Actually, there have been a couple of outstanding episodes in the last 20 years. I definitely recommend checking out 24 Minutes, Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind, Gone Maggie Gone, Brick Like Me, and Thanksgiving of Horror. However, I feel Trash of the Titans should have been the series finale to the show. They had to move Springfield, the end. After that, Behind the Laughter would have made a phenomenal finale even though Seasons 10 and 11 were stinkers.
The Chili cook-off episode is from Season 8 and is definitely one of the best of the series. El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer.
Certainly when they started letting the most vocal complaints dictate which comic stereotypes were unacceptable in a show that is nothing but comic stereotypes. But, admittedly, I stopped watching after the movie.it was good, not great, but a suitable end for me.
The episode I'll always point to as the jump-the-shark episode was the one in Season 9 or maybe 10 where Homer becomes a missionary. This had a reasonable setup, and the great "I don't even believe in Jebus!" line, then the episode peters out and rather than wrapping up the story, they cut to the Betty White cameo where she does the telethon bit and nothing gets resolved. The episode halts, rather than ends. That was the first time I was genuinely let down by bad writing in a show I had worshipped up to that point. It was hit and miss from there on, I think Tomacco was later, but that was the one where I saw the first sign a bad episode was possible.
I think there was a 15 year or so period when I had no idea the Simpsons still aired new episodes. Beyond those old rubber statue toys of just Bart that we used to have a lot of back then (think Smurfs), I never had any interest or desire to have any Simpsons “action” figures.
I'll give some of the older Simpsons figure lines some credit. The very first one were basic but typical for their time, and I remember their main thing were the holes in their heads where you could stick swappable word balloons. I don't think that one last beyond a few waves. The Playmates ones were very limited in their articulation, but I think the main thing that got that line to survive for so long were the playsets with the character identifying voices built in, though as you can guess, that novelty started to wear out IMO since there was no way you could update the playsets to identify figures made after the playset itself.
"Deep Space Homer" was one of my absolute favorite episodes, so I'm tempted to pick up this figure (I salute S7 for using the inanimate carbon rod as their teaser image.) The rest, maybe if they were in the $20 range, but I think I'll stick to getting only the figures that really stand out to me. Like, "I can't believe they actually made a figure of this" level of character choices. That said, I can't believe they're making Poochie. Not ordering him, but wow that's a bold first move.
For me, it's the episode "Homer Simpson In Kidney Trouble." It wasn't bad enough Homer was the reason his dad was dying in the first place, but he also ran out of the hospital because he didn't want to lose a kidney.
I haven't seen that episode, but I get where you're coming from. As the show goes on, the characters stop being likeable. Earlier episodes, no matter his foibles, Homer is a well meaning Dad. Marge is overbearing but loving. The siblings fight but at the end of the day, they're family. All that fades over time, and you're left with just terrible people. Arguably, Homer is treated worst, but Lisa was insufferable in a modern Halloween episode I caught a couple years ago. That movie was a strange animal to me. Not bad per se, but it happened about ten years after most people cared. Some good moments, but when they go to Alaska, I'm like, how many times have we seen this same thing done better in random TV episodes?
I'm marginally tempted to pick up Moe in anticipation of other "normal" characters getting released in the future, but the $50 pricetag really makes you ponder how much you care about the simpsons. The episode specific stuff, while fun, is an even worse value. I love the time they go to Itchy & Scratchy Land, just a fantastic classic episode, but how many times am I going to recreate a scene from that one with $100 worth of ep-specific figures and zero set pieces? I'm not, ever. And if we get zero normal versions of any family members in the initial wave, it'll be 27 waves before we get all the core townspeople, and does anyone think it'll last beyond Wave 4? My biggest fear in all of this would be a bunch of rando $50 orphan figures with the core cast wildly incomplete. Like everyone else, if these were $20, I'd grab them all on a lark. $50? Hell no. That being said, I really want a Mr Burns, Mayor Quimby, Cletus, and Comic Book Guy. I could find uses for them outside of a pure Simpsons setup. No one, not even the hardest-core fan, is going to spend a grand to make this on their shelf:
While I think they will make the core family over time, I don't think that the idea is to replicate what Playmates did and put out every single character. They know not everyone is going to buy every figure, so they're just putting out episode specific Ultimates. People won't recreate that scene you pictured but there will be people who buy both robots. There's people for everyone, I don't want Poochie myself but have seen several people say that's the only one they're getting.
Base price actually starts at 55 dollars. I'm not even sure shipping factors into that, and there's sales tax too. The Simpsons ULTIMATES! Wave 1 - Deep Space Homer (Pre-Order)
While they might not be trying to make every. single. character like Playmates, it seems like a foolish play to focus on one-off decos that each appeal to only a tiny group of people. If you want there to be enough interest to get to a 6th or 16th wave, you'd think they'd need some hint of wider appeal mixed in. Maybe they intend to just do nothing but random characters for a few waves and quit. That's definitely one approach, but it seems like a very odd business model, even for S7. But as a collector, if I took the plunge, I'd want some level of assurance (or gut feeling thereof) that I wasn't going to end up with 20 unrelated, episode-specific characters at $60/ea, and then the line peters out. That's a worst case scenario because your collection would be a sad hodgepodge full of glaring holes AND they'd be practically worthless if you were to try and unload them.
If that's what it came to be I honestly think that a collection like that isn't a sad hodgepodge at all. I'm assuming they'll be celebrating the first however many seasons with all the very memorable episodes.
God bless you, and maybe there are enough people that think that way to sustain a haphazard business model. I would feel like I got sold a pig-in-a-poke.
Its just hard to pay $55 a figure. Especially for such minor characters. I'd fear the line getting cancelled pretty soon for not getting the sales needed before they get to the figures people would want. Not having at least 1 family member in their normal outfit has got to be the strangest decision for a wave 1 I've seen in years. Their Thundercats has Lion-O, TMNT had one of the Turtles, Silverhawks had Quicksiver. Simpsons has...Moe. I'd have arranged a wave pattern this way if a 5 figure wave. fig 1 - main character (simpson family member for the first 4 waves (I can't see Maggie being a separate release). fig 2 - secondary character that appears in a good number of episodes and even has whole episodes based on them (Moe, Mr Burns, Chief Wiggum, etc) fig 3 - Simpson family member in non-standard outfit (Deep Space Homer) - but not same character as spot #1 fig 4 - third tier character - often seen in minor roles (Cleatus, Bumblebee Man, Sea Captain) fig 5 - obscure character - only seen once or twice (Poochy, robot Itchy & Scratchy) Once main family is done, spot #1 can either become a second #2 or #3
How would you even do an "Ultimate" Homer or Bart? How could you narrow down the accessories so that you had the definitive versions of the main characters? I actually think what they're doing with episode-specific characters makes more sense than trying to complete the entire cast. You can buy the figures that make you smile remembering the high points of the show and be satisfied. For example, if they made a Groundskeeper Willie dressed in his full Scottish garb, I would buy it just to remind me of this: I'd rather have that than a vanilla Willie in overalls. The limiting factor for Ultimates isn't the cost. You're better off buying a few expensive toys that hold or increase in value rather than a ton of cheap toys that lose value in the long run. The true limiting factor for Ultimates is simply space, because you are forbidden from discarding the packaging. A dark curse will befall you and your entire family if you do.
HANK SCORPIO!!! Feels selfish to simultaneously want the pink polo cheerful, talking about hammocks version too only two waves in though.
