Enjoy the tremendous first episode now by simply (Moving to the USA and watching it on legitimate television. - Ed)

Plane tickets booked!

Whilst you're over there don't forget to check out the new series of King of the Hill which, whilst no longer in vogue (was it ever?), gets consistently better with every passing season.

Did anyone see the first episode of the new Simpsons series? it's quite possibly the most insane and wrong headed take on Ireland/Northern Ireland I've ever seen.

From a moment where Bart asks "Where are the IRA when you need them?" and an IRA man turns up to lament that they don't blow people up any more (only to sadly note "we'd have been all over that" when a bus full of British people pass in the background) to the moment when what is supposed to be an Orange march turns up (dressed in orange but are wearing shamrocks) and are united with the St Partrick's day revellers by Lisa singing Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral --

the whole thing was just deranged, and I was gobsmacked.

Perhaps the Simpsons, having long since ceased to be remotely amusing, is now trying South Park-style shock tactics, but without the intelligence of South Park.

I still find it insane that literally the only thing that made me laugh in the entire Simpsons movie was Maggie's utterance in the end credits.

There must have been a smile at the fake chainsaw noises?

I debated that, but the thing is that the supposed humour of the scenes is not that you are supposed to be shocked, which is the normal course of bad taste humour.

You're instead just supposed to find British and Irish troubles funny, because they're wacky foreign people with wacky foreign problems!

It was offensively ignorant, in the truest meaning of the word.

Where did you get it from Stu?

I've downloaded a version from Pirate Bay and all I get is sound, and a version from a newsgroup and even though it's 178mb in size it only plays for 1:24.

Never had a problem before, I must have sixty or seventy episodes already.

It's EZ to get TV if you know where to get IT. Dot before the last bit.

I quite enjoyed this week's Simpsons. Compared to some from recent years. I laughed at the AC-DC bit.

The IRA bit however was just jaw-dropping. It's these days very much a cuddly family cartoon, though I'm not really sure which families are watching it, who its market is. But that IRA bit... wow. Do they have Rose McGowan as a scriptwriter now?

Even the TV... "re-run" is not EZ according to some, um, listings.

'Simpsons' is now shit in large because it has become more like 'Family Guy'. Which is shit. It clearly is shit.

This IRA stuff sounds incredible - is it 20x1 I should be looking for to see it?

Is it *really* 11 years since the last properly decent series of the Simpsons (which I count as number eight)? The sad thing is that, on the occasions when I can bother to watch it (it long ceased to be compulsive viewing, particularly after 'that episode with the jockey trolls'), it's still on a downward spiral, and just becoming confusing instead of surreally funny, and bad taste in place of good-bad taste.

Lorks-a-lordy.

I got my no-video copy to work with VLC Media Player.

It's good to see Cleveland get a more starring role;

"I'm no meteorologist but I'm pretty sure it's raining bitches."

It is shit.

And, hrm, there wasn't really anything to be gained from actually watching that IRA bit over just reading about it in this thread, was there? Other than a more primary reconfirmation that 'The Simpsons' truly is now shit*.

*Like 'Family Guy'.

Family Guy is repetitive. I've also got a mate who's generally quite a nice and entertaining fellow but has the bad habit of quoting bits out of it every 15 minutes or so. He's stopped doing it nearly as much recently though which is a huge relief.

On a purely educational level, it's a worryingly "Hooray for killing the British!" message. I look forward to next week's episode, where Homer follows a new Japanese friend to a 'religious thing' and cheerily re-enacts the Tokyo subway gas attacks.

For the first five minutes, then the rest is all about Lisa trying to rollerskate. Sigh.

YOU'RE shit.

Yeah Rob, you really ARE shit.

AND some sort of comedy heretic.

I third this motion.

"....and boom goes the dynamite."

Family Guy is NOT shit. It's a funny sketch show with a loose plot to hang the jokes off.

The Simpsons recently did an episode called That 90's Show, which retconned the entire previous history of the show, meaning that Marge and Homer's courtship took place in the 90s rather than the 70s.

Now, this wouldn't matter if the episode had been funny, but it wasn't. So the writers and producers pissed away almost twenty years worth of plotlines and history, simply so Homer could be part of a Nirvana parody.

Cunts.

Oh, come on. The episode Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment had a pretty similar gag (one of the scenes in the Annual Springfield St Patrick's Day Parade saw a crowd applauding the bombing of The John Bull Fish And Chip Shop), and that was one of the best episodes ever written. Say what you like about the more recent seasons (and you'd often be right), but one of the stock gags of The Simpsons is to take genuinely serious situations and treat them utterly without respect, gravity and bothering to check any actual facts. It's what they do.

The Nazis stealing medieval art from Quedlinburg? Referenced in "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in The Curse of the Flying Hellfish". The disappearance and alleged murder of Azaria Chamberlain? Referenced in "Bart vs. Australia". And that's just to pluck a couple of references from the first half-dozen series.

But anyway, it's good to see Family Guy right back on form. While the last few series have certainly been enjoyable, too much time has been filled with the lazy "this is worse than the time I *partook in activity X* with *1980s celebrity Y*" reference gags. The latest ep keeps a constant theme running almost throughout, and is all the more enjoyable for it. Good.

