Season Nine vs. Season Eight (In My Opinion)

[Ondre Lombard]

Aside from the fact that there've been more episodes this year that I
couldn't find a problem with in comparison to last year's (Every episode from
last season was flawed, to me. Even My Sister, My Sitter, which I gave an
A -), I decided to look at my official grades to determine which was better.

In season eight, I gave only one A -, no B +s, two Bs, five B -s, five
C + (the middle ground between great and horrible, i.e., average), four Cs,
two C -s (the "It's a Clanker" grade, but a high clanker--using the word
high loosely), one D +, one D, two D -s and one F.

In season nine, I gave one A, one A -, three B +s, one B, four B -s,
two C +s, two Cs, two C -s, one D +, two Ds, two D -s and three Fs.

Season Eight and Season Nine are barely equal with poor offerings
(more Fs this year than last), however Nine excels with having less mediocre
offerings than Season Eight, and excels especially in having more-or-less
flawless episodes. Overall, I might've said some bad stuff about Mike
Scully but I still think he's doing a better job than Oakley and Weinstein
did in their final year.

Top Season Eight Episodes (in order of best to worst):

1. My Sister, My Sitter
2. Homer's Phobia
3. The Old Man and the Lisa
4. Grade School Confidential
5. Brother From Another Series
6. The Springfield Files
7. The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase
8. Bart After Dark
9. Hurricane Neddy
10. Lisa's Date With Density

11. You Only Move Twice
12. Burns, Baby Burns
13. The Twisted World of Marge Simpson
14. In Marge We Trust
15. Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious
16. The Canine Mutiny
17. A Milhouse Divided
18. The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
19. Treehouse of Horror VII
20. Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment

21. El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer
22. The Secret War of Lisa Simpson
23. The Homer They Fall
24. Mountain of Madness
25. Homer's Enemy

Top Season Nine episodes (in order of best to worst):

1. Lost Our Lisa
2. Lisa's Sax
3. Natural Born Kissers
4. This Little Wiggy
5. King of the Hill
6. Girlie Edition
7. Lisa the Simpson
8. Treehouse of Horror VIII
9. Lisa the Skeptic
10. Simpson Tide

11. Dumbbell Indemnity
12. Bart Carny
13. Miracle on Evergreen Terrace
14. The Cartridge Family
15. Realty Bites
16. Bart Carny
17. Das Bus
18. The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
19. The Last Temptation of Krust
20. The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons

21. Trash of The Titans
22. The Trouble With Trillions
23. All Singing, All Dancing
24. The Principal and the Pauper

Ondre Lombard <wak...@wcat.com> | "When people find out I'm Homer, they're
--------------------------------- | usually like, `Oh man, I love that guy,'
S1.2 HOM+ MRG+ BAR++ LIS++> MAG+ | and they're usually, like, guys. `Aw
BOB++ TEE++ f+++ n+ w ; 7G11, 7F07| he's my hero.' [laughs] Sad state of
7F12, 8F06, 9F11, 2F15, 3F22 ; M16| affairs for America."--Dan Castellaneta
-= olom...@lombard.dialup.cyberverse.com / http://www.wcat.com/lisa/ =-

[Paul Canniff]

    Something is seriously wrong if you think "The Homer They Fall", one of the worst episodes of all time, is better than "Homer's Enemy". But rather than arguing with you, I'll just make my own rendition of the Season 8 ranks.
 

    1. El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer - One of the most moving episodes of Season 8. Some look at it too broadly as just another Homer/Marge squabble but to me this episode has a powerful meaning. (Not to mention fantastic animation)

    2. Homer's Enemy - Another episode I could wholeheartedly relate to. Frank Grime's obsession with ridiculing Homer reminds me of how sometimes I try too hard and stupider people (in this case, Homer) get all the respect.

    3. The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase - This one wins hands-down as the most entertaining episode of the season, and provides plenty of laughs with all its television satire and awesome production numbers.

    4. The Springfield Files - An amusing, off-the-wall episode that seemed more like a half hour Halloween Special segment but it worked well incorporating characters from another TV show and the part where Chewbacca is singing at the end is priceless.

    5. The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show - I'm a sucker for episodes centered on our favorite cat & mouse duo and this is probably my favorite one so far. It was more effective than "The Day Violence Died" and it even parodied the people on this newsgroup exceptionally well. And who can forget Roy?

