this was an awesome article. *claps*

I haven't cared about the Simpsons since... season 12? After season 20 I stopped watching it every week, only ever now and then, and I can't remember the last time I watched the damn thing. Seriously, it's lost on me.

At least we have almost 200 great episodes from season 1 to 10, with some nice from 11 to 16.

Also, about The Tick - there's still the cartoon, which lasted a bit longer and is AWESOME.

I know that it's been said a million times before, but I miss Firefly. They're still making comics, showing that the fanbase is still interested. Too bad it's been too long for them to have another season, or else I imagine someone at Fox would have considered it.

Fox, why you make me sad? D:

tryx3:
King of the hill? :(

They canceled KotH? (preps his LOIC for Fox.com [Ye shall witness my rage])

A very interesting read and I completely agree about where The Simpsons started to lose it. I could watch the first 8 seasons on repeat and not get fed up of them.
They really should have buried this a long time ago before it got this bad.
Sadly I'd still rather watch it than that ass hat of a show Family Guy.

JoelChenFA:

Pirate Yoda Online:
Oddly enough, Matt groening did very well here:

He moved all of the decent writers in the Simpsons onto Futurama, because he recognised that it was far easier to write origional material about outer space than bout one town in America.

However, Fox are stupid (They cancelled Family Guy twice ffs), and belive that anything which ran as strong as the simpsons and for so long must be holier than Jesus and indestructible.

So, The Simpsons trundles along, shite as can be, recycling old jokes, until Fox finally realise how stupid they have been and put the old dog down for good.

How is Family Guy any better than the simpsons? At least the simpsons has SOME jokes. The only thing FOX did right was to cancel family guy.

They did bring it back though. So Fox FTW still

Family guy still makes me laugh, whereas the simpsons doesn't. To correct your statement: the simpsons HAD some jokes.

Of course Family guy is nowhere near as good as the Simpsons WAS, but the simpsons is now stale and unfunny. It will happen to family guy someday as well.

Also, it's impossible to claim that a comedy show with a massive following has no jokes in it.

Jurassic Bark killed a part of me, and Firefly brought it back to life.
I hate you Fox. I hate you soooo very much.

No one has mentioned Dollhouse? Was I the only one that liked that show? Of course, I have a thing for Eliza Dushku, so maybe I'm a little biased :)

Oh, and totally agree on Titus. I loved that show. May have to go find it on Amazon now...

I definitely agree with the article.
Except for the point when The Simpsons stopped being funny. I never thought the show was funny or original.

From their first episode on, Family Guy, American Dad and South Park were a lot funnier and still manage to deliver great episodes, while the Simpsons kepp getting more boring with every single one.

I still find the newer Simpsons funny, although I gave up on getting anything meaningful from TV (or Fox) a long time ago.

Also, SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

I like family guy because its different, and they share some of my views on some things. Like the FCC thing. I think that the simpsons have gone up and down in quality over the years. "the movie" was a big "meh." but things with "The movie" or "The game" on it is just a good indication of something being bad.
I hope that "V" is just going to be one more season... Three tops. no more than three.

Interesting article. I would have like to see a bit more discussion about the continuing decline of The Simpsons but I think we can all put our finger on why - over exposure and indulgence in our once favourite family.

Glad to see a mention for Futurama. I'd rank it as the best animated show I've seen. It just gets better everytime you watch it as you pick up on jokes that you didn't notice before.

As well as 'Jurassic Bark', I'd say 'Luck of the Fryfish' is a bit a of a tear-jerker when Fry discovers that his brother never hated him. It was these tangible connections to what he'd left behind that made Fry such a great character that we could all either relate to/empathise with.

Very few animated sitcoms have been able to blend the comedic and melodramatic so seamlessly and the character development of everyone on the show was second to none.

Another (often looked-over) detail: Scrubs (lemme finish before you start ranting) yes, it is true that the show was starting its decline a bit, but the least they could've done is conclude the 8th season 'arc' before scrapping it away, halfway done. (since there were 8 seasons, I suppose it is less entitled to a rant than the rest of those, but still)

I agree that every tv show hits a point where they start to degrade or die, it is best to make it quick rather than drag it out. I mean Stargate, M*A*S*H, the Simpsons, they all have to go sometime. So once a show is put on life support for the sake of money a new show should be put in its place to keep the market fresh.

So while I am not going to join any group to end the Simpsons I am going to ask why networks or even online tv like hulu don't start playing with new shows to help us find new gems that are ignored by the current system.

Is it just me or is it when people post opinions online they seem to "sound" angrier than when they say it in a formal written form or in verbal communications?

I stopped watching the Simpsons after I saw the new opening. Twice as long, and a terrible attempt to fit every character who has ever been on the show in there without reason. We all know these characters if we've watched so much as half a season, and there have been 21 seasons of them. I actually had to remind my mom what 'jumping the shark' means, and how I had just witnessed it first-hand. There's still plenty of the Simpsons that I haven't seen from the 'golden era' and that's more than enough for me.

