The Simpsons "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" talkback (SPOILERS)

[SirLemming]

Season 17 continues with another new episode titled The Girl Who Slept Too Little. This episode was originally due to air as the Season 16 finale but was postponed due to the rescheduling of The Father, The Son & The Holy Guest Star. The Simpsons protest the construction of a stamp museum next to their home and successfully have it relocated to a cemetery lot, but are dismayed to see the old cemetery moving next door. Lisa soon finds herself suffering fright-induced sleepless nights and runs to her parents' bed. Homer and Marge attempt spending a night in Lisa's room to convince her that it's safe, but are quickly scared away. They turn to a psychiatrist for advice, but Lisa decides to face her fears alone one night in the cemetery, with dramatic results." Don't miss all the action at 8pm tonight. Has some potential.

FUN FACT: I think this is at least the third Simpsons episode title to parody "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

[Killtacular]

Episode really does not live up to the potential of its story, but John Frink is one of THE WORST Simpsons writers, so I'm not surprised.

What's sad is it started funny up until the montage. I thought Homer saying "STAMPS RULE!" was delivered really well and timed just right, as well as "WHAT MAN WOULD WANT YOU NOW?". After that it's been misfire after misfire. Really the only FUNNY moments happened in the first act. I don't know what they're attempting with the second and third acts. Took so long to really get to the final conflict what with the stamp museum detour.

That "Land of the Wild Feasts" ad was absolutely atrocious. How on earth did John think that was funny? The whole dream sequence had SOMEWHAT interesting storyboarding (why can't the entire show?) but ran on, again, for WAAAYYY TOO LONG. What was the point of the cops being there if the grave robber sequence never really panned out?

In the hands of a more competent director this could have all been sorted out. It would have made more sense to get Lisa trapped in the graveyard at the middle of the second half rather than at the cliffhanger, then thrust her into real danger. Or just cut out the STUPID crap that should never have left the writers room.

[DarthGonzo]

HEY! That wasn't all that bad this week!

[Djm912]

I don't think I laughed, but I was mildy amused by the whole premise.

Did Maggie get the Judie Winslow treatment in this episode or what?

[PowerZord]

It was good, of course not as good as it was the past seasons, but hey I laughed out loud in some moments.

I voted a "3" not the best episode, but good.

[Scythemantis]

Most of the episode wasn't funny, true, but I enjoyed the story and visuals. It felt like an early softcore halloween special, and at just the right time of the season. In fact, I bet it'll probably go down as more enjoyable than whatever ridiculous nonsense this year's Treehouse (if they will indeed do one) ends up being. I also found this episode to be no more contrived/surreal than those from earlier seasons.

Gravedigger Billie wasn't funny, but his concept was. Dr. Nick being creepy as hell was what got a laugh out of me, and I kinda liked the slug millhouse. I guess I'm just weird.

[Hatter]

I thought it was one of the better episodes in a while. The graveyard plot had a more "Halloween special" feel than the last dozen Treehouse of Horror specials. No real gross-out gags, just some decent character-based ones.

[MajorTom]

I thought this was really good. I laughed at a lot of the jokes, I thought the story was good, and everything wrapped up nicely. :)
I liked the Dr. Nick scene, the scene with the writer of that Where the Wild Things Are parody, and, suprisingly, most of Homer's dialogue.

[Killtacular]

Also they really missed out on an opportunity to spoof their own Treehouse of Horror specials. They could have done a truck with that exact music. Would have been perfect.

[SirLemming]

It wasn't bad, but it was weird. Rather than the bafflingly awful gags of season 13, it had moments that were simply head-scratching. Mostly this amounted to the "Where the Wild Things Are" references that sort of came out of nowhere and went nowhere, but stayed there for a long time. It was confusing. I'm glad they weren't trying to overflow these sequences with gags, but they seemed purposeless.

I agree that the first act had the best stuff in it. Even the very uncharacteristic "bull[bleep]" line was uncharacteristic in a way that was funny.

So uh... I dunno. It was weird.

[Golgo13]

I found it pretty amusing when Homer makes his escape while knocking down stuff and threatening to light it on fire. I also found the Chief dancing naked to his walkman mildly amusing. Other than that, it's pretty flat as most of the episodes have been. I liked the parody on the Wild Things though and how the illustrator started working on it after being banned from doing Playboy cartoons.

