Yeah, the show was never the same after Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein left to make Mission Hill in the late 90s. Additionally, Futurama became a primary though to people like Groening so Simpsons suffered stagnation majorly.
Mission Hill is good, but had a very short run. I didn’t know it when it first aired, but watched it when it was part of Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block. It’s about a naive dork teenager, Kevin, moving in with his lazy older brother Andy, in the city. The art style is unique, vividly colored and eye-catching. Two of the characters are an elderly gay couple, treated like normal people (which wasn’t common at the time the show was made.) And of course, being written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, it’s pretty funny.
I’d say it’s worth a watch. It’s only 13 episodes long, so it’s easy to binge.
Can’t blame them for wanting to make their own thing, and they did a pretty good job (even if the TV stations kind of fucked them over by putting them on some bad timeslots.) Overall, I’m glad the show exists.
Art director for Mission Hill went on to work as a director for Disney (also one of the first women to work as a sole-director at Disney, coincidentally) and Bill Oakley / Josh Weinstein continued to work as writers, so I think it worked out for most parties involved in the production.
Seasons 3-8 are generally considered “golden age” simpsons. Theres a lull for a few seasons where it gets very patchy, then it kinda enters a long silver age where episodes are fairly consistently good, with few poor ones and even fewer universally agreed upon greats.
Many fans completely ignore 9+. Others argue where sliver age begins.
The ratings only show the golden age and then slowly declining popularity, because popularity is only ever a loose proxy for quality.
Coincidentally, that happened to be around when the last year of Gen X graduated high school, 1997-98-ish. The internet actually started to become more of “a thing” (edit: as well as computer ownership and literacy, generally), and cell phones started to become smaller and cheaper and more ubiquitous.
Cable television had also become much more widespread and popular. Edit: so did video game consoles.
If that’s related, it’s because the writers decided to address the cultural shift by making their jokes increasingly hokey and forced. The shift is there in the content.This isn’t just a change in audience perception.
I was suggesting that it was not just a change in content, but of audience, too. The kids who grew up watching The Simpsons were now off to college, and our tastes had changed. We had better things to do than sit in front of the TV on Sunday nights to catch the latest episode.
Was there a major staff change for season 9? That’s when it appears to have markedly declined.
Yeah, the show was never the same after Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein left to make Mission Hill in the late 90s. Additionally, Futurama became a primary though to people like Groening so Simpsons suffered stagnation majorly.
I’ve literally never heard of mission hill. Sounds like they should have stayed on The Simpsons
Mission Hill is good, but had a very short run. I didn’t know it when it first aired, but watched it when it was part of Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block. It’s about a naive dork teenager, Kevin, moving in with his lazy older brother Andy, in the city. The art style is unique, vividly colored and eye-catching. Two of the characters are an elderly gay couple, treated like normal people (which wasn’t common at the time the show was made.) And of course, being written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, it’s pretty funny.
I’d say it’s worth a watch. It’s only 13 episodes long, so it’s easy to binge.
No way, I loved that show. It was great but flew under the radar.
Can’t blame them for wanting to make their own thing, and they did a pretty good job (even if the TV stations kind of fucked them over by putting them on some bad timeslots.) Overall, I’m glad the show exists.
Art director for Mission Hill went on to work as a director for Disney (also one of the first women to work as a sole-director at Disney, coincidentally) and Bill Oakley / Josh Weinstein continued to work as writers, so I think it worked out for most parties involved in the production.
Seasons 3-8 are generally considered “golden age” simpsons. Theres a lull for a few seasons where it gets very patchy, then it kinda enters a long silver age where episodes are fairly consistently good, with few poor ones and even fewer universally agreed upon greats.
Many fans completely ignore 9+. Others argue where sliver age begins.
The ratings only show the golden age and then slowly declining popularity, because popularity is only ever a loose proxy for quality.
Coincidentally, that happened to be around when the last year of Gen X graduated high school, 1997-98-ish. The internet actually started to become more of “a thing” (edit: as well as computer ownership and literacy, generally), and cell phones started to become smaller and cheaper and more ubiquitous.
Cable television had also become much more widespread and popular. Edit: so did video game consoles.
It might be connected to a cultural shift.
If that’s related, it’s because the writers decided to address the cultural shift by making their jokes increasingly hokey and forced. The shift is there in the content.This isn’t just a change in audience perception.
I was suggesting that it was not just a change in content, but of audience, too. The kids who grew up watching The Simpsons were now off to college, and our tastes had changed. We had better things to do than sit in front of the TV on Sunday nights to catch the latest episode.