The Corpse Walks On

The Simpsons used to mean something. Everyone had the same episodes memorized, the same jokes that worked in any conversation, the same memories of when television could actually shape culture. There was a moment when knowing a Simpsons reference meant you belonged to a specific group of people who got it.

I think the movie was where it all changed. Not because it was terrible—just because it was hollow. A decent episode stretched out to feature length, competent but empty. After that something died in the series. The creativity just… stopped. What had been sharp and strange became safe and profitable. It’s still on the air because there’s money in it, not because anyone cares.

Philipp Walulis, a television critic, made a video essay about this exact thing—why the Simpsons declined season by season, decade by decade. It’s the question anyone who actually watched the series ends up asking.

The old episodes are still perfect, which is almost depressing. They’re untouched by any of this. You go back and they’re exactly as good as you remembered, which somehow just emphasizes how badly everything after them missed the point.