@@davidpescitelli8004gotta remember that Jim does try to post them regularly but it’s becoming more of a chore in this mid section since he mentioned how season 17 was a drag to do
I love how much Jims talks about each season. Most people talk about how bland and uninteresting the modern seasons are but Jims instead is able to summarize each season in a way that feels unique.
This is especially impressive in the Al Jean era. I binge watched the entire series a couple years back and I barely remember anything from the HD era.
I feel like this is the first time I’ve heard the phrase “middle era Simpsons,” which feels like much better context than the fandom’s general consensus of “the first eight or nine seasons and everything else.”
This is honestly one of my favorite seasons of the Simpsons. One of my favorite scenes of all time was either the White Stripes' cameo in "Jazzy and the Pussycats" or the scene from "Stop, Or My Dog Will Shoot" where Santa's Little Helper traverses the corn maze to the tune of "Freak on a Leash". The only episode I can say I didn't really like was "The Boys Of Bummer", the whole town was just so mean to Bart in that episode. But I never really had that "anything beyond season 9 sucks" mentality. Maybe because I was just a kid at the time (I didn't actually start watching the Simpsons until a year later, and at this time, I literally would not watch anything on TV other than The Simpsons). That being said, I 100% agree with Jim's "middle era Simpsons" mentality.
Yeah. And I never watched 24 and I could enjoy it. A parody episode succeeds when its still funny without the viewer knowing the source or just having a vague knowledge of what's being parodied.
I absolutely love hearing you talk about the "post-classic" seasons. I grew up watching the 2000s episodes air every week (while rewatching the old episodes), so it's pretty fun hearing you discuss the seasons that people often just write-off without a second thought. I hope you can one day make it all the way to some of the more underrated new seasons.
Is it bad that the Secondary Character Stockwatch might be my favorite segment from this channel? I love seeing the ebbs and flows of how the writers feel about certain secondary characters.
Oh, man. Watching this unlocked a memory of browsing Simpsons fanart on deviantART way, WAY back in the day. Someone made an entire A/U based off the one episode where Lisa befriends Fat Tony’s son (I wanna say Michael?). In the A/U, Lisa “goes bad” and grows up to be a mob wife. I remember being intrigued by the fanart enough to check out the episode, but I guess it underwhelmed me because I remember the fan stuff better than the episode itself. I guess the episode didn’t leave much an impression on you either, and probably most viewers in general. But it just goes to show that any random episode could be someone’s absolute favorite and inspire them enough to create a small mountain of fanart or fanfic.
When Krusty dubbed Itchy & Scratchy is probably one of my low-key favorite Krusty moments. How half-assed he does it while basically ad-libbing it. Gets me every time.
I appreciate you giving the post-Golden Age seasons a fair evaluation and not immediately dismissing them as unwatchable garbage. Like a few other folks in this comment section, this is the first season I watched as it aired, so I definitely have some nostalgia for it. I’ve always thought of it as one of the better “teen” seasons.
It is unwatchable garbage though, you can rate which dog shit tastes better but it doesn’t make the dog shit anything but that, post season 4 Simpsons.
You know, Nelson has really changed throughout the years, starting out as Bart's enemy, and later becoming part of his friend circle, and I think season 18 might be the turning point.
Unironically I have a nostalgic soft spot for S18. It was the first Simpson season I actively watched in my early teens and since my school took us to watch the movie in theaters as a special start-of-bimester activity, I quickly wanted to catch up with as much of the show as possible whenever it was on TV since I haven't really watched much of it before. And S18 was the latest at the time ofc.
I think its one of if not the strongest middle year season. It was also one of the seasons I watched as they aired with my family. Probably not a coincidence
These Jean-era seasons really do blend together, so I'm finding these middle year retrospectives really fascinating as you're able to find prevalent themes in them. I find this era of the show particularly fascinating because between this, The Simpsons Movie, and the surprisingly good Simpsons Game, this era was kind of a last little burst of popularity for the show. Then we got the Season 19 premiere with that neat revision of the opening to address the movie and it was back to the tried and true.