    6. Homer's Phobia - I liked the risk this episode took, it dealed with a controversial subject and wasn't afraid to use words like "queer" to represent Homer's ignorance towards homo-sexuals. The scene at the steel mill was really well done.

    7. Hurricane Neddy - What's this? An episode which uses drama? Bravo! Nice to see a change of pace from the typical joke-fest of writing. Not that this episode wasn't funny, Jay Sherman in the mental hospital had me cracking up all night.

    8. Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious - Kind of bizarre for The Simpsons to be spoofing one movie for the entire episode but it provided us with another look at Marge's unstable side, had tons of hilarious songs, and had a decent ending for a change with a little sinister twist (Sheri Bobbins gets killed)

   9. Brother From Another Series - Not the best Sideshow Bob episode, but it offered more depth on how he became Sideshow Bob, his brother Cecil was well characterized and we got to see that Sideshow Bob really wasn't all that evil after all.

 10. Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment - This episode seemed to give me a flashback of all those wacky episodes where the whole town gets involved from past seasons such as "Homer The Vigilante". I liked how it had a narrator, made it feel more like an actual story.

(no more descriptions)

 11. Treehouse of Horror VII

 12. You Only Move Twice

 13. Bart After Dark

 14. Grade School Confidential

 15. In Marge We Trust

 16. A Milhouse Divided

 17. Lisa's Date With Destiny

 18. Mountain of Madness

 19. Burns, Baby Burns

 20. My Sister, My Sitter

 21. The Old Man And The Lisa

 22. The Twisted World of Marge Simpson

 23. The Canine Mutiny

 24. The Secret War of Lisa Simpson

 25. The Homer They Fall   (An extremely dumb episode)
 
 

    (I'll put my choices for best to worst of Season 9 in my next posting.)
 

    -Paul Canniff
 
 

[Ondre Lombard]

On Tue, 19 May 1998, Paul Canniff wrote:

> Something is seriously wrong if you think "The Homer They Fall", one
> of the worst episodes of all time, is better than "Homer's Enemy". But
> rather than arguing with you, I'll just make my own rendition of the
> Season 8 ranks.

It's not that The Homer They Fall is really "better" than Homer's
Enemy per se, I gave them both incredibly low scores (5/10 and 4/10,
respectively. Amounting to a D - and an F), however, THTF was just stupid and
boring and disrespectful to continuity, not to mention it was all around
predictable. Homer's Enemy made me mad, for reasons I've gone over perhaps
more than enough times, and I find it hard to consider this a Simpsons
episode.

[TheAbman]

> I decided to look at my official grades to determine which was better.
>
> In season eight, I gave only one A -, no B +s, two Bs, five B -s, five
>C + (the middle ground between great and horrible, i.e., average), four Cs,
>two C -s (the "It's a Clanker" grade, but a high clanker--using the word
>high loosely), one D +, one D, two D -s and one F.
>
> In season nine, I gave one A, one A -, three B +s, one B, four B -s,
>two C +s, two Cs, two C -s, one D +, two Ds, two D -s and three Fs.
>
> Season Eight and Season Nine are barely equal with poor offerings
>(more Fs this year than last), however Nine excels with having less mediocre
>offerings than Season Eight, and excels especially in having more-or-less
>flawless episodes. Overall, I might've said some bad stuff about Mike
>Scully but I still think he's doing a better job than Oakley and Weinstein
>did in their final year.

Say whatever you think, I still like season 8 better. Here's a breakdown of
both seasons.

Season 8 got one A, five A-'s, nine B+'s,five B's, three B-'s, and three C+'s.

Season 9 got two A-'s, four B+'s, five B's, six B-'s, three C+'s,three C-'s,
one D+, and one F+

Season 8 did have its flaws (no episodes got an A+), but they seemed very
nitpicky. "Flying Nannies aren't realistic", "Homer can't get a divorce without
Marge's consent", "The family's reasons for hating Cypress Creek were dumb",
"Wiggum's crack party was nonsensical", "The SImpsons seemed prosperous when
Grimes saw them", "Moe's bar has SO had women" were minor flaws that had little
effect on the overall quality of the episode.

Season 9's flaws were worse, with episodes having no plot whatsoever (The Last
Temptation of Krust, The Cartridge Faamily,) or no humor whatsoever (The
Principal and the Pauper, All Singing, All Dancing).

Anyway, I'll spare this newsgroup another lengthy defense of season 8, but just
as a warning, I'll spend this summer continuing to defend season 8. Anyone who
wants to join in is free to do so.

Season 5 rules all seasons
-Frank Grimes