Bonus episode! I had never covered Maude's death in much detail on this channel... So the timing seemed right to talk about her, with Season 11 the next retrospective in the sequence. (Also "pittance" is a fun word to say.)
For a second I was like "Wait a minute... RUclips didn't exist when Todd was born!" and then I realized that, by now, Todd would have been born in the 2010s. Curse you, floating timeline!
It's these sort of things that make me feel like the writers are committing HARD to the floating timeline and want to make sure everyone is aware of it
What’s even crazier is that Maggie is less than two years old (possibly one year old) (I think ?). If we accept the floating timeline then she was always born just last year - or the previous year - and continued to do so throughout the late 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s. For some reason the implications of a constantly shifting birthdate seem the most bizarre for a toddler character.
@@JustAFilmGuy its scary to think that Homer, who was originally meant to be a Baby Boomer, would be considered a millennial in this floating timeline within a few years
I think the biggest problem with Maude's death was the effect it had on Ned. The whole function of Ned, from literally the first episode, was to be the anti-Homer. We're meant to identify with the Simpsons as this imperfect but likeable family. Meanwhile the Flandereseses are this nauseatingly perfect, really quite annoying family who of course inspire irrational hatred in Homer. As said in this video, it's all about envy. Killing Maude changes that dynamic. (As a side note, I really hated the way they treated her death and Homer's part in it. Like, yeah, Homer is dumb and inconsiderate, but he seems totally unbothered by his responsibility for the death of a wife and mother)
Yeah, if Ned wasn't already becoming super religious before, after her death the Flanders became not a "perfect family", with a lot of episodes centering on grief, how weird and sheltered the boys become without a mother, Ned getting weird obsessive plotlines to fill time.
If it was done in Season 6,7, or 8 they could have pulled it off well. But I feel like by the time she died Homer was already Jerkass Homer, leading to a very unlikeble side to him in the episode. Infact killing Maud seems like something that Season 6 and 8 would have done specifically, atleast to me.
When one of my favourite London/railway RUclipsrs is commenting on one of my favourite Simpsons RUclips channels, suddenly my life seems complete! :) (Actually it won't be until I FINALLY pull my finger out and get my own channel going!) :)
Nothing hits home how weird the floating timeline is like a flashback episode that features a technology that was invented 17 years after the show started.
Nothing also hits home like an episode centering around a person or a fad that's already metaphorically dead (see: N*Sync or the episodes guest starring Britney Spears or Bill Gates, who's swiftly fallen out of favor and metamorphosed into Mr. Burns) so those episodes are considered, "Classic."
Nothing hits home like realising that Todd Flanders is so badass he was helping Ned to welcome the Simpsons to the neighbourhood around three years before he was even born...
“In many ways, Maude Flanders was a supporting player in our lives. She didn't grab our attention with memorable catchphrases or comical accents. But, whether you noticed her or not, Maude was always there... and we thought she always would be.” ―Reverend Lovejoy, 2000
I honestly think that the episode they kill off Maude is the true “jump-the-shark” episode. Not because I care about Maude, but because of HOW she died. The sheer callousness of it all and how little Homer cares that he indirectly killed a person ruins Homer’s character for me. I have a much easier time defending jockey elves and “alligators-being-alive-the-entire time” than Homer in that episode.
I'd argue that the Kidney Trouble episode is the first real jump the shark episode. Homer reaches a whole new level of awfulness by refusing to donate his kidney to his father.
@@JoelJurvakainen That episode sucks too. I guess the difference for me is that nobody dies in that one, and Homer gets some punishment for his actions. Let’s just agree that both of those episodes are awful!
Yeah, I think it also struggles to work with Homer's antagonistic nature towards Ned. Yeah he has the decency to tone it down a LITTLE afterwards, but he's still a contemptuous jerk to him in the end, which is hard to make petty but harmless after he KILLED HIS WIFE. There's so many characters they botch up because they believe they can do as many horrific things as possible so long as it technically wasn't on purpose. They still couldn't care less, but since it wasn't out of callousness per se it's okay. Spongebob is another character destroyed because of his usually harmless dimwittedness ascending to him systematically destroying lives on a regular basis.
@@JoelJurvakainen I'm not willing to judge Homer too harshly for that one. "Homer, you're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a stranger offers you a ride, I say take it!" Abe Simpson was arguably an even worse father than Cotton Hill.