[Classic Speedy]

This whole episode had a strange comic timing that made the delivery of every joke seem REALLY off. Honestly, I don't know how else to describe it. Even the arguably funniest joke in the episode (dealing with the Playboy illustrator-turned children's author) just seemed awkwardly staged.

[simpspin]

I'll be the rebel and give this GOOD review:


Good episode! I actually LOL'd for a bunch of the scenes, especially Bart's Zombie explanation and Homer's "Cosistancy". However, this episode had the little touches that made it great, like the Remote controlled helicopter and Lisa's dream sequence.

4/5 (B+)

This makes up for lasts weeks boring-as-white bread fest.

[Dee]

I laughed really hard at the 'brakes are out on Bart's racecar bed' joke. I found the episode to be pretty funny and I really liked it.


That-- and Millhouse as a slug is realllly gross.

[Underdunkt]

Episode really does not live up to the potential of its story, but John Frink is one of THE WORST Simpsons writers, so I'm not surprised.

That "Land of the Wild Feasts" ad was absolutely atrocious. How on earth did John think that was funny? The whole dream sequence had SOMEWHAT interesting storyboarding (why can't the entire show?) but ran on, again, for WAAAYYY TOO LONG. What was the point of the cops being there if the grave robber sequence never really panned out?

You know what...I'm sorry but....shut up. If you didn't like the episode, fine, okay, go watch a Seth McFarlane cartoon and pretend that's any better in it's writing or animation (by the way, it's ironic you would actually manage to complain about an episode with as fantastic direction as this one, considering you like a little show called "Family Guy" that has some of the most unimaginative direction this side of Hanna Barbara). But for crying out loud, don't personally insult John Frink's writing on a team written show. How do you know Frink liked the "Wild Beasts" ad, or any of the other things you complained about, any more then you? The answer: you don't. Despite how often you directly cite -and insult- the writers on this show, you seem to have absolutely no idea how it's written. And until you've visited the show's studio and interviewed the writers about who wrote each joke you didn't like, you have absolutely no right to directly insult a given writer.

Anyway....rant over. Here's my review from another board.

Really enjoyable I thought. May have to give it an extra viewing, but it was really solid and funny, and the best Lisa episode in some time, probably since "Little Girl in the Big Ten". The story was well handled and paced despite everything going on (I was concerned about how much time the stamp-museum/graveyard being built thing would take, but it went by quickly while also making sense). Good simple and relateable Lisa story, with lot's of great lines. "When mommies and daddies have been married for a long time and have run out of anything else to talk about, they badmouth their closest friends!", "I started when Playboy wouldn't publish my cartoons because they were too dirty!", the Dr. Nick scene, etc.

I also noticed notably good animation and direction....not just in the dream sequence either, through the whole show. Really excellent acting and staging, use of angles, etc. I don't quite remember the director's name, but I think it was a new guy. Hopefully they keep him around for a long time.

Anyway, final grade possibly pending, but for now probably a B+.

[Quagmire]

I actually enjoyed this episode. One of the better ones in recent years.

Lots of laugh out loud moments, especially in the first act, and some more in the second act.

Nice Lisa episode where she isn't a brainy know-it-all, but rather an 8 year old girl.

7/10.

[SirLemming]

Underdunkt, you're getting way too upset over a relatively non-inflammatory review.

And I hardly see why it's so unfair to blame the badness of the episode on the guy who took writing credit for it. It's pretty reasonable if you ask me.

Thirdly... you might want to read Matt Wilson's review of tonight's Family Guy episode.

[90'sCartoonMan]

I gave this episode a 5 because it was average. There wasn't anything seriously annoying about it (except that we'll never see the graveyard again, but I'm used to that), and it had some good laughs - Psychiatric Road, Wiggum, and I liked Gravedigger Billy because he had a cool name. And those "Where The Wild Things Are" monsters reminded me of Lrr and Nd-Nd from Futurama.

[Fone Bone]

The Gumby couch gag had to be one of my favorites in the shows history.

I thought this was a cute episode. Lisa was adorable. The animation was great and there were a LOT of funny jokes (especially the Maurice Sendak stand-in being too filthy for Playboy). I like sweet episodes like this and I wish they would do more of them. The timing didn't seem off to me, but then again, I'm not an expert on these things.

This was a nice little episode. Grade: ****.

[Underdunkt]

Underdunkt, you're getting way too upset over a relatively non-inflammatory review.

