>Principal and the Pauper receives universal bashing from both fans and critics
Care to explain why? I thought the episode was a pretty good Skinner and Agnus one exploring their relationship and there are some really good lines in it too.
>My dream is all about combing my hair
>Why does Jasper have to come? because he didn't want to go to capital city by himself
>HELLO BEAUTIFUL! In your dreams! OKAY
People still watch this show?
Not really.
Casually throwing away a character's backstory for a gimmick is just a bad idea. I don't really have any problem with the episode but I can see why it would annoy someone.
The whole setup of the episode is kind of ridiculous and lazy. But recent episodes are much more retarded, so the Principal and the Pauper seems good by comparison.
>Care to explain why?
We've only discusses this 1 billion times already.
Because it is fucking stupid to have a fake son for all these years, reveal that it is not really her son and then try to play t off as nothing is really going to change and for the most part it will never be brought up again.
redditors hate it because it makes fun of them
>delusional 4channer hates on reddit
>ironic 4channer hates on reddit
god i'm getting so sick of this
but i guess the point is to rattle people like me
hey reddit
Simpson fanboys are autistic and actually care about the lore.
it isn't funny or charming or heartwarming or anything that makes a Simpsons episode memorable, it would just be a forgotten footnote were it not for the whole Skinner isn't really Skinner story which pissed a lot of fans off. I get that they were satirizing other shows that do the same thing, a revelation about a character that isn't mentioned in future episodes, but it's lazily executed and simply becomes what it is parodying.
>Isn't mentioned in future episodes
Lisa made a comment about it one time when Skinner criticized her for getting a cat that looked like Snowball and planning on saving on the expenses by keeping the same name as the cat who died.
activate it
That was Al Jean's personal 'Fuck You' to everyone involved with the episode.
The Simpsons canon truly is the shows foundation. This is why Pauper is the worst episode of all time.
Its one of my favorite episodes.
>Up Yours, children!
because of nerds
the episode is pretty funny but they have to have something to argue about so they argue about the continuity of an animated sitcom
Here's the DVD commentary: mega.nz
Episode writer Ken Keeler and then-showrunners Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein adamantly defend it. It's a great listen. Matt Groening is notably absent.
i dont give a shit about continuity or retconning, but the episode is just boring
For all the hate this episode gets, it's a heck of a lot better than they years of shit that followed.
because back them people actually believed the simpsons have some sort of lore or continuity.
i watched the episode with commentary recently and IIRC they spend more time defending not caring about continuity than the episode itself
>then-showrunners Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
Actually this was the last episode under their tenure, so they were likely feeling a bit more adventurous than usual.
Stop acting like you don't care after getting called out you fucking nerd.
Changed Skinner from being a coward man child from his mother's verbal abuse to being a stranger who experiences the very same thing.
so mad men sucks too??
The older season, yes. .
People still watch the golden episodes.
>implying this isn't on par with "golden episodes"
...
you're kidding, right?
youtube.com
OR MAYBE WIGGUM GETS A JET-PACK!
I dunno man looking back on old simpsons and it really looks like a lot of the charm was just due to my age
Because it's actually a commentary about how even though they complain, people ultimately enjoy the status quo.
Principal and the Pauper is ultimate pleb filter.
>it's autistic to care about characters that were established for many seasons
i'm a different user from the one you responded to
and i really dont... i fucking hate how society gives a shit about 'lore' and all that sort of stuff
the simpsons is so great because it's a very neutral setting which writers can play with in many ways. it's an american family in the american state of netural with a lot of stereotypical background characters. this is exaclty why the shows lasted for so long (despite turning to shit)
For an animated sitcom where even the writers don't clearly care, yes. Yes it is.
The people that freaked out at this episode are the same people that had an aneurysm over the 90's episode a decade later, as if the show hasn't always had a loose continuity and evolving timeline.
that episode was unmitigated shit though
>Other figures associated with The Simpsons have publicly criticized the episode. In an April 2001 interview, Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner, recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."[29]
>In December 2006, in an interview, Shearer added, "Now, [the writers] refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing [the audience] for paying attention."[30] In the introduction to the ninth season DVD boxset, series creator Matt Groening describes "The Principal and the Pauper" as "one of [his] least favorite episodes".[31] He also called the episode "a mistake" in an interview with Rolling Stone.[32]
Nobody's opinion on The Simpsons matter's less than Matt Groenings.
14 carat gold!
Oh god, all those braindead commenters acting like this is actually funny.
AU
>AU
This is the only acceptable answer. The timelines diverged when Mike Scully became showrunner.