best simpsons season

[schwza]

if i'm going to buy one season on dvd, which should it be?

[Soul Daddy]

Season 4, easily. Last Exit to Springfield is worth the price alone. Homer the Heretic, Itchy And Scratchy: The Movie, Mr. Plow, Homer's Triple Bypass, Duffless, and Brother From The Same Planet are all classics.

[protocol]

Just don't buy season one.
Seasons 4 and 5 are the best ones out now.

[TheIrishThug]

its kinda late to be warning about season one. but that reminds me that they r getting into the prime seasons now and i should add to the collection that i got when they first came out.

[imported_anacardo]

And we'll march day and niiiight near the big cooling tower...
They have the plant...
But we have... the...
power...


Yesss.

[A_Junglen]

I believe simpsons 6 came out <b>today</b>

[Blarg]

I'm a big fan of the first two seasons, and I like the first season very much.

The show was much more vicious then, and Marge wasn't nearly completely the hero, nor Homer completely the fool, nor were either Smithers or Mr. Burns nearly as likeable. (Hell, they might as well be the heroes, now.) All the family's characters were less one-note. Now they're more highly defined stock figures you can predictably bounce a particular type of joke off. Very easy to write scripts for where you can just plug in the jokes on auto-pilot.

It was very interesting to watch the series develop. I think people tend to naturally heavily favor a show's development where it was when they first started watching it, if it's at all good there. And the Simpsons is still good. They feel comfy and delighted with the characters and the show they found. But that doesn't mean that all the best decisions were made as the show developed, or that the show didn't have just as much going for it a different way earlier, and couldn't be just as good going yet another different way now.

I'm kind of put in mind of what happened to various shows that got much more popular as they got vastly worse and their characters became much shallower and less interesting: Happy Days(became The Fonzie Show), LaVerne and Shirley(became the Lenny and Squiggy show), Cheers(Sam became an idiot and completely lost his balls), All in the Family(became a dreary soap opera and Archie got dull), Married with Children(Al got nicer, Steve's sharp bitterness got replaced by a goofy pretty boy).

These shows didn't run out of ideas, just changed their emphasis, to their detriment. The Simpsons hasn't crashed nearly as hard, but it was better when it was meaner and the characters more anti-social instead of basically all pretty lovable.

The first and second seasons are definitely worth buying. Any true fan is missing out by not buying them.

[battschr]

[ QUOTE ]
Season 4, easily. Last Exit to Springfield is worth the price alone. Homer the Heretic, Itchy And Scratchy: The Movie, Mr. Plow, Homer's Triple Bypass, Duffless, and Brother From The Same Planet are all classics.

[/ QUOTE ]

[kerssens]

season 5 is the best so far, but I don't have 6 yet.

[Jeebus]

6-10 were the best with honorable mention to 4 and 5 and all the ones that came after 10. Especially after Family Guy started and they started incorporating references to that show. Buy 6 if it is out. Then buy 5, then 4 then 3 then 2 then stop.
and I figure I should list my credentials to say this being that I pretty well know every episode back and forth cuz I'ma loser and like the Simpsons.

[Blarg]

This is not the kind of thing where it matters as a credential that you're familiar with the material. The Simpsons is probably some of the most well-known material on the planet.

Your advice to skip Season 1 is terrible.

[Dantes]

season one simpsons is brutally bad imo.

[Blarg]

If you can call any season of The Simpsons brutally bad, you're way far into hyperbole land.

That definitely includes the first one. I liked that the stories were more character-driven than today's are. The show lost something when it veered into everyone being more or less nice and every character closed down to a very narrow caricature.

Apparently, many millions agreed that the first season was damn good, because the show was popular from the start. Preferring other seasons more provides zero ammo with which to like the first seasons less.

[Bigdaddydvo]

3, 4, and 5 are all fantastic. Bought 6 today; haven't watched it yet.

The ones I mentioned have all time greats like "monorail" and "cape feare" (my 2 favorite all time episodes).

Now I just need the season that had the "Sherry Bobbins" episode to come out and I'll be set.

[Dantes]

actually you're right, I went to snpp and looked at some of the episodes and there are many very good ones. However IMO season 1 is well below the next few years and would still recommend to any one that they skip it until like season 7/8.

[tonypaladino]

While I don't agree that season one is bad, I do think you should start off with seasons 4-6, as those are the prime episodes, and will be more enjoyable to watch on DVD. If I were to buy them now 1 at a time, I would probablly do 4,5,6,3,2,1

[Paxosmotic]

It's not out on DVD, but to answer your thread title's question, there is no competition, the answer is season 8. It contains the funniest series of episodes in television history (episodes 802 through 807), the funniest episode of the series (Lisa's Date With Density), three of the five funniest moments of the series*, and arguably the best Treehouse of Horror. Season 8 is the pinnacle of comedy.

* -
1. Bart breaking a chair over Homer's back, American Gladiator's style, and being met with a "what the hell is wrong with you!"
2. Milhouse passing Nelson a note for Lisa which reads "guess who likes you" and the consequences.
3. Homer's reaction to the cover of Kurt Van Houten's "Can I Borrow a Feeling" cassette.