M*A*S*H is a show I put up as having died at the appropriate time... all we had needed to hear was heard, all the character development we had expected had happened, and all the plotlines had been tied up and completed. Some may say it lasted a little too long, but compared to current standards it lasted a nice, average time. Full-on Goldilocks. Not too long, not too short.

Completely agree - I love Futurama; its settings and characters are so much more original and interesting than The Simpsons, and they cancelled Futurama after only 4 series. Thank God it got renewed at comedy central.

Also I hate to say this but shows do not get cancelled because they are huge money spinning success stories! They get cancelled because so few people watch them they flop, then a vocal minority turn them into a cult and either they are recommissioned or they are scrapped.

I know some people who still to this day will not watch the X files because of the fact it was "responsible" for Brisco County Junior being cancelled!

Er, I hate to burst your bubble, but Fox doesn't look on Serenity with envy. They look on it with a big sigh of relief, because that movie lost $15 million. (They made some of that up with DVD sales, but still embarrassing.)

There's one reason shows get cancelled: not enough people are watching them.

Duffeknol:
While they're at it, kill Family Guy too. That show hasn't made an actual joke since season 3.

Well duuuuh... that's the reason why it hasn't been cancelled yet

Wow, I only knew about the cartoon version of The Tick! MUST FIND THIS LIVE ACTION SHOW!

Yup, big shame about Firefly, tho I think they screwed up with Serenity, kinda closing the door on a comeback, however unlikely that would be.
Bummed about the Tick too, thank god at least someone brought back Futurama, and they hadn't lost their touch in the downtime.

As Fry once said, "That show's been going downhill since season 3."

I can't believe what the hell Fox was thinking, canceling Futurama.

man...Firefly alone would make this article
but there's more apparently

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT WHYYYYYYYYYYY

*sobs

ANYways i didn't actually watch firefly or even know about it until years after it was canceled... still i was sad when the episodes ran out.

same thing with futurama (i'm pretty young)
but i'm glad it's back.

What a rant that was! I was uninterested at first, but as I kept reading I was drawn in by the ammount of seeting hate you had for Fox.

The lesson script writers, producers, and the like should have learned about Fox is to not do business with them unless they have an instantly popular show on their hands that will remain popular through it's life. Fox wont accept any shows that take more than half a season to build in popularity. It's too bad, really. There have been some great shows that started out pretty poorly in veiwership and gained massive viewerships on the 2nd and 3rd seasons and beyond.

Unless it's a 'reality' show. Apparently they will greenlight any number of that crap.

Here is one you missed from a bit earlier: Animanaics.

It was for the first season it was on Fox Kids, but they dropped it in fear of money and success. Thankfully Warner Brothers figured out they could of just put it onto their own kid's network, Kid's WB...

And proceded to only release one season that had more then 10 episodes :(

Amen, to all of it.

I think the highest crime would have to be Firefly being cancelled though.
Fairly certain that people will literally burn in hell for that. God himself looked down and went "WTF?!?!".

I still hold hope in my heart that somehow Firefly will be brought back to SciFi or something (yes i know it's spelled Syfy now but I refuse to use that it's stupid).

Fr]anc[is:
Simpsons is still funny. I don't get why people are always saying it's getting worse. I have become very much aware of how much I fucking hate Lisa, but homer still says dumb stuff and the jokes are funny. Arrested development was shit though

I guess it is still okay, but compared to the under a decade seasons...

I don't think I can honestly compare them, actually.

Anyone else annoyed by the fact the author misspelled cancelled throughout the article?

Agreed, and I'll add Titus and Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

I cried a bit when firefly got the boot, still one of the best syfy shows of all time.

I cried a bit when firefly got the boot, still one of the best syfy shows of all time.

Necromancer1991:
Ok, let me say a few things, yes the writing dropped in quality for the simpsons but saying "The simpsons suck, ban nao plz!!!!1!!!" isn't going to make us take you seriously, secondly, WTH is that clip from the tick, That's NOT from the tick, now THIS is from the Tick.

Actually FOX got a double-play with that one. First they canceled the cartoon and next they canceled the live-action show. The cartoon a.k.a. the real Tick, was one of the best things to happen to TV (I'd have to say the live-action... well.. sucked) Well Firefly might tie for that position though, of course!

Meh, I hated the Simpsons after an episode that aired maybe four years ago where it essentially stereotyped the Entire US Army, not just a few individuals, as a group of semi-retarded gun nuts. Not even Family Guy does that.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned any good TV series has at most three good seasons in it, anything afterwards is just derivative, if not entertaining.

Edit: Primetime is 8-9 pm eastern, essentially. Let's see whose primetime is more interesting and in general good for humanity...

ABC: Super Nanny. What Would You Do? Extreme Makeover. Desperate Housewives. Skating with the Stars. Modern Family.

CBS: Big Bang Theory, Shit my Dad Says, CSI, The Mentalist, How I Met your Mother, NCIS

NBC: Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Minute to Win It, The Biggest Loser, Chase, Dateline

FOX: House, Lie to Me, Glee, Fringe, Bones, The Simpsons, Family Guy

Which would you rather watch? Fox is the best network right now for awesomely cool stuff, even if it sucks right now. Hate, but hate the other three more.