I can’t wait to see people argue and explain how Ralph mean’t that he was a viking at sleeping (as in he’s good at it) even though he’s a child with a very low intellect
I have a soft spot for ice cream salesman homer because I remember being like 12, seeing it air for the first time in my country, and laughing so hard at the dress up sequence that it gave me an asthma attack. I am surprised looking at this retrospective and seeing how many episodes I watched on release and didn't remember, like the marge carpenter one.
This season was the first I watched as it aired. I was young and remember kind of liking it, but in that kid "haha Homer is dumb" way. Growing up with this is why it took me decades to visit the older seasons and appreciate the show as a whole.
This is the season that introduced me to Simpsons. My local TV station really loved replaying season 18 a lot, so I got on board here. Still brings back good memories.
I'll always remember the ice cream episode because it was the first time I watched like the current Simpsons season. Shows in general were always shown way behind in my country, but when I discovered I could just find episodes of all the shows online, I started watching them on my PC instead of on TV. As a kid this was like opening a whole new world for me with streaming, no longer did I have to wait months or years to see new episodes and bound by broadcast times and commercials, I think this was the moment I basically stopped watching TV altogether, and the ice cream episode just happened to be the first one.
Something I noticed in the teen years of the Simpsons was that the characters got bored, and it dawned on me that it was the eyes: Bart and homer would start a scene eyes half lidded instead of eyes fully opened. This gave them a bored expression, and coincidentally they started getting bored, sarcastic, and inattentive more. Too cool for school you might say. As someone who has watched basically every Simpsons episode a dozen times when do you think that started? You briefly mentioned it in the season 17 retrospective but I feel like it might’ve started earlier, however I’m a casual and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a full season even with all the early year reruns so it might’ve just started.
I was younger when I first watched the Bart & Nelson episode. I remember it really striking a cord with me, and it's part of what keeps me wanting more from Nelson. Any time he's used as a friend of Bart or Lisa appeals to me.
I was really sick a couple months ago. I'm mostly better now, but while i was dealing with it, I binged all your videos... They honestly kept me sane while i was stressing about my health. So thanks for all that. Happy to be watching this one in a better headspace
@@Game_Hero Season 16 is great, I think Beware the Roofer is one of the funniest post-golden age episodes, Future-Drama is my favorite future episode and I really like Bart's little speech at the end of The Father, The Son and the Holy Guest Star. I've been enjoying binge-watching the show again after doing it for the first time 5 years ago, and I don't feel tired yet, there are some episodes that are boring on the teen years but even those at least have a couple moments or jokes that I still find enjoyable. It remains worth watching.
3:05 hold on TheRealJims, Fat Tony's son isn't a hidden talent episode. First, this is the first we've seen of Michael in any real capacity, so it isn't a suddenly introduced talent missing in all of his previous appearances. Second, he doesn't have a hidden talent for cooking, cooking is his actively honed and intentionally pursued passion which he had even prior to Lisa discovering his talent. Third and finally, unlike other hidden talent plots where characters discover a talent suddenly and then immediately pursue them, this episode revolves around Michael hiding his passion from his father, who would disapprove, and working up the courage to reveal it to him. The retrospective was excellent but I watched this episode like 3 days ago and felt I had to stick up for it in fairness after laughing at Truck Truck Truck.
Fair point about the new character thing. In his example, I mean it more in a "you wouldn't expect this in the mafia" kinda way (The truck truck truck joke is amazing)
I have a little nostalgia for this season since there was a period years ago when Channel 4 would air reruns of it rather frequently along with 16 and 17.