I never liked Maude's death. It adds an uncomfortable level of mean-spiritedness to the show, between the awkward Homer/Maude dynamic that you mentioned, and the audience now knowing that Homer is constantly a jerk to a widower. It's a clear leftover from the edgier, over-the-top Season 11 era, and I agree that it seems like they regretted that choice. As mediocre as "Clown in the Dumps" is, I think it had the right idea with Krusty's father's death; it allowed a character to cope with grief in a way that doesn't make them a fundamentally tragic character. Ned being a double widower is just sad, and Maude being a fairly minor character overall doesn't change that.
I agree that they dealt with Maude's death callously and that it makes Homer's meanspiritedness really uncomfortable on the show, but I don't think it was necessarily a bad move. It produced lots of good storylines that I've really liked, it's just the way it was dealt with that was the problem. A season 1 style Homer (not saying that they should have done it that early or anything) trying to deal with comforting Ned in his grief would have been better than the jerk ass Homer that Ned gets lumbered with.
Clown In The Dumps dealt with a death WAY, way worse than Alone Again, Natura-Diddily, which actually got an emotional reaction out of me. Yes it kinda resulted in Ned becoming a more tragic character, but the aftermath and him trying to find a way to handle his grief was exceptionally welldone. Homer is granted far from innocent in it since he did contribute to Maude's death, but I don't think he's as much of a jerk as people say. As misguided as his attempts are he still tries to help Ned, and clearly knows what he did was wrong. It's a far less meanspirited Homer than the one we see in Co-Dependent's Day if you ask me.
@@seatman Homer is using one in a flashback episode that should logically be before pretty much the entire series; that makes it so much weirder to me.
Like, the first personal cell phone came out in 1995, but they weren't widespread until 2004. I could see the Simpsons still having Motorolas and being 2 decades behind everyone else, but not current iPhone users.
Going back and watching the episode where she died is such a trip. It feels so vindictive. We get Maude killed in an unceremonious freak gag accident. Adding in the part about Homer blocking the ambulance. Almost no reflection on her death from characters other than Ned. Bart messes with her funeral cake to say "Rest in Pee." Homer and Bart put all evidence of her existence through a literal woodchipper. And then it immediately turns into a story about getting Ned to replace her with another woman even though it's only been like a couple weeks. I get the Fox executives being mad at Maggie but it's like the writers personally wanted to give her a big "fuck you."
The sad thing is that it felt a bit like they were TRYING to be a bit earnest and poignant about it, but we'd reached a point in the show where they just couldn't turn off the shtick. The characters were all wacky shells of their former selves. OF COURSE they would make it all Homer's fault and be nominally remorseful at best because that's their go-to now.
Agreed. This is where the show really turned a corner. The gags start to get more crude/mean spirited, and less clever. The writers start making very odd choices around this time. Family Guy debuted a year or so before, and even though it was kind of a blatant rip-off of the Simpsons, it seems like the Simpsons writers were trying to compete with it and emulate the crassness and wacky randomness of Family Guy..
The cherry on the top of the spiteful sundae is how the episode where Maude suddenly dies ends with a song which has the lyrics "She landed on her head / But now it's time to get on with his life"
I would love to see a Simpsons Histories on Snake. He’s a really weird character, occasionally portrayed as a threat, but usually just stealing cars or robbing the Kwik-E-Mart. The Seemingly Neverending Story gives him a backstory, which I actually kinda like, but it’s probably been retconned. Edit: Hey, he did it as the very next one. Thanks!
Yeah I vote for Snake too. He's painted as such an oddly tragic character as the series goes on, like his relationship and single father troubles to his reasons for turning to crime
"Why would the fruit punch advisory board give us bad advice?" is a very underrated joke and has become my shorthand for questioning the motives of any organization when they make a statement.
I *love* how Maude and Edna dying are the only changes that stick and haunt the Simpsons - Maude due to how carelessly they killed her, and Edna due to the looming specter of how old the actors are now. Hell, they had to turn Kearney into a bizarrely miniature adult now.
Kearney's been an adult for decades now. Right off the top of my head I remember Lisa the Iconoclast (airing in season 7, 1996) claimed he was there to see America's bicentennial, in 1976.
I think her death made Ned a really interesting character. His grief, acceptance and questioning dating was really something. While she was a forgetful character for us, she meant everything to him. That’s something people forget about in life.
Maude is the gwen Stacy of the simpsons in that her death ended up causing a lot of important changes and development so later fans and writers believe she must have been important and so retconed as much as they needed to make her important
I don't know much about Spiderman history so that is interesting to hear. Did Gwen get a big boost in popularity after killing her off? I was thinking about Stranger Things and the whole "Justice for Barb" sentiment that went around. There's something about these catalyst characters that everyone gets behind.
