o.pwuaioc wrote:Yeah, but you also don't get the terrible celebrity cameos or Principal and the Pauper.
And I still think Simpsons was better when it lampooned the family, instead of focusing on lampooning American society as a whole. There's still a lot of charm in seasons 3 and 4, just felt too smarmy and self-righteous at times. There's irony, of course, in the Simpsons growing into an American institution while making fun of American institutions. You don't see that smugness in seasons 1-2.
The celebrity cameos really did get awful, but I would argue that they became a bigger problem as the series went on and weren't that big a deal for the first eight or ten seasons. I'm pretty sure the low point was N'Sync guest starring on an episode in season 12, and that episode was otherwise actually pretty funny.
I don't see the smugness or self-righteousness that you do. The Simpsons rarely has a real "message." You're going to get writers' perspectives, of course, but they're mostly looking for jokes. That's not me saying that-- Mike Reiss did a college tour years ago and those are his words.
Have you tried to read any Life in Hell? I said earlier that I don't actually like Matt Groening's work. I suspect you may be more likely to given your preference for the first two seasons.