And I hardly see why it's so unfair to blame the badness of the episode on the guy who took writing credit for it. It's pretty reasonable if you ask me.

No it isn't...not for someone like Matt, who clearly has invested a lot of time into finding out who writes and creates this show. For someone who had no clue about that stuff, it would simply be uninformed, and excusable. But for someone like him, it really shows a profound lack of understanding that this is a team written show, for which the writing credit frequently means very, very little (in some, probably many cases, the credited writer could have come up with four lines total.) I'm frustrated with Matt because he's pretty much always like this from what I've seen, personally insult writers he knows absolutely nothing about, not even their writing style. He can seemingly list every current writer off the top of his head, so why does he not understand anything about the way this show is produced? Or, for that matter, just about anything about it at all?

It's a frustration I have with a lot of people....but I find it much less excusable when it comes from people that clearly should know better. And there's a point where reviews that are simply inflammatory or nasty cross over into being intentionally hateful towards someone that none of us know anything about, beyond his name

[Fone Bone]

No it isn't...not for someone like Matt, who clearly has invested a lot of time into finding out who writes and creates this show. For someone who had no clue about that stuff, it would simply be uninformed, and excusable. But for someone like him, it really shows a profound lack of understanding that this is a team written show, for which the writing credit frequently means very, very little (in some, probably many cases, the credited writer could have come up with four lines total.) I'm frustrated with Matt because he's pretty much always like this from what I've seen, personally insult writers he knows absolutely nothing about, not even their writing style. He can seemingly list every current writer off the top of his head, so why does he not understand anything about the way this show is produced? Or, for that matter, just about anything about it at all?

It's a frustration I have with a lot of people....but I find it much less excusable when it comes from people that clearly should know better.It's hard. I oftentimes wonder if this show is so bad why people still bother watching it. I never get a satisfactory explaination on that. The thing is though that Matt has a right to his opinion. I may not agree with it and maybe he could be a little more diplomatic but if I didn't want to see people bad-mouth The Simpsons I'd stay out of the talkbacks altogether.

It's funny, because The Simpsons was considered to be steadily declining for much of the fanbase in seasons 2 through 8 which were probably the best years of the show. I honestly don't believe the new seasons live up to them but I DO think that that is simply the nature of fandom so I try not to get too upset about it.

[Underdunkt]

Oh, believe me, I have no problem with criticism.....I'd be a hypocrite if I did, consider I myself have disliked, even despised, many episodes in the past several years, and usually "was on the internet within minutes" to say so in no uncertain terms. And I don't think the show is as good as it used to be either. I also enjoy and have no problem with reading reviews that I disagree with, provided I think they are well-reasoned. The line-crosser, however, is personal insults directed at the writers, when the show's own writing process completely negates the right of any reviewer to insult a given writer for specific jokes or scenes.

[Sharklady]

As recent Simpsons eps go, this was notably better than average. I particularly enjoyed Dr. Nick's scene (the arms were kinna gross, but the 'Spiderman' refs were hilarious), the museum's bickering stamps, and discovering Maurice Sendak's monsters have lives of their own.

[Dark Fact]

Dr. Nick still hasn't been thrown in jail? :eek:

It's times like this that I wish Marvin Monroe was still alive in this series. :sad:

[Killtacular]

Oh, believe me, I have no problem with criticism
Clearly you do.

And do you think I don't know it's a team written show? That's the reason why The Simpsons is so terrible, because of how many cooks spoil the recipe. "Four lines." More like 30 to 35%! Jokes come up in the writers room but the stories and the concepts are still theirs. John Frink and Don Payne's episodes are without a doubt the WORST of the series, just one shlockfest after another. I hate each and every one of them. They are the worst writers. I'm sorry if you feel personally offended by this, but that's just how I feel. I hate most of the writers from seasons 10 through 15, but I especially hate those two! But I could expand my list if you feel it necessary. My expanded list would likely cover everyone who touched this episode and made it worse.

Writing style? The writing style of the show is whoever is showrunning. Right now the "writing style" of The Simpsons is an attempt to mix The Critic's style with Futurama, which makes sense because Al Jean is exec producer, Mike Reiss is a regular producer, and four Futurama writers are on staff. No matter who writes an episode, it will carry that Futurama style of weirdly worded but clever jokes, quick timing, and Fry-isms (now Homer-isms), because that is what you get from all nighters in the writers room. The fact is, some people can do it, and some people can't.

I mean, are these two friends of yours or something? If someone insulted my friend's work on cartoons I wouldn't rush to his aid to swiftly knock down the trolls unless what they were saying was not attempted criticism. Because it would make me look really petty and trying to light a fire where there is no wood to kindle. I notice you seemed to feel it necessary to insult Family Guy, which is the very show John and Don hate, even though tonight's FG had the same exact issues with direction, often running jokes way overtime and generally having issues with carrying the plot properly.

[TimTwoFace]

I thought that this was a pretty good episode; the only thing I wish they did was tie up the loose ends with the grave-robbing and all that. If they did that, I think this could've worked as a fun - and dare I say, halfway realistic - Halloween episode.

-Tim

[Underdunkt]

Clearly you do. No, I have a problem with nonsensical criticism. I read a lot of reviews, and there a lot of reviewers who I often disagree with (whether their opinion is more positive or negative then mine) but nonetheless always enjoy reading, because their points make sense and are well argued. I may debate their points at times, but only to further understand their viewpoint and in the sake of discussion. But I also see a lot of reviews that not only don't make sense, but simply aren't consistant with logic or fact (for example, people complaining about the show having more guest stars now, when in fact they had about the same or more in season five). And those are the ones I take issue with.



And do you think I don't know it's a team written show? That's the reason why The Simpsons is so terrible, because of how many cooks spoil the recipe. "Four lines." More like 30 to 35%! Jokes come up in the writers room but the stories and the concepts are still theirs. John Frink and Don Payne's episodes are without a doubt the WORST of the series, just one shlockfest after another. I hate each and every one of them. They are the worst writers. I'm sorry if you feel personally offended by this, but that's just how I feel. I hate most of the writers from seasons 10 through 15, but I especially hate those two! But I could expand my list if you feel it necessary. My expanded list would likely cover everyone who touched this episode and made it worse. 30-35% is only true some of the time; it isn't consistent at all. And it isn't true that the original concept is always the idea of a specific writer, as quite a few episodes are in fact assigned to a given writer; listen to the commentaries and you'll find that very, very frequently the original ideas for episodes came from different writers, or from Matt Groening or James L. Brooks or someone else, and then were eventually given to a completely different writer. From what I've gathered, they don't always write the complete original draft either; an article a while back for instance revealed that last season's "Fat Man and Little Boy" had it's first act or so written by one writer (the name escapes me now), and when they were done, what that person wrote was heavily re-written by the team, and the entire second half of the episode was written entirely by the team. In other cases, they would get the credit because they came up with the original idea, but the end product would be nothing like the idea they pitched. For example, the "Homer Badman" commentary reveals that Greg Daniels originally pitched that episode as something like "Lisa's feminist ideals clash with her loyalty to her father", but David Mirkin instead saw the potential for a vastly different concept. Another example in an ultimately great episode was "A Streetcar Named Marge", which was pitched by (I think) Jeff Martin as Homer participating in a completely different play in a community theater, but James L. Brooks instead suggested Marge in a "A Streetcar Named Desire" and quickly came up with the emotional idea of Homer and Marge reflecting the characters in the play, which wasn't in Martin's original idea at all.


Writing style? The writing style of the show is whoever is showrunning. Exactly. So it makes no sense to blame a specific writer for a line you didn't like (and that they in all likelyhood didn't write) getting through.


Right now the "writing style" of The Simpsons is an attempt to mix The Critic's style with Futurama, which makes sense because Al Jean is exec producer, Mike Reiss is a regular producer, and four Futurama writers are on staff. No matter who writes an episode, it will carry that Futurama style of weirdly worded but clever jokes, quick timing, and Fry-isms (now Homer-isms), because that is what you get from all nighters in the writers room. The fact is, some people can do it, and some people can't. Whether or not the show is starting to imitate Futurama (conciously or subconciously), I doubt that has much to with there being four (not really a high number) former Futurama writers on staff. I love Futurama, but frankly, much of it's style had already been established by The Simpsons, so much of what the show is doing now isn't that different in style (quality is a different argument) from what they were doing years before Futurama ever started out. Based on commentaries, interviews, etc, the basic writing process doesn't seem to have changed significantly or even at all really since at least the Mirkin days, so if the kinds of jokes we get now and got on Futurama are typical of "all nighters", they're really no different in style then what we had in seasons five and six either. The Critic I can't comment much on, having only seen one episode, but what I saw of it seemed to be mainly derived from the style of seasons three and four anyway....

