800 is a huge achievement. But I have to admit, around 2011 I had completely given up on the Simpsons. Story and content aside, they did something with the audio. The quality of the voice is so clear that it sounds un-natural. You can see the same effect on many shows around that time. The voice is disconnected from the background music and sfx.
Anyway, they also improved the way the characters are drawn so much that it lost it's crude nature.
I haven't read much into it, but The Simpsons to me became terrible around the same time Family Guy came out. I don't know if trying to be like Family Guy made the show worse, or if the type of humor The Simpsons championed for so long became unfashionable.
A lot of people say Family Guy copied the Simpsons, but in reality I actually found that the Simpsons tried to copy Family Guy's style of humor and did a very terrible job at it.
To me the Simpsons and a lot of older shows have been a bellweather for how things used to be and how they’ve changed. As a late millennial who was once Lisa’s age but now more like Marge and Homer, I often think about how much of a given it was that they own a house on a single income. Homer has a stable job, they don’t have a lot of stuff but they have some basic securities that I’ve been trying to work towards my whole life, and still haven’t gotten there - maintaining a 90s style of living is just not realistic in the 2020s, though we have many new distractions and things to engage with to make up for it.
"Do these characters have the emotional memory of the 800 things that have happened to them? ... I don’t really know the answer to that.”
They do have a history, because in the Grimes episode he talks about things Homer did in other episodes, and the characters themselves sometimes make reference to things in the past.
But it must be a fun writing challenge to take characters that don't age but somehow seem to rack up a lifetime of experience.
Part of the secret to the Simpsons' longevity is that is is something the majority of people on earth can catch a few seconds of in the background and still be able to follow by sheer recognition alone. This was always the majority of television, but the majority of television shows are cancelled and forgotten long before now.
It is now simply an extremely cost-efficient form of content relative to the value of the ad slots and licensing of the IP. People working on it now are technicians delivering a product to spec that is basically a perfect use case for generative AI.
"Hey claude, write me an episode of the simpsons where Homer starts investing in NFTs while Lisa and Bart goes to a comedically sinister horseback riding summer camp with a guest star that has a movie coming out this summer."
Or even:
"Write a skill that creates standard length 22 minute new simpsons episodes scripts and scene video prompts by combining a trending news topic with two or more simpsons characters. IMPORTANT: make it wacky!"
I have a lot of respect for the actors at the Simpsons, but listen to some clips of their voices now versus when they were in their prime. They can't go on forever.
Hopefully they embrace AI. 800 episodes is such a rich corpus and there could be such bright-line guardrails in a "Springfield style guide". If AI can replicate the 90's Golden Era through voice cloning + an intentional hand-drawn cel animation quality aesthetic, I would unironically love to create my own AI-generated episodes from a random premise.
1. As a sporadic viewer of the newer Simpsons, the quality appears to vary. How can any show remain consistently humorous through nearly 40 years of content? And across how many writers, over time? That being said, it's fair to expect quality. I wonder where the funding and viewership is coming from presently (if those remain related).
2. This is not strictly related to the article content, but I hope I'm not the only one disturbed by the low quality of writing coming from even AP. I don't try to look for nits to pick but this article is a good example. E.g. "triumph tinged with perfectionism." -- This is poor wording. I think I understand the meaning -- that perfectionism, which has downsides, has removed something from what is otherwise triumphant. But it is not written clearly. Another: "Nancy Cartwright arrived at her 1987 audition expecting to read for Lisa Simpson. She had other ideas." -- This reads like a line AI wrote. There are other examples scattered throughout the content.
I guess it's not really important, and I guess there's no reason for me to be picking on this article. But this is a top-of-the-line publication (in theory) and a relatively high-visibility article. I know writers are under pressure to produce content. But there are plenty of writers who perform well under pressure, and editors exist for a reason -- what does it imply that AP, among others, is disinterested in the quality of their own articles?
I recommend watching _The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened_ [0]. It goes though how the comedy went from sharp an witty to laugh track quality.
Personally, the only show that was also focused on sharp and witty was _Futurama_. That show was able to retain it better through out the years. Every series finally episode was a masterpiece.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 35.2 ms ] threadAnyway, they also improved the way the characters are drawn so much that it lost it's crude nature.
A lot of people say Family Guy copied the Simpsons, but in reality I actually found that the Simpsons tried to copy Family Guy's style of humor and did a very terrible job at it.
I don't relate to this comment. I was Bart's age and both my parents worked.
My mom and the majority of her woman friends were teachers.
The generation before us, Gen X was the one stereotyped as "latchkey kids" due to stereotypically having two working parents.
They do have a history, because in the Grimes episode he talks about things Homer did in other episodes, and the characters themselves sometimes make reference to things in the past.
But it must be a fun writing challenge to take characters that don't age but somehow seem to rack up a lifetime of experience.
It is now simply an extremely cost-efficient form of content relative to the value of the ad slots and licensing of the IP. People working on it now are technicians delivering a product to spec that is basically a perfect use case for generative AI.
"Hey claude, write me an episode of the simpsons where Homer starts investing in NFTs while Lisa and Bart goes to a comedically sinister horseback riding summer camp with a guest star that has a movie coming out this summer."
Or even:
"Write a skill that creates standard length 22 minute new simpsons episodes scripts and scene video prompts by combining a trending news topic with two or more simpsons characters. IMPORTANT: make it wacky!"
Zombie Simpsons has been on longer than the golden and silver age of the Simpsons. They really need to let it go.
https://youtu.be/0H2KAtsSI3A?si=n_JI9FpmI2xy92IY&t=518
2. This is not strictly related to the article content, but I hope I'm not the only one disturbed by the low quality of writing coming from even AP. I don't try to look for nits to pick but this article is a good example. E.g. "triumph tinged with perfectionism." -- This is poor wording. I think I understand the meaning -- that perfectionism, which has downsides, has removed something from what is otherwise triumphant. But it is not written clearly. Another: "Nancy Cartwright arrived at her 1987 audition expecting to read for Lisa Simpson. She had other ideas." -- This reads like a line AI wrote. There are other examples scattered throughout the content.
I guess it's not really important, and I guess there's no reason for me to be picking on this article. But this is a top-of-the-line publication (in theory) and a relatively high-visibility article. I know writers are under pressure to produce content. But there are plenty of writers who perform well under pressure, and editors exist for a reason -- what does it imply that AP, among others, is disinterested in the quality of their own articles?
Personally, the only show that was also focused on sharp and witty was _Futurama_. That show was able to retain it better through out the years. Every series finally episode was a masterpiece.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk