Smartest kid in the handicap class

Amazingly the Simpsons has hit its 20th anniversary and passed 450 episodes. It had already passed Gunsmoke as the longest American primetime tv show last year.

Too bad it's been a steep decline for the last 10 years.

It's startling to me that a number of people don't notice the decline in quality. "The show still gets great ratings!" Two and a Half Men is also a show that has great ratings, so ratings aren't exactly an indicator of quality. Around season 10 is when I started watching sporadically partly because UBC 1st year radically changed my tv viewing habits to this day and partly of the crappy episodes being peddled out. Then finally around 5 years ago, I decided to give the show one more shot and started watching season 16. After watching the controversial (and horrible) episode "There's something about marrying" which tackled the issue of gay marriage, I realized there was nothing that could redeem this show.

So I gave the show up and I haven't looked back since.

I don't recall watching a single episode since and I passed on the feature film. It's sad really that the last 10 years has affected my view on the golden years. I was reading an entertainment article listing the top tv shows of all time and naturally I skipped to the top ten. I was expecting to see "The Sopranos" or possibly the upstart "The Wire" claiming the number one spot. Instead, "The Simpsons" claimed the top spot and this was really surprising to me at the time until I remembered that the Simpsons used to be a great show.

Used to be.