And Mike Reiss isn't a "main" producer by the way. Jean, Brooks, and Groening are. Reiss is a consultant, like a lot of the other old writers and showrunners. He's said in interviews that he comes in once a week just to give ideas/feedback, which isn't really a huge amount of input.


I mean, are these two friends of yours or something? If someone insulted my friend's work on cartoons I wouldn't rush to his aid to swiftly knock down the trolls unless what they were saying was not attempted criticism. Because it would make me look really petty and trying to light a fire where there is no wood to kindle. I notice you seemed to feel it necessary to insult Family Guy, which is the very show John and Don hate, even though tonight's FG had the same exact issues with direction, often running jokes way overtime and generally having issues with carrying the plot properly. I never mentioned Payne specifically anyway. And hell, I'm not above criticizing the episodes Payne and Frink have written, together or solo. I greatly disliked "Old Yeller Belly" and "Insane Clown Poppy" for instance, and I found some of their others to be uninspired and mediocre. But I don't personally insult them for each joke I don't like; heck, that's not "attempted criticism", that's just pure hateful ranting.

I had forgotten Frink and Payne's quote about Family Guy; considering quite a bit of the staff (veterans and current staffers included) it isn't surprising, but it had no basis in my comment. I can't be bothered to watch the show at all anymore, but I saw the original 50 episodes, and my comment was alluding to the fact that not once on that show did I see a consistently interestingly storyboarded or animated episode. There were a few individual scenes here and there (Stewie flying around in the sperm thing), but mostly it was just flatly storyboarded, like a sitcom or old Hanna Barbara cartoon, and had frequently cheap and awful backgrounds on top of that. And it had extremely limited expressions for the characters as well; there's a quote out there from oddly enough a former Hanna Barbara layout artist that worked briefly on Family Guy and said it was the "worst show I have ever worked on" in terms of range of character emotions. To cut to the chase, by point was that every week you seem to bash The Simpsons for it's storyboarding, even in episodes like this that use many unique effects and flourishes, yet like Family Guy at all. I don't care if you disliked a specific episode of Family Guy, the point is you like it at all, yet still accuse the current Simpsons directors of ruining their show (and I'm not saying all the current direction is good; I found last week's to be notably static and weak for instance, though still on a higher plane then any single episode of Family Guy that I've seen). I'm not saying you can't like a show with weak animation even, but be consistent.

[Jave]

To cut to the chase, by point was that every week you seem to bash The Simpsons for it's storyboarding, even in episodes like this that use many unique effects and flourishes, yet like Family Guy at all. I don't care if you disliked a specific episode of Family Guy, the point is you like it at all, yet still accuse the current Simpsons directors of ruining their show (and I'm not saying all the current direction is good; I found last week's to be notably static and weak for instance, though still on a higher plane then any single episode of Family Guy that I've seen). I'm not saying you can't like a show with weak animation even, but be consistent.Underdunkt, you're accussing Matt of bashing Simpsons every time he has a chance, but for what I see, you are the one bashing Family Guy every time you have a chance. If anybody is doing anything wrong here, it's you for derailing the thread off topic, since we're not talking about Family Guy here.

Seriously, you're living to the own stereotype you're accussing someone else of. You take The Simpsons way too personally.

[Underdunkt]

Point taken about FG....I do probably mention it too often
(and in fact I don't really hate it; just find it to be really overrated). In this case I brought it up as an obvious example of an area where Matt would seem to rather hypocritical, liking a show with bland direction and yet calling the directors on this show hacks.

And I do probably take The Simpsons too seriously...I doubt almost anyone here doesn't take some television show a little too seriously. I just really enjoy it, and greatly respect most of the people who work on it, so I have problems with people that make criticisms that I think are baseless or ridiculous. Though again, I'll be the first to say if I greatly dislike an episode, and I also respect a lot of fellow reviewers who frequently have negative but conscructive things to say.

Anyway, I think I've made my points and will drop this. I mainly just think a lot of people would do well to be more objective in their criticism. That's not the same thing as "positive" of course, but it seems like a lot of people just go into each episode looking for things to criticize(and believe me, I've been there too), which makes it hard to take seriously at times.