[battschr]

Lisa's Date With Destiny? Really?

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
season one simpsons is brutally bad imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

One reason to get the season 1 DVD is to listen to the commentary. Matt Groening et al spend much of the commentary apologizing for the quality of the artwork and other things. They're not huge fans of season 1, it would seem.

[Paxosmotic]

Definitely. It's not the best, that honor is reserved for "And Maggie Makes Three", but it's certainly the funniest.

[battschr]

[ QUOTE ]
Definitely. It's not the best, that honor is reserved for "And Maggie Makes Three", but it's certainly the funniest.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree.

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
season one simpsons is brutally bad imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

One reason to get the season 1 DVD is to listen to the commentary. Matt Groening et al spend much of the commentary apologizing for the quality of the artwork and other things. They're not huge fans of season 1, it would seem.

[/ QUOTE ]

They definitly are not fans of Season 1. In the commentary for the ep. where Homer takes the family for therapy, they keep compaining about how the whole episode has all the characters backwards, and how terrible the annimation is.

[Paxosmotic]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Definitely. It's not the best, that honor is reserved for "And Maggie Makes Three", but it's certainly the funniest.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree.

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh?

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
season one simpsons is brutally bad imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

One reason to get the season 1 DVD is to listen to the commentary. Matt Groening et al spend much of the commentary apologizing for the quality of the artwork and other things. They're not huge fans of season 1, it would seem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree with that. They're not huge fans of the limited budgets they at first had, or the way their animators were not following directions here and there, making the pupils larger and smaller, etc. They are very big fans of standardizing the animation and getting the artists to stick to the models, and talk a lot about it.

They very tellingly talk about how the shows used to have the space to have reactions between the characters, and to let episodes and scenes take time to develop. They say things like, now we just go bang bang bang, a mile a minute.

I agree. A lot of the best part of comedy, as well as stories in general, is the set-up and the reaction. Now the series is much faster paced, machine-gunning out the jokes. But partially as a result, the characters have become much flatter and more predictable, and many of the scenes feel rushed. The Simpsons family feels much more like a "t.v. family," not a real family, now.

Back in the first seasons, the characters could still go in any direction and surprise you. Everything wasn't nailed down tight into a joke assembly line with stock characters. There was a lot more of the angst and honest anger of Groenig in his early "Life in Hell" cartoon strip days, which remains easily at the very top of what he's ever done.

[battschr]

Episodes I find funnier just in season 8:
TOH
You Only Move Twice
Hurricane Neddy
The Mysterious Voyage of Homer
Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie
Homer's Phobia.

Season 8 is a good one.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
season one simpsons is brutally bad imo.

[/ QUOTE ]

One reason to get the season 1 DVD is to listen to the commentary. Matt Groening et al spend much of the commentary apologizing for the quality of the artwork and other things. They're not huge fans of season 1, it would seem.

[/ QUOTE ]

They definitly are not fans of Season 1. In the commentary for the ep. where Homer takes the family for therapy, they keep compaining about how the whole episode has all the characters backwards, and how terrible the annimation is.

[/ QUOTE ]

They're artists hypercritical of their own work, and looking back at it from a changed style. Finding fault doesn't mean that either the stuff is bad or that they don't like it. Finding fault with their stuff is what artists DO, the good ones. Hindsight is always 20/20. And of course it's never unbiased; who wants to say, "What I'm doing now is so much worse!"

By the way, that episode was hilarious.

I liked Marge a lot better when she wasn't so perfect. She's a bore now.

[ChipWrecked]

Um, sorry for not knowing episode names, but if somebody could direct me to the season(s) with :

Mr. Burns runs for governor

Mr. Burns hits Bart with his car

Bart mobilizes the neighborhood kids against Nelson

The Halloween episode with 'The Shinnin' (You mean 'Shining' .. 'Shhhh! you wanna get sued?'

[samdash]

Season 4 > Season 5 > Season 6 > Season 3 > Season 2 > Season 1
Season 4 is pure gold! Discs 3 and 4 of season 4 and disc 1 of season 5 appear to be when the writers were at their best.

[benza13]

[ QUOTE ]
Um, sorry for not knowing episode names, but if somebody could direct me to the season(s) with :

Mr. Burns runs for governor

Season 2 (7F01): Two Cars in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish

Mr. Burns hits Bart with his car

Season 2 (7F10): Bart Gets Hit By A Car

Bart mobilizes the neighborhood kids against Nelson

Season 1 (7G05): Bart the General

The Halloween episode with 'The Shinnin' (You mean 'Shining' .. 'Shhhh! you wanna get sued?'

Season 6 (2F03): Treehouse of Horror V

[/ QUOTE ]

[ChipWrecked]

Sweet, thanks.

[TheBlueMonster]

season 4

[NobodysFreak]

Worst episode ever!

[howzit]

although this Simpson thing is kind of played, i'll chip in that season 5 is really good.

Season 5 has Homer becoming a donut w/Flanders as the devil.

and Homer goes to outer space and Springfield legalizes gambling.

Great stuff, i think i'll go buy season 4 now.