You know, the more of these retrospectives I watch, the more I realize that my time watching the Simpsons was a lot longer than I remember it being? I'm starting to seriously think I didn't fall out of watching the show regularly until like, the 20th season or more. I dunno why that surprises me but I guess I just assumed it was after season 9... but clearly not as I remember so many of these bits. Especially the box fort battle.
season eighteen episodes are probably the most fun to put on as background noise, mostly because, to me at least, it’s the one that has the most “wait, what’s going on?” moments. it’s such a weird year for the show, but i legitimately enjoy it just for the fun of it all! (the only exception to my enjoyment of s18 is the boys of bummer, but we don’t need to mention that one!)
I think the nice way of describing Season 18’s job dependency is that they were trying to keep the stories and settings surprising. It’s not one of my favourites by a longshot, but I personally find it to be stronger than 16, 17 and even 15 for feeling more themed. Like you can identify a Season 18 episode from a distance, which can’t be said for most solo Jean seasons up to then. But with how not much is changing about the characters or comedy anymore, and the movie then not doing that much to revive broader interest in the new episodes, I can see why this is around when some fans started to be more critical of the Al Jean’s solo tenure than the Scully era. The seasons after 18 feel even more complacent, so it makes 18 feel more like one of the last times for a long time where The Simpsons can be identified as having consistently fresh ideas.
This was the first season I struggled to watch episode to episode in my quest to watch the entire show. You hit the nail on the head with the observation that 18 feels like a bunch of stuff happening TO the family. I'm hoping 19 is a serious shakeup because 18 is just hard to get through for me.
Thank you for continuing these deeper and thematic dissections of the seasons, even the lesser-watched ones. I can feel your enthusiasm waning, as plots become more basic and repetitive and far less character focused. But I commend you for laying it all out there, rather than just asserting it and letting the viewer justify it to themselves.
I remember being shocked with where they took Flanders this season. In fact, I think I learned the term Flanderization that year. The writers were obviously getting frustrated by fundamentalism around this time, plus Proposition 8 in California was becoming a thing. This might be when folks started openly choosing a side, but also when both sides still talked to each other...
It's either this season or the next one where I stopped watching new episodes on TV. I'm a Scully apologist and the first few Jean seasons are decent but the late teens are where the laughs start drying up for me. I'm also not a huge fan of the new job episodes so seeing how many are here helps explain why this season can be a bit of a drag to me. Also I agree with you 100% on list jokes. That said "The Premarital Sextet" from the jazz episode lives rent free in my head.
I am currently on season 11 of my half-yearly Simpsons marathon and this might be the season I remember the least of all. This is the first season that really feels like what I think of when I imagine average "modern" Simpsons to be like. Around season 14-ish, it feels like the direction they're going is being set, but this is where I don't see anything nostalgic or "classic" anymore. The seasons I watched on TV growing up were around the 20s (which I don't remember much from) and the seemingly endless season 15 and 17 (but not 16 curiously) reruns. Once I started collecting the seasons on DVD, I stopped watching the show on TV and basically grew up with the classic years instead. Because I never saw season 18 on TV, it's inherently "fresher" and less familiar to me. Unfortunately, I find this one to be quite boring, despite its high moments. The selection of episodes honestly doesn't even feel like a full season, as if they took out half a dozen of stronger, more memorable episodes that fit more in line with Kill Gil and Marge Gamer in terms of quality. You put it perfectly. The stories just don't leave much of an emotional impression this season. Before watching this video, I probably wouldn't have been able to name even 4 episodes from this year. The jokes also don't land that often for me. The pop culture and celebrity jokes are consistent causes of groaners in this one (and honestly most seasons since 9 or 10) What also doesn't help season 18's case is that this was around the time they replaced the german voice actress for Marge with a much worse sounding one. I've read similar things about other seasons in different countries as well, although I doubt this had as much impact as losing Homer's voice or entirely replacing the cast did. Keep up the amazing videos Jims, I'm looking forward to the top 10!
