The Simpsons marathon on FXX

So what are the odds someone at Grantland or some other site is hopped up on Adderall and has been watching since Thursday morning?

 

I've thought about how cool some of the stories will be of the crazies who try to make it through 12 straight days and all 552 episodes, which is impossible. But that's why some of the stories will be fun to read.

 

I've watched enough, and seen enough of the ad repetition, that all I see is James Harden wearing a beard of kittens as he fires his fantasy football team.

 

If I was an editor, I would have taken 3-4 writers and say, "Between all of you, I want you to watch every episode and each of you has to watch one 24-hour stretch."

 

Finally turned it on late last night right before this classic scene:

(Not shown in the clip: "There there. Shut up, boy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZHvEN4neXo

 

I'm thinking the Radioactive Man episode should have aired a long time ago, but I can't find it on my DVR.

"My eyes... The goggles do nothing..."

 

It was on late, late Saturday night, around 2 a.m. EST IIRC. Saw it coming up on the guide and stayed up to watch it. Between that and the Doctor Who season premiere, I felt like I was watching nerd porn while my wife slept in the bed next to me.

 

This marathon has been a wonderful reminder of how amazing The Simpsons' peak years were — and how long they lasted. I own seasons 2-10 on DVD, but like the rest of my DVD collection, they're mostly collecting dust.

An all Simpsons channel (maybe with some Futurama and The Critic thrown in from time to time) would probably do very, very well.

 

It would. Show it as often as TNT used to show Law and Order or how often USA shows NCIS. It would do well.

 

I'm not sure if Phil Hartman's murder caused the Simpsons' decline, or whether it was coincidental, but you can see the show started going downhill after that point. Certainly, after a while there's only so much you can do with these characters, but not having Hartman wiped out an important voice and great characters like Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure.

What would the last great Simpsons episode be? Canyonero?

 

Hartman's death was right around the time Futurama started, so it's possible that producing, directing and writing staffs started to thin out after Futurama started. David Cohen and Ken Keeler were pretty involved with The Simpsons who left to create Futurama. It's also been well documented how miserable the process of getting Futurama on the air was. I don't know how involved Groening still is or has been with The Simpsons in recent years, but I've read interviews where he's said getting Futurama on the air was "a miserable experience" so maybe that took attention away from The Simpsons.

The South Park guys have said the same thing about the quality of their show when they have other commitments going. I remember one of them saying, "Sometimes it's just, 'This isn't funny enough, we have to make it better.' and other times it's, 'This is good enough and it will have to do.'

 

Isotopes to Albuquerque episode is on right now.