The Simpsons
ceased being funny when they decided that "WHACKY SIMPSONS ADVENTURE TIME" was funnier than a satirical view of your average American working man and his family.
For me the funniest sequences are:
1) Homer jumps the chasm on the skateboard
2) Bart steals the money jar (ala Raiders of Lost Ark)
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Pew Pew Pew! Lasers! wannabe Gong Farmer, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 17:33,
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Raving, drooling, ROFLing Homer devotee though I am,
I think it lost it around the time they realised he and his stupidity was a far bigger banker with an audience tiring of Bart yelling 'eat my shorts'. The golden Homer segments/scenes used to be like little glorious treasures that would drop 6 or 7 times per episode, and really lift it into something massively memorable. Then, when they realised everybody was kind of sitting around waiting for those bits, they just vamped up his previously endearing stupidity to the level of dribbling mental retardation, and devoted him 85% of every episode to it.
You CAN have too much of a good thing - exactly the same happened with Family Guy, surprise surprise, with the whole needlessly extended flashback/repetition sequences thing, and in about every other long-running comedy in almost any format. People eventually run out of ideas, which is why all the comedy shows that come closest to reaching 'beyond reproach' status ran for like 12-40 episodes, then stopped.
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grey kid is breakdancing to save a community centre, Mon 7 Jan 2008, 18:09,
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