@@TheRealJims gwen's death has a popularity of its own. It was a pretty shocking thing for superhero stories back then to have the hero fail to save someone, even implying that spiderman probably killed her out of inexperience. it changed everything.
that said, fans became angry and there is a story about stan lee being criticized at a meeting with fans, leading him to force the writer of amazing to resurrect gwen, which lead to her getting cloned. if there is one character that got more popularity that is Mary Jane, spiderman's next girlfriend who became more and more relevant
@@TheRealJims gwen Stacy from the 70's is interesting in a strictly meta sense when compared to spidys other love interests Gwen isnt mind blowing hot and caught in constant love triangles like MJ Gwen isnt related to his villains like Liz Allen Gwen isnt a villain like black cat The whole idea was she was Peters "safe/normal life" option, then green goblin kills her solely because of her relationship with peter Gwens death sent peter into a dark age where he was almost as edgy as Batman and brought up gwens death for why he stop getting close to people Later fans saw this thought gwen must be really important to have this kind of effect, looked back saw she really was just that bland saw the only important thing she did was DIE and decide to just rewrite the story to make her important. Thats how we got spider gwen and it's why simpsons writers keep bringing back Maude nostalgia not meeting reality
@@troperhghar9898 i agree with gwen but not with maude. i see her as a victim of circumstances, her death was influenced by external events so when they got the chance to bring her back they decided to fully do it, even if only as a ghost or in flashback
A Simpsons Histories episode of Ned would seem like an appropriate follow-up. After all, everyone in the Flanders family has been covered, except for him.
I think that a character like Ned has so much history that it would take a long time to make, I think he’s mainly focusing on the more minor characters for now, that being said I would still love for him to make it lol
I honestly find it incredibly petty that when Maggie Roswell left the show after a payment dispute (one where it's easy to sympathize with Maggie), they decided to kill off her most prominent character in the show. It sucks even more because Ned, while he does have his flaws, is a nice guy all around, so killing his wife, who he otherwise deeply loved, feels particularly cruel to him. I suppose if there was any positives to this event, it's that it's a status quo shake up the writers couldn't undo; despite magical or supernatural elements occasionally popping up in the show, even outside of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, the show is at least grounded enough to not outright raise the dead after they're clearly shown on-screen to have died. It also lead to the interesting dynamic where Ned marries Edna Krabappel, up until she died anyway, so... man, this is just depressing now.
doctor nick comes back but i guess he gets a pass because his death wasnt as consequential, so he gets to visit from beyond the grave every now and then. there's also the whole fit tony thing of course...
Homer’s attraction to Maude was a minor running gag all throughout the first ten years. I can recall a few instances as late as season 6 where this was referenced
@@jonathanriojas2177 Well that first comment was off the top of my head, I can recall a few later examples now, such as “Maude, eh?” in Season 9 and “Ma’am” in Season 11
I'd love to see one about Jasper. He's just really consistently funny. One of my favorites has to be when the retirement house just got absolutely blasted to bits and he just goes "Was that you or was that me?"
I think Reverend Lovejoy would be a very interesting character to go over, he definitely has a lot of background I think would be good to cover, as well as being featured frequently but never getting talked about. Would be interested to hear about him in the future
I have a theory that killing Maude might have actually been the Simpsons writers' way of sending a message to Fox. A year earlier, in 1998, there was a famous payment dispute between Fox and all the main Simpsons voice actors (who demanded a share of the merchandising revenue among other things). Fox actually started to seek replacement voices for the main characters but had to back down after Groening took the side of the actors (they probably also realised how negatively the fans would react if all the main characters were recasted). The main actors were given big pay raises. Then, in 1999 Fox refused to give a much smaller raise to Maggie Roswell, who decided to quit. Marcia Mitzman Gaven was hired as Roswell's replacement. The writers obviously had no control over Fox's payment policy, but they still had to clean up the mess. They could have just accepted what Fox had done to Roswell and continued the show normally, but instead they prominently killed off Maude and turned Roswell's three other characters into virtually mute background characters. They clearly didn't want Maude to be voiced by a new actor who didn't sound the same (and decided to turn the necessity into virtue with an interesting status quo change), but I think there was also a further message to Fox: "If you try to replace our actors, we'll rather kill off all the characters than let them be recasted. Remember that during the next payment dispute. You have been warned." So Maude's death was the writers' way of supporting the actors against Fox, even if it was too late for Roswell.
In that Season 32 episode, we see Homer delivering Todd Flanders, however in Lisa’s First Word we see that Todd is already born and is walking and talking when the Simpsons first move to Evergreen Terrace. Boy I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.
There's something deeply fascinating in how Maude was killed off in large part because she was seen as disposable, yet her death ended up with such dramatic and irreversible repercussions on the series that she's now widely talked about.
Maude Flanders is a classic example of "You truly don't know what you have until it is gone." Essentially, a small piece of representation of our childhood and her death was a neccessary evil. We care because she was there.
That 'unfinished business' character arc that Maude Flanders was given has something to do with the randomness and tragicness of her sudden death. I saw that episode, what, 20 years ago or so, and I still remember her falling off the bleachers vividly. I think it would have set up any Simpsons character for the same kind of 'unfinished business' arc.
Simpsons jumped the shark for me when she died. Ned had to deal with so much shit from Homer but this went way too far. It's clear to me that they killed her off to spite her former voice actress.
Great stuff as always, fascinating from the writer’s perspective even. I’m sad Professor Frink seems to have fallen out of the running for upcoming histories. Come on! Professor Frink, Professor Frink, he makes you laugh, he makes you think!
Disco Stu seems like a good candidate for the next Simpsons Histories. He is a really minor character that was only intended for a one-off gag, but for some reason he stuck around, albeit in sparse appearances.
Yeah, I had mentioned it in the Smithers vid, but I wasn't a fan of it. I get what they're going for with the Burns joke. But him killing himself over it is sad 😕
Also is it just me or does it seem sort of odd Smithers would kill himself just bc Burns gets married? I mean Burns has been in many relationships over the show and it upset Smithers, but he never had that dramatic a reaction. It seems like he’s accepted Burns will probably never love him. I guess marriage could’ve been the final straw for him but eh :/
That whole segment rubbed me the wrong way. I get it's supposed to be shocking, but so many of these fates just feel like cheap jokes and are annoyingly anti-climactic. Specially Homer's. It doesn't even make sense for him to die that young (unless it was another clone).
Did anyone notice that Todd Flanders is so badass, he was helping Ned to welcome the Simpsons to the neighbourhood around three years before he was even born?
here is an interesting character for a potential simpsons history, mr Largo He was used a couple of times during the first few seasons, fell into mostly obscurity past season seven but then he made a comeback in season 20's and beyond and they seem to really love to use him for gags
There's been a few characters like that actually, classic era ones that just quickly fell under the wayside and then made a comeback much later on. Rabbi Krustofski, Marvin Monroe, Artie Ziff, even some Season One cameo guys like RV Bob and Santa's Little Helper's old owner.
Yeah I’m pretty conflicted on Maude’s death tbh. On one hand I like that it opened up so many new storylines for the show, but on the other hand she left a bit of a void in the cast. Like there aren’t that many other married couples in the show where the husband and wife have a developed relationship (like with Hibbert and Wiggum we never really see their wives) so it’s sort of disappointing to just make Flanders another single man on the show.
in some recent videos he stated doing the sort of trio of bullies in one video (Kearney, Jimbo, and Dolph) which i think is kinda sad 'cause i think each of them have enough to discuss, and enough individuality to make a unique simpsons history on each of them. though i do love the idea of a simpsons mysteries episodes about his age, and the complete imposibility of his son who goes to the same school as him
I don't think Maude's death was a mistake. It's a shame about the circumstances that brought it about and I'd prefer if those has been resolved differently, but I think given the situation, it wasn't a bad call. I also kind of like how mundane her interactions were leading up to it and that it was so early in the episode. It gave the sudden nature of her death more weight and let the rest of the episode explore how this event affected Ned rather than banking on the shock itself giving the moment value.
Maude Flanders is definitely weird in the fact that she...only became important due to the fact she died. Her death is really excessive and deliberately cruel, clearly a spiteful jab at losing the voice actor and wanting to make it as clear as possible they were disproportionally pissed off. I do think it’s fascinating that we probably wouldn’t even think about Maude without her dying, however, so I darkly see her death as a “happy accident”, in terms of adding to the writing of stories overall.
I just love this channel! It takes Simpsons to another level. I'm glad to see, somebody else is meditating about meaning of each episode and also discussing with itself so lot. Thanks.