[kempobot]

wow, dude. the latest simpsons episode was spectacular. i dunno who directed this episode, but they finally managed to do everthing right this time for a new episode:

-homer is not whiny and (incredibly) stupid
-the story flowed nicely (and wasn't too random and/or boring)
-the jokes were actually funny
-they used a lot of intriguing perspectives and coloring
-a new itchy and scratchy cartoon
-no annoying guest star

it's been forever since i gave a simpsons episode a 5/5, and this one deserves it.

[Animelee]

wow, dude. the latest simpsons episode was spectacular. i dunno who directed this episode, but they finally managed to do everthing right this time for a new episode:

-homer is not whiny and (incredibly) stupid
-the story flowed nicely (and wasn't too random and/or boring)
-the jokes were actually funny
-they used a lot of intriguing perspectives and coloring
-a new itchy and scratchy cartoon
-no annoying guest star

it's been forever since i gave a simpsons episode a 5/5, and this one deserves it.
Yes, yes, exactly what I thought.

Seriously, if this episode's animation wasn't digitally coloured and done in the newer drawing style that seasons 15 and 16 are done in, if the sound quality wasn't the way it was, and if Julie Kavner's voice acting for Marge was a little "softer"*, I would've seriously thought this episode was from the "Golden Years". Excellent episode, definitely my favourite since 1990 to 1999's set of episodes.

* Recently, Julie Kavner's voice acting for Marge has been different, I just can't put my finger on it. Her voicing for Patty and Selma is the same today as it was ten-years-ago, but for Marge, it doesn't sound as "soft" as it did back then. Maybe it's because she's older now and her Marge is going to sound different, I don't know. Mind you, I don't mean it's bad today. It's fine, just done a tad differently.

[Jyose]

I thought it was so-so, some of the jokes I didn't quite catch get. The stamp museum was a good opener, but like Matt said, it quickly decended into mediocrity. Lisa never really seemed THIS innocent before, I felt a bit alienated by it, but got used to it as the episode moved on. They missed a perfect chance to spoof

Scooby Doo(though we just got a cheesy one liner >.>)
Their own halloween specials
Tales from the cript

[creativerealms]

A surprisingly good episode. I still watch the simpsons because there are still a couple episodes per season that are quite good and funny. This was one of them.

[John Pannozzi]

It was pretty good (and a lot better than the previous Simpsons ep.), but it was too short, and felt unresolved. I mean, they didn't solve the mystery of the disappearing people who were buried. And Willie is buried alive, but will be alive and healthy again in the next episode? Family Guy has more continuity than that. But still this is good enough to keep me interested in the Simpsons.

[Neo Yi]

I actually find this one to be a decent, well done episode. Nothing too out of the ordinary that makes me cringe, and I like how they handled the reaosn why Lisa was scared.
~Neo

[Peter Paltridge]

The Gumby couch gag had to be one of my favorites in the shows history.

I thought this was a cute episode. Lisa was adorable. The animation was great and there were a LOT of funny jokes (especially the Maurice Sendak stand-in being too filthy for Playboy). I like sweet episodes like this and I wish they would do more of them. The timing didn't seem off to me, but then again, I'm not an expert on these things.

This was a nice little episode. Grade: ****.]
The Gumby gag and the guy being too filthy for Playboy were both good. The second one is so true--you'd be surprised how many innocent children's authors aren't really that innocent. It's been a while since there's been a Simpsons gag that's true to life (and how depressing is that?)
Milhouse Slug building something out of slime was only funny once, and was ruined when he tried to build other things.

[Killtacular]

To cut to the chase, by point was that every week you seem to bash The Simpsons for it's storyboarding, even in episodes like this that use many unique effects and flourishes, yet like Family Guy at all. I don't care if you disliked a specific episode of Family Guy, the point is you like it at all, yet still accuse the current Simpsons directors of ruining their show (and I'm not saying all the current direction is good; I found last week's to be notably static and weak for instance, though still on a higher plane then any single episode of Family Guy that I've seen). I'm not saying you can't like a show with weak animation even, but be consistent.
Family Guy has really bare bones boarding, but it has great WRITING. When a show's visual aspects are weak, I expect a show's dialogue and direction to make up for it. Usually Family Guy does that, though they have not done it much this year.