That's still going? Shit, I thought they stopped it years ago. I must have dozens of episodes to catch up on. Hurrah!

Seriously, the episode where Hank is looking after the neighbour's daughter and she has her first period was just wonderful.

I've not seen any recent Family Guys, either. After Series 3 it wavered very badly and I feared it would just keep getting worse. They seemed to realise people were amused by the pop culture gags and long, drawn out crap gags, and then totally run every single episode into the ground with hundreds of them, ruining their potency. Was it just a temporary thing then?

Family Guy is excellent. So is American Dad. And Robot Chicken is the best thing on American TV.

King of the Hill is shit though. I actually do miss Beavis and Butthead.

Co-incidentally, those episodes are really terrible!

YOU'RE shit.

King of the Hill is excellent, and unfairly neglected in the world of cartoon funnies.

Having said that in the use of the animation medium, they are all shit.

Strangely, I had you down as a Family Guy hater, Stu.

Clearly wrong. As is Rob M, in this case. Family guy is great - inconsistently great, but there are brilliant moments in there.

The rot started to set into Family Guy after the second season. It's not terrible (although incredibly lazily written), but I don't particularily care about the new season.

Isn't that Simpson's IRA one old? Sure I heard about it ages ago. Fish and Chip shop blows up at some point?

I doubt it's as bad as the Captain Planet IRA episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQJrovKgrTw

Wrong. It did get worse, but was still good. Then seasons 5 and 6 were fantastic.

It's what they do? I thought The Simpsons stock gags tended to be character and trademark driven. Not laughing at victims. I don't remember that ever being a trend.

Back when it was good, the burning down of that Fish & Chips Bar was fine because it just acknowledged the hostility without taking sides (or mocking them). Because there was simply no need to. Whereas a Funny Irishman being sad because he can't plant a bomb on a classic London red, now that's just harsh.

Imagine a joke about a 'changed' former terrorist wistfully watching a plane fly by a skyscraper, muttering to himself 'Man... 5 more degrees to the left and BOOM! Good times! Aww man that takes me back...' Whilst Homer and Lisa and the others look on and smile and nod, and maybe put a consoling arm around the sad, funny terrorist.

If you don't see any difference then more power to you. But it's there.

Also, the Flying Hellfish episode? Not in the first half-dozen, t'was 7 or 8. </obsessive>

Mm. I tend to think a lot of the people who diss FG bailed out around seasons 3/4, which were certainly the weakest, and missed out on the mostly pretty awesome seasons 5 and 6.

That is, almost certainly, a Codec issue.

Hence the excellent Cartoon Wars in South Park, with the manatees 'writing' Family Guy by using 'idea balls' that have a noun, verb or pop-culture ref. The fact Parker and Stone then got congratulated and sent gifts from King of the Hill and Simpsons staff says it all, really.

Except... I've been watching the odd Family Guy episode on the BBC recently, which is series 4, and it's not that bad, so maybe 3 was the real low point for me. That said, I don't feel remotely compelled to watch or even record any episodes, but I won't turn it off if it's already on.

You might be right. Watched the first 3 seasons repeatedly at uni. Have only occasionally dipped into the later seasons. I'm amazed they're up to 7... is that proper 20 odd episode length seasons or have they done that weird thing of splitting seasons up, making it difficult to work out what episode your legal obtained avi files are.

Of the later series I have seen... I seem to remember I was immediately disappointed by the first one when it came back... all the references to obscure characters who had had one off appearances in the first three seasons, but had developed some sort of weird cult phenomenon on the internet in the intervening years. I think that's some of the problem I have with the show now, it's writers are obviously driven by what people are saying on the internet rather than having any drive of their own.

But I'll try and give seasons 5 and 6 a proper go.

This is the difference, yes.

Series 4 is honestly the shittest thing I've ever seen. I saw one the other day, which 'kicked off' with Osama bin Laden making a threat video and then fluffing it, and then it carrying on for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES, DRIVE THE FUCKING THING HOME ALREADY followed by the most forced pop culture references episode ever for ages.

And I normally enjoy FG quite a bit.

The entire Osama video bit is BRILLIANT, you philistine.

It definitely dipped in quality after it came back, but the last season on BBC Three (season six I think) was most enjoyable. They really need to cut back on using that Mr Herbert paedo character, though. It was funny the first few times, but now it's just boring.

No, it is obviously a bit that. I just meant that upon following my urge to See It For MySelf, there really wasn't much of a point in doing so.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did something like that in a Japanese episode. 'The Simpsons' has (possibly always) been a fan of starring shit xenophobic stereotypes (presumably under an 'irony' justification, but as in the aforementioned atrocious Australia episode, rarely well.) This is just meshing that with it's more recent 'Family Guy'-esque 'edginess'.

Moving on... I too didn't know 'King of the Hill' still existed. 'King of the Hill' is (or, certainly was) excellent. caleyjag appears to be my Bizarro.

I think season 4 of Family Guy suffered from the writers suddenly having the show un-cancelled and having to write x number of episodes at the same time they were writing American Dad. Both series' were almost utterly dreadful for that whole run as though they were trying to spread everything to thinly.

Both shows got massively better in seasons 5 of Family Guy and 2 of American Dad.