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Alf Clausen fired from The Simpsons


Alex

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2 minutes ago, Alex said:

It seems to be a cost cutting measure. Although they could save more money by just cancelling the show all together.

 

Fox / Gracie Films won't let them unfortunately, since the show still makes a profit for them.

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The show makes Fox a fortune, unfortunately. Despite being rubbish for 20 years!

 

This is clearly a cost cutting exercise. They'll ditch the orchestra and bring in a cheap synth composer (probably one of Zimmer's el' cheapo mass-produced music houses).

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Like BB said in the first response, the show is shit now anyway.  But it's still a dumb move.

 

I had to hijack my wife's Facebook account as I always do when this stuff happens, because I know there will somehow be people who bring the discussion around to hating Zimmer - and wouldn't you know it, there it is.  Take a look in the usual places.  I love to hate read cringey professional jealousy from whiny nobodies.

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Yes I stopped watching The Simpsons ages ago.

 

Shame about Clausen though. I am sure in their desire to cut costs they'll buy some synth libraries and hand the job to a youngster who'll do it for half-free just for the experience.

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They'll probably just recycle music from old episodes. After all, they've been recycling the stories for years, so they'll no doubt have track for every occasion. It's not like they don't have decades of stuff to choose from. And they likely do quite a bit of that already anyway.

 

And does anyone think their "audience" would notice (or care)?

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9 hours ago, Alex said:

It's pretty incredible how it's almost been 20 years since they were churning out some genuine quality on a consistent basis.

 

Right?  It was an incredible achievement that it was as good as it was for as long as it was.  And it's almost an achievement in itself that they've managed to be so crappy for twice as long!

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Just now, Nick1066 said:

And does anyone think their "audience" would notice (or care)?

 

Unlikely. Ironically, even tracked Clausen music would be an improvement on the disastrous possibility of hiring whichever mass-produced, sausage-factory, sample-library studio Zimmer's spruiking this week.

 

The show's long been a soulless exercise with the illusion of characters we used to enjoy, now reduced to... caricatures. It was on a slippery slope of terrible pop culture integration after season 10 and it's only gotten worse. Have they done an inane fidget spinner episode yet?

 

As for Clausen, I'll just leave this here:

 

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Some Irish guy did a really good analysis on YouTube of how and why The Simposons went to shit. 

 

It's better than spending the time watching a new episode.

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While my dream would be that this turns into a misappropriated Simpsons quote thread, rather than a forum to lambast modern Simpsons, I'll come to defend it.

 

The quality level certainly declined around season 10, 11, 12 - somewhere in there.  As the writing staff changes over seasons, there are peaks and valleys in the quality as well.  With a rare exception, you won't find a wholly original story or anything heartfelt like you would in those early years.   However, as a cartoon joke delivery machine, I would argue that it's still more successful than all of the other network cartoons (Seth McFarlane's shows, etc) except Bob's Burgers.

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The stories are basically just dumb framework for jokes now, but the characters and jokes still work well.

 

On occasion, The Simpsons will try to get Family-Guy-edgy or mean spirited and it just comes off as tone deaf.  And sometimes they'll take a shot at something weird and make something really, really awful (anthology of Moe's bar towel through the ages, I'm looking at you).

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9 minutes ago, mstrox said:
30 minutes ago, mstrox said:

network cartoons

 

This is what it feels like to be thwarted.  I'm feeling thwarted.  I really like the word thwarted.  Neat mouthfeel.  The word mouthfeel also has a cool mouthfeel.

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49 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

Some Irish guy did a really good analysis on YouTube of how and why The Simposons went to shit. 

 

It's better than spending the time watching a new episode.

 

That was great, very well analysed and summed up most of the main issues.

 

He did a great job explaining why all the terrible celebrity cameos epitomize why the show has lost its way.

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7 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

That was great, very well analysed and summed up most of the main issues.

 

He did a great job explaining why all the terrible celebrity cameos epitomize why the show has lost its way.

 

Breaking down why the jokes were better in the earlier seasons was very good too.

 

 

the celebrity thing was one of my own pet peeves.

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The movie would've been a good endpoint, because it actually had quite a few decent gags (IMHO). 

But as has already been pointed out, the show is still profitable so it will be allowed to drag on and on. Its decline saddens me, I used to absolutely adore it and am still prone to quoting something from the 'classic' years if I feel it's fitting.      

 

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Once every 5 years I check in on an episode just to see if I can be made to laugh with the show, and it's usually bad enough for me to end up reflecting on the glory years instead.  It's sad that there are now more bad Simpsons' seasons than good ones.

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When people talk about The Simpsons' "decline," which sounds like an active process, I'd argue that this wonderful Microsoft Paint artwork is the truth

 

The show had a clear creative peak, but it's not actively declining.  It's found a nice niche as a funny enough joke machine/Sunday night distraction. 

Untitled.png

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12 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

The funny thing is that you can even witness that via the audio commentaries on the DVDs. I remember checking the audio commentaries of the first season out of curiosity, and found them really funny and informative, so I decided to keep on listening to them on the following seasons, and with season 10, I realized the commentaries suddenly became much less interesting and much more boring. Unsurprisingly, it's because that's around that time much of the creative team behind the show changed, and thus so did the guys doing the commentaries on the DVDs, and you can easily tell these new guys weren't as funny and clever as the original ones.

 

Well, you'll certainly find Al Jean across all those eras.

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21 hours ago, Richard said:

It's become a stupid show, for stupid people. As Jay and Blood have said, it's outstayed its welcome by several years.

Mr. Clausen is better off out of it.

Yep, unemployment is so much better than being employed!

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1 hour ago, Koray Savas said:

Yep, unemployment is so much better than being employed!

If one is financially set for the rest of their life, then yes it very much is for most people. 

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16 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

A man continuing to do this job after this many years and such substantial monetary gain is not doing it to be "financially set."

Perhaps, but I would bet he refused to take a big pay cut, if such was offered to save his job. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

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