“Superintendent, we made the front page today!” – Principal Skinner
“What’s that say under your hand there?” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Oh, it’s an unrelated article.” – Principal Skinner
“It’s an unrelated article?” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Um-hmm.” – Principal Skinner
“Within the banner headline?” – Superintendent Chalmers
“Yes.” – Principal Skinner
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charliesweatpants.com
(The crotch really does wear out too fast.)
Dead Homer Society 
Once again, Chalmers is on to Skinner’s lies, but as always, & hilariously, Skinner manages to convince him in the end.
I was thinking about when I started really disliking the show (such as that episode with the jockey elves, the one in Florida with Kid Rock, or when Barney went sober), & among my main reasons were guest star celebrities as themselves as well as how eye-gaugingly garish the bright colors & tight yet sloppy character designs became. I’m wondering if any other fan or observer was similarly peer-pressured through near-gaslighting into ignoring their initial instincts in favor of getting caught up in merchandise-based propaganda & becoming a fan & audience member again. The reason I suggest this is because I continued watching for so many years as a result despite secretly hating myself for doing so, & felt uncomfortable not only giving up watching, but also criticizing the show myself. It wasn’t until recent years that I stopped watching entirely, & felt like I was in a double bind when going through the process of quitting it cold turkey. Any thoughts?
I went back and forth a couple of times. I was early on the bandwagon of disliking episodes. I hated “Marge Be Not Proud” from the first time I saw it, and it’s in Season 7, and there are a lot of Season 8 episodes that I loathed that have since grown on me. (Not “Homer They Fall” or “Burns, Baby Burns”, though, those suck.)
But by Season 9 when it seemed like everyone hated it, I actually started defending it a little because I thought that while it wasn’t as good as it was, there was still some good stuff in it. That petered out over the course of Seasons 10 and 11. I still remember the Africa episode in Season 12. That was when I knew it was never coming back. After that I started turning it off after the first commercial break if I hadn’t laughed yet. After a few months of that, and mostly not making it past the first commercial, I quit entirely in Season 13.
It’s a tricky thing to negotiate as a fan, because you don’t want to lump yourself in with the reactionary meatheads while at the same time you don’t want to let what other people think influence your own enjoyment. Looking back it feels very sudden, like it was good and got bad fast. But at the time it was years.
Heh. Seems that everybody I know that likes The Simpsons hates “homer they fall too”. But I am curious about “Burns baby burns” I always found it funny. What you don’t like about it?
I have a theory, since you mentioned ‘gaslighting’: I believe ‘Homer’s Enemy’ was a study in gaslighting the audience about Homer’s former personality. Any fan that had stuck around since the early years & thus grown fond of his brand of hapless, well-intentioned numbheadedness would naturally viscerally side with Homer despite him basically being made to play a contrasting role to the conscientious yet seething-with-bitter-resentment episode-eponymous “chew toy” (trademark: TV tropes dot com) Frank Grimes by the writing staff, especially since he had quite a ways to go before losing a significant portion of his soul. Even though they never consciously intended it, the writers would go on to subconsciously use this reaction to justify & execute extending the series run at the expense of its core essence & spirit. All the while much of the more casual but less observant fanbase would wind up drinking the koolaid about the show still remaining fresh. Thus, we are where we are today.