it should be noted that season 18 is the last season that came out before the movie so likely a lot of the film was being done as this season which the team admitted put a lot of stress on them, so I can see them phoning in the show a bit in this season. Some episodes especially "Crook and Ladder" or "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot" feel especially aimless and pretty lame and yeah this contains some rather noteable stinkers. I mean sans "The Boys Of Bummer" is anyone really going to go to the bat for "The Wife Aquatic" (featuring a Bart and Homer sub plot the team wanted to put in "Simpsons Tide" but couldn't and....now that you see it in there you see how pointless it was) or "Rome-Old and Juli-Eh" aka the "yeah we made fun of how stupid it'd be for Grandpa and Marge's sisters to be in a relationship.... now we're just doing it cause whatever". Hell even stuff like "Marge Gamer" or "24 Minutes" feel pretty meh when at the time South Park had come out with superior Warcraft episode with "Make Love Not Warcraft" and 24 parodies with "The Snuke." Plus yeah if you have every plot being a new job it does feel pretty old. Still props for having so much to say here Jims though I totally get why this is your least watched season. Even 19 and 20 have more stuff but yeah those will come later first let's see what the best of this meh year wound up being.
Yeah, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have said that when they were making the South Park movie back in 1999, as well as the half hour show, it put a lot of stress on the South Park writing and production teams too.
@@Super_Mario128it's fascinating to see the pattern of adult animated series with theatrical films related to the quality of the season being made at the same time as the movie. Of course not all of these seasons are at the same level of quality and not all the episodes in each season are the same, but it's interesting to compare season 18 of the Simpsons to Matt and Trey's experience working on the South Park movie at the same time as the TV show, and compare that to the season of Bob's Burgers that was released directly before their film which also showed similar issues while the movie was fantastic.
17:55 I don't know about this, for I believe 14 years (since I first got a grasp about Simpsons), I've considered bart as the main character, I always liked him way more than homer, which still belongs until today, I've always seen him as my favorite character. I also feel like the show back in the season 13 or so era, the producers began to slowly switch the main character title from Bart to homer. I guess there could be a chance I am right, as season 13 got a new show runner (and yes I know his name, it's just probably not important to mention it here.)
Your ability to analyse this magnificent series on a bigger scale never fails to amaze me. I always wondered what your thoughts are on the deleted scenes of the earlier episodes.
I watched your season 17 retrospective after I finished that season for the first time when I binged The Simpsons, and have waited for this video ever since 😂
This was the first season I watched live in-full as a kid after finishing up the DVDs I had! It was a little jarring going from Golden Age Simpsons directly to this, but some of these episodes were good enough to carry me through the Movie, Season 19, and early Season 20.
forgot just how much of this season i've actually seen casually on tele. kinda crazy the stuff i remember as a kid was season 18, that is so far from the golden years people always go on about.
We’re no longer in the Frinkiac era; I definitely remember watching these but they’re not as clear in my head as S17 is, randomly stumbling across screenshots in Frinkiac.
It's always great to see these season retrospectives, and I agree that Season 18 is another season I am not as familiar with, given I mostly dropped off from watching the show at this point, and only really know about most of them from watching them for the first time on Disney+. I also have my episodes from this season that I enjoy, but like most of the later teen seasons, they don't stand out to me as much as the best episodes from Seasons 13-15. I look forward to the top 10, and we all know that at this point, we're in that awkward era where the top 10 is going to have some not so good episodes, since we have to settle for episodes that are better than other meh or not so good episodes, due to the era of the show we're in, and it will only be that way from here on out. Great work as always Jim.
I know this is just a throwaway line but in the episode Little Big Girl it was said that Carl & Lenny are half-brothers due to them sharing the same mother I wish the writers built upon that throwaway line.
This is a bitter sweet video for me. Glad to see more realjims, but this is the season that killed the show for me as a kid. Even as a wee 11 year old, I could tell that the stories were becoming more slap dash and surface level. It was like, "oh homer's an ice cream man, cool I guess. Oh, marge is playing an online game now, that's cool I guess." Nothing sticks with you.
I really enjoy how consistent you're with this style, it's very iconic in my eyes. But, y'know, I wonder. How much of your video editing is, at this point, automated? I would imagine you have made your own motion presets at this point, but sometimes I get the feel (by the speed of things and some layouts) that you always edit by hand. I'd love to know.