The Simpsons USED to have GREAT storyboarding, ALL THE TIME, instead of saving it for tiny little "dream sequence" moments. And the direction used to be... competent. But right now, the direction is AWFUL, and I don't even NEED to explain why, do I? I explained tonight's issues already, and I would list the same exact complaint for many episodes of the past 5-6 seasons. And on top of that, the storyboarding in the Simpsons is even more boring than Family Guy because all of the angles in the Simpsons house, the Quik-E-Mart, and elsewhere in Springfield, are exactly the same every time, and noone ever tries to work in any unique acting on Homer or Bart anymore. The result is that you could xerox animation from old episodes right alongside the new animation and noone would be able to notice. I don't even know why they PAY storyboarders or even animators at this point, if they're not even going to try. I would criticize Family Guy of having the same problems except almost every Family Guy episode goes somewhere new almost immediately when the plot begins, whereas the Simpsons can often spend a whole episode around the Simpsons house if they wanted to. The constant cutaways in Family Guy keep the viewer's eyes from becoming bored or distracted.

The scenes in Lisa's room are probably the only shots I've seen in the entire 16th season that had any attempt to do something out of the ordinary, but that was 10 seconds out of (22 x 20 x 60).

Since both shows are uninteresting to look at, I can only compare the writing and direction of the two shows, and both had a bad night last night. But usually Family Guy is funnier, and usually Family Guy's direction is way on top of Simpsons. I am ALWAYS finding problems with the direction of Simpsons episodes, as well as the post production editting of the show that fouls things up even further, whereas with Family Guy there are episodes so entertaining that I'm not bored enough to look for problems.

[MacGyver]

The Gumby couch gag was good. I also liked Bart's racecar bed, Marge telling the Count to go back to his country, and the bit with Alexander Graham Bell inventing the phone. Better than last week's but that's not saying much. My opinion: ***

[JeffTMBG]

This one didn't do it for me at all, which sucks because the idea sounded entertaining. Sadly, it got bogged down with stupid ideas that went on forever. That commercial they watched in the stamp museum is the perfect example of what they frequently do wrong. It wasn't paced like a commercial, it was just a set up for goofy monster gags. Was "Where the Wild Things Are" or whatever that book was called really demanding an extensive parody? I think not.

I enjoyed last week's episode despite the outlandish plot because it made me laugh. Last night's episode failed to do that.

[Zyzzybalubah]

I am one of the very few who didn't mind last week's season opener. Didn't love it but thought it was alright. Same opinion applies to this episode. It's an alright episode, nothing great. The opening was funny, but the rest was just too wacky.


I don't think I laughed, but I was mildy amused by the whole premise.

Did Maggie get the Judie Winslow treatment in this episode or what?
Heh heh, let's just hope she doesn't have a similar future that young Judy has today. Type "Jaimee Foxworth" into a search engine (or IMDB) and see what pops up. :anime::eek:

[SirLemming]

I am one of the very few who didn't mind last week's season opener. Didn't love it but thought it was alright. Same opinion applies to this episode. It's an alright episode, nothing great. The opening was funny, but the rest was just too wacky. I feel more or less the same way in terms of episode quality (though I don't think it got too wacky). However, watching a really bad episode is almost more entertaining, in a way. If that makes any sense.

[cuon]

They finally put in an Itchy and Scratchy Cartoon, I wish they'd bring them in more often.

[HellCat]

Saw this episode for the first time tonight...wow, that was really good. There were some moments that were slightly off like Homer trashing the office but overall this generally managed to handle alot of the things I've had trouble with. For instance, Marge and Homer had scenes as a clearly loving couple which weren't over the top hormone driven like they have been alot in recent years. I liked Homer's snuggle monster flirting, with him redrawing it after Marge demanded too much. It was also nice to see Lisa portrayed as an 8 year old. Right now, the writers seem to mentally age the kids. Bart feels like he should be some high school senior and Lisa as some kind of teenage protestor. This episode got that the charm of Bart and Lisa is when they face real life issues we all faced as kids, not wildish outlandish ones.
Lastly, Wiggum dancing in the fog was great :D

[HEATXZ]

I like the 2 short guys wearing a coat and i like the Homer cell phone scenes
My favorite lines "I'm 10 and stupid","AAh! it's dark in here"

[DarthGonzo]

I like the 2 short guys wearing a coat and i like the Homer cell phone scenes
My favorite lines "I'm 10 and stupid","AAh! it's dark in here"

Wrong Simpsons episode. The one in question here aired a few years ago.