[Urban Cragou]

I still think anything from even season 20 onwards (its modern-modern era) is a million times better than the Tracey Ullman prelude. That stuff was hideous. That or it just didn’t age well.

It’s still a good show, really. Seasons 3 - 12 is arguably its peak and season 20 onwards its definitively poorer-quality modern version (not that it didn’t have problems from at least season 13 onwards) but it had an eerie-in-a-disconcerting-way feel to it in the past and the Tracey Ullman stuff was very strange so to me I’d just rather watch even the latest season (I think it’s 35, tbh) than anything before like season 3. Only the episode where Bleedin. Gumz tries to cure Lisa’s jazz blues is something I can easily watch and really vibe with in its apt melancholy. The rest just feel kinda spooky and rough in a bad way. It was definitely from season 3 where the whole show became more The Simpsons in the way we know it today. Not putting the first two seasons on the same level as Tracey Ullman (who always did better in our Slough) on anything like the same level by any means but to me they weren’t the best seasons either and still a bit too crude ’round the Springfield edges.