should accept the responsibility for most of the jokes
falling flat. If this happens again, I’m buying a tin of red grease paint.
To be fair, and to my slight surprise, the SNPP capsule linked there is clearly incomplete and has only those two reviews. Since usenet is no longer with us, the complete original may be gone forever, but Google can find some of it, and there’s plenty of praise:
I really liked the scenes with Mr. Black and the evil camp consellors.
In once scene, they toasted “Evil!”. Later, during the revolt, they
were going to escape by hydrofoil! In other words, they were acting
like James Bond villians …
And:
A good show, but not great. You can’t have a *great*
: Simpsons episode when Monty Burns *and* Itchy & Scratchy
: are absent.
I quite agree!!
And:
For some reason I liked Homer’s quote:
“Don’t be the boy. Don’t be the boy. Don’t be the boy. D’oooh!”
And in classic Homer style
“If you want something you have to work for it,” he says to Bart
about getting good grades to go to kamp, then we see he has a
lottery ticket. Ha!
I also like the scenes of most of the family (except Marge, of course)
eating like animals. The sound effects are great.
Is every comment positive? Of course not. And these guys (and it does seem to be all guys) were hung up on the animation, since this was right around the time it switched from Klasky-Csupo to Film Roman and Akom to Anivision and Rough Draft. (Oh, if only they knew the horrors of lifeless computer animation that awaited them!)
Moreover, and to reiterate my point from five(!) years ago, the people talking about the Simpsons on-line in 1992 were a very odd and unrepresentative bunch. Just click that Google link above and you’ll see things like this:
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
A ton of the posts are from university IT departments (I counted Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Temple, Boston, and Stanford among others), and plenty that aren’t are from computer companies (there’s even a “HaL Computer Systems”). There’s nothing wrong with all that, of course, but you’re talking about a time when new episodes were watched by 15 million people, only a tiny slice of whom had the technical skills to get to this message board.
Finally, he’s very selective about what he quotes. Here’s the full “Larry Schwimmer” review (Uproxx parts in bold):
Larry Schwimmer {las}: I wondered if I would ever pan a show. Well, I
need wonder
no longer. Kamp Krusty had a few good gags and a lot of potential, but
it was often predictable and drawn out. Also, a lot of the animation
was not up to par (a few scenes were quite well done, though -- like
Lisa giving the letter).
Highlights:
The couch sequence
Goodbye scene with the parents
"I no longer fear hell" - Lisa
Krisis at Kamp Krusty
- the play on TV news coverage
- Lord of the Flies (including the skewered pig)
Marge and Homer
Midlights:
Mail give-out
Martin and his imitation gruel
TV Video voice-over
Lowlights:
This is already a tad on the analytical... If you loved this
show, great. That makes one of us. :(
This is deliberately misleading editing, at best. And while I’m not saying that Schwimmer liked it, he had an awful lot of positive things to say about it. That’s hardly comparable to “as much ire as the more recent ones”, about which people here and elsewhere frequently have nothing good to say.
Moving on, the next episode Uproxx quotes is “Itchy and Scratchy Land”:
By the time season six rolls around, there are much stronger critiques, where even the compliments are backhanded.
Again, the parts they decided to include are in bold:
Bailey Irwin: This makes my Top 5 worst list of all time, easily. The
racing form in the 1st 60 seconds of the show was the only thing
that made me laugh out loud. After that, it was nothing but about
10 jillion stupid "Jurassic Park" jokes. Killer robots? Puh-LEEZE.
Scott Oak: I thought the beginning was good, but those silly robots
kinda killed it for me.
Rod Arz: I liked it a lot. Agreed that the robots were a bit on the
lame side, but not as bad as the James Wood sub plot in Homer and
Apu. We still haven't seen Mr. Burns yet! I wanna see him soon.
Shawn Metcalf: The first episode this season that I found myself
laughing out loud at. A marked improvement.
J. D. Baldwin: Well, that *was* more like it. Now, what was that I was
just saying about the long dry spell just prior to "Flaming Moe's"?
Matt Snyder: That show just didn't cut it. The best episodes are plot
driven, this was just one long excuse to make fun of Jurassic Park.
I thought it was a big wasted opportunity.
Aaron Varhola: If this is any indication of how the sixth season will
be, we're in for a treat. After a dragging first act, the second
and third acts were some of the best OFF I've seen; vicious shots at
Disney, meta-humor about cartoon violence, and Bart as his
mischievous self. [...] A-.
Brian Fox: Not one of the best, not one of the worst either though...
Philip Hebbes: The show was great, I was laughing through the whole
show.
John J. Wood: Finally...a *real* Simpsons episode [...]. The plot tied
together well, and plenty of choice gags. I watched this twice last
night, and the second time was even funnier -- kudos on the
blackboard and couch scenes, too. Grade: A.
Carl Mueller: I'd have to say this WAS a pretty mediocre episode, but
compared to what has been shown so far this season, it was a marked
improvement. Mainly it was the Disney jokes that got me, the last
10 minutes (w/ the Robots and stuff) seemed to drag quite a bit. C-
M. Coale: Was it just me or did "Itchy and Scratchy Land" overstep the
bounds of parody and become what it was mocking? The violence, IMO,
was quite extreme and came very very close to crossing "the line" or
possibly overstepped it? It got to the point when it just stopped
being funny.
Don Del Grande: A-minus - the only things that stood in the way of this
episode getting a maximum rating were (a) the animation was weak at
times, and (b) the ending was much too abrupt; it was as if there
was 20 minutes of material written for a 21-minute show and they
just tacked on something at the end.
Joel Recht: I thought the Disney barbs were great (recall the "Evil
Gene" from The boy who knew to much.), the fantasia and Pinnochio
spoofs were top notch. I loved the detention center when Bart got
arrested. I give it an A.
Benjamin Dreyfus: One of the best episodes ever. This episode contained
all of the positive, but none of the negative aspects that were
characteristic of 5th-season. [...] In pure absurd-humor power, the
Bort scene was second only to the rake scene. This also proved that
OFF could still be funny outside of Springfield. Grade: A.
Matthew Kurth: This episode was a vast improvement over most of Season
Five. The "Jurassic Park" refs were well done, although the
revelation that flashes disabled the berserk robots was poorly done
with no atmosphere. And finally - a decent ending! 8/10
Tony Hill: A very funny episode, IMHO. The takeoffs on amusement parks
were grandly amusing. Once again we see OFF poking fun at Disney.
It's no pleasant commentary on our society that a funland called
"the violentest place on earth" is conceivable. I give it an A.
Yours Truly: Excellent episode. I'm in awe of the "Fantasia" parody...
Elfman's music was spot on. Loved the Disney and Jurassic park
jokes, the writing was fast and furious, the violence was so
prevalent but so blindly accepted that it was hilarious. Grade: A.
Note that of the seven people who gave it letter grades, Uproxx included only the “C-“. The other six were all “A”s. Just as important, there are a lot of straight ahead compliments, not just backhanded ones. There are more examples and I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.
Were there internet criticisms of The Simpsons during its heyday? Yes. Were those criticisms representative of the entire population of Simpsons fans? No. Were those criticisms even representative of just the tiny number of fans who were on-line? Again and emphatically: no.
Comparing that narrow slice of a narrow slice to the widely held and statistically evident opinion that Zombie Simpsons sucks doesn’t even reach the level of comparing apples to oranges. It’s a dropped banana.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