*In hindsight I am baffled that this RUclips series is what finally got me into The Simpsons, into watching the movie again and appreciating the secondary characters, into listening to all the commentaries and even checking out Disenchantment (not bad, stience)* Thank you for daring to ask questions about a show, for summarizing content only the hardest of fans would have known on the forums and bringing it to us all with great visuals, and for giving retrospectives that got people to appreciate Modern Simpsonsa little more
This was an interesting one to watch :) I really love to see a history of Quimby, I love to see the friendship of his and Wiggum and how he has developed into simpsons :)
Yes! Lenny’s my favourite character, so proud of him getting this close. I’d like to nominate Comic Book Guy and Groundskeeper Willie too. Great characters, meh spotlights in Season 12 and 17 respectively, but they have fared a bit better since. On the subject of Maude, I really can’t think of her without thinking of her death (or funny jumping animation in Bart After Dark). With how much they’ve been doing with her in the past decade, it really does seem like they regret their decision to kill her off. Unfortunately, her disappearance for most of the 2000s made her feel much more like a prop for Ned’s character arc, but I’m happy they’ve rectified that now.
Maude's death gave Ned a more unique characterization, gave us some nicer Maude moments in flashbacks, and we got to see Mrs. Krabappel find true love and happiness before her death (Rest in peace, Marcia Wallace). As weird as this may sound, killing Maude was a very good move, despite it being for a pretty bad reason
Ned's development is such a rollercoaster. His introduction as the picture-perfect neighbor, the "flanderization" into a source of religious related satire, his transformation into a figure that's even more tragic than Moe. There's....a lot. And they gave Ned a pretty good conclussion. He became a teacher thanks to Edna's inspiration, and it's surprisingly wholesome for this era.
@@matti.8465 hence why I really want a video of it. Plus he's so much of a Chad good Christian boy he married Pattie, who may I remind you is a lesbian. Dude's got the charm to literally make his own damn harem.
I remember Al Jean saying he regretted killing Maude in some of the DVD audio commentaries (I think once in the episode where she was killed off, and again in a later S11 episode. I only bought DVDs up to S11 back in the day because that's around the time I thought the show went too far down hill, personally. So him mentioning this regret in those commentaries must be somewhere around there. I'm guessing the second time he said this was somewhere around the S11 episode where Ned has that pointless flirtationship with that Gospel singer who he never actually did anything much with). I personally hated how they killed her off - and it's all the worse and more distasteful knowing her original voice actor left over a pay dispute. It's just very mean spirited how they killed the character off after that - *especially* when the replacement voice actress nailed Maude's voice so well that 'you can't tell the diddly-difference' so to speak. Like, there really was just no need to do it at all. Maude never may have been a favorite character of mine - but she was nontheless a useful supporting character (and personally I wouldn't have minded them fleshing out her role as the supportive wife more over the years. Instead of just killing her off - maybe we could've seen that even a relationship as 'perfect' as Maude and Ned's could still have some forks in the road, like Homer and Marge. If they wanted to give Ned some drama, they could've done it without killing her off). The death itself was also frustrating. It's like they REALLY hated Maude (or her original actress) by the time they chose to have her die such a ridiculous, played for laughs death. And the later credits song of 'She landed on her head' in the episode where Ned met the Gospel singer was likewise very cheap. They did Maude dirty. It's kind of frustrating how the show wanted to have it both ways - they wanted us to laugh at her death, but also feel really bad for Ned grieving (which yeah, of course we would feel the latter). It's just...the show does 'sad comedy' really poorly in instances such as this. It's not that I don't like dark humor or 'sad comedy', Bojack Horseman was one of my favorite animated shows (and they managed to make Herb later dying of a cause that wasn't his cancer funny - despite the audience being pretty sure he could die soon, he likewise had an unexpected death, though his was offscreen. We still saw the sadness of Bojack never making up with him over the betrayal). The problem for me is that The Simpsons have just never been 'the show' to use this kind of ultra dark comedy - when they do, they just kind of set themselves up to fail. When a show like Bojack does it - it feels well thought out (the character Herb was already dying when we as an audience met him. Not to mention it is not a 'status quo' show, the characters age and face big life changes and growth throughout the series run, unlike The Simpsons). When a 'status quo' show like The Simpsons does it....it'll just always come across as cheap and spiteful. It just doesn't work with the status quo formula to kill off a key supporting character - especially not so suddenly and cheaply. I think it's their 'status quo' formula where most characters will just never ever age or die which makes it all the more jarring when a character like Maude is needlessly killed off (again, she had a voice actress which fit the role. I was upset that Edna died, but I understood it perhaps couldn't be helped that time - nobody could've nailed that voice like Marsha. At least you also knew the producers still loved the actress who played Edna...again, with Maude's death it just felt like a big 'f you' to the original actress for leaving).