All by hand, it's in an animation suite. I've always wondered if there was some macro I could use to automate, but the different image sizes would probably break it. Can usually edit 2-3 minutes of content per hour, depending on the project.
@@lrrroftheplanetomicronpersei8 Yes, and he only says every word once and doubles it. He's not willing to pay himself for more than one time he says any given word.
Good timing, I was just rewatching some episodes from season 18 the other day. One thing I appreciate about your retrospectives on The Simpsons seasons is how you point out trends within the season which I don't always pick up on, like you mentioned this season some of the characters had different jobs or the stylish montages in different episodes. I think overall, besides a few episodes, I prefer seasons 17 and 19 to 18 but, I do have a number of episodes I quite like from this season, including The Wife Aquatic, Kill Gil Vol 1 & 2, 24 Minutes, G.I. (Annoyed Grunt) and You Kent Always Say What You Want.
I'm surprised that you liked that Looney Toons part so much. That was one of my final straws with The Simpsons. It felt like four and a half minutes of The Simpsons making a deeply unfunny joke about Family Guy making a deeply unfunny joke. I kept watching after that, but I couldn't stop thinking back to that scene whenever something made me want to quit watching the show. It was a huge factor in me letting go of a show I had always watched and had been a fundamental part of my childhood.
Season 18 is an interesting era for me to look back on, since it was too recent for me to have a DVD of it growing up but it was also one of the last seasons before I started tuning into the simpsons week to week. this places it squarely in the "DVR'd reruns" era. Some of these episodes I missed completely because I never watched season 18 in full, while others were rerun once two years later and I ended up watching them dozens of times on my DVR. With the proliferation of streaming it's bizarre to think that was one of the only ways I could watch middle-era Simpsons for a while, but my most ridiculous example of the DVR era was when they released season 20 on DVD and my brother and I bought it, not realizing we already had every single episode from season 20 in our DVR just intermixed with everything else
Great video! I've kept in mind in this era of 2006-2008 the cast and crew of The Simpsons were extra busy since they were working on the series, movie, video game, and theme park ride around the same time! Have An Animated Day! 🤓👍
It's funny that you say this is the season you revisit the least, during the early/mid 2010s I'd say this was the season that was rerun the most on live TV where I was from. No idea why. I remember nearly every episode of this season since it was replayed so much. Some were played less than other sure or I actively avoided some because they were extremely dull or weird. Definitely one of the duller seasons but there's some gems scattered in there and jokes/references I liked. Always a sucker for a J.Jonah Jamison reference.
To be honest, i think Season 18 was so far a vast improvement over 17 to the point that for some time i even considered my favorite of these middle seasons (Of course excluding the infamous baseball episode, it really felt way unpleasant and unfitting for the show, it's like somehow a script for a South Park or Family Guy episode got accidentally in the writers room and though it was a good idea to put it here) Anyways, it's time for the *Simpsons Retrospective Secondary Character Stockwatch!* Let's see how the charts goes: *Prinicipal secondary characters* Season 2-3: Mr. Burns Season 4: Krusty Season 5-8: Mr. Burns Season 9-11: Moe Season 12: Skinner Season 13-14: Moe Season 15: Skinner Season 16: Wiggum Season 17: Bart's friend Season 18: Moe *Biggest winners* Season 2: Mr. Burns Season 3: Bart's friend Season 4: Grounskeeper Willie and Apu Season 5: Skinner and Grandpa Season 6: Moe Season 7: Skinner and Bart's friend Season 8: Moe Season 9: Apu Season 10: Gil Season 11: Lenny and Carl Season 12: Dr. Hibbert Season 13: Mr. Burns Season 14: Cletus Season 15: Comic Book Guy Season 16: Cletus and Brandine Season 17-18: Jimbo (also Kearney and Dolph) See you for the next Simpson update!