Honestly, Maude's death doesn't bother me that much anymore, but that's just because it's been supplanted by *_Homer delivering Todd by using a RUclips video._* I swear the writers are trolling us at this point. "Oh, so you like continuity, do you? Well, here's what we think about that!"
These Simpsons Histories' are the only way i find out what happens to certain characters after season 13-ish, and so many of the choices made by the writers in the modern era are just so bafflingly bizarre and inexplicable. It almost makes me want to soldier on past the point I originally tapped out of the series just to see how some of these scenarios play out. Almost. When I watch RealJims break down the arcs of characters like Ms. Krabappel, Waylon Smithers, and Mona Simpson beyond season 20, it genuinely makes me worry for Al Jean and wonder whether he needs to schedule an MRI..
See a lot of those characters I'd agree, but Edna Krabappel? She probably had some of the best development and stories in the series. Her dynamic with Ned was actually extremely good.
Great video as always! Since you're taking suggestions, I take a fun thing to explore would be the "relationshipt" between The Simpsons and The Twilight Zone, since there are so many direct references to specific episodes and settings. If that's not enough for a whole video, you could always tack on some classic Star Trek; you can tell how much the sci-fi references in the show were inspired by that. Speaking of which, have you done a video on Comic Book Guy? Not that he is one of the more interesting characters, but something that amazes me about him is that Classic Simpsons basically predicted Internet culture. Just look at the Poochie episode, it's still relevant today, it's aplicable to the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, for once.
Attempt number 2 at asking for side show Mel! Lol love the vids man! I’ve always thought Maude was a really interesting character in the way they use her, also the scene of her jumping up and down on the statue in Bart after dark made me laugh so hard as a kid when I first saw it, love that you included a pic of that iconic Maude moment!
Imagine if they did a halloween episode where to try and fill in the void left by Maude's death, someone tried Cloning her, but something goes wrong and instead of settling for just one, they create an Army of Maude Clones, and they need to do something to resolve this issue, unless they already did an episode with Maude Clones, not entirely sure if they did or not.
I remember when Maude's death aired. Having been a fan since the show started, I was shocked that the show would perma-kill character everyone knew, albeit one no one felt too strongly about. I remember thinking it was the show's writers feeling like that they had to catch up with South Park and Family Guy on edgy humor. The Simpsons had certainly lost a lot of relevancy at this point and SP and FG were red hot. To me, this episode marks the end of an era for the Simpsons. Many say it was Grimey's death that kicked off Jerk Ass Homer, but I think it was Maude's.
HECK YES!!!!! I really do hate what they did to her in later seasons. Especially with Marge and Maude's relationship. Flan canyon is one of the worst from what I remember.
The writers outright state in the commentary for this episode that they regret killing Maude. It is actually a good example of the strange amount of emotional investment we have in fictional characters. She was, for all intensive purposes, a background character for most of the show. But her death, and the circumstances surrounding it (both in the show and real life), resulted in Maude gaining this weird mystique that she has today. I think the reason most people view her death as a mistake is that it takes away more potential for stories than it provides. Sure, you could argue "Nedna" would not have happened, but who knows what they could have done with Flanders family with Maude still alive for the last 20 or so years.
That's interesting 'cause I recall them saying in the commentary for some season 4 or 5 episode that Maude was better off dead. Either they regretted killing her off just within that time between those recordings or there's different opinions among the crew.
Bonus episode! I had never covered Maude's death in much detail on this channel... So the timing seemed right to talk about her, with Season 11 the next retrospective in the sequence.
(Also "pittance" is a fun word to say.)
*8 minutes ago*
I am once again asking for a Bishop Barron cameo in your Reverend Lovejoy Simpsons Histories.
Do Benevenstanciano. It'll be short.
WHAT A PITTANCE!
@@LucasRazorBlade did you throw down your tag team title when you said that?
For a second I was like "Wait a minute... RUclips didn't exist when Todd was born!" and then I realized that, by now, Todd would have been born in the 2010s. Curse you, floating timeline!
Even worse is the realisation that Todd is so badass he was welcoming the Simpsons to the neighbourhood around three years before he was even born...
It's these sort of things that make me feel like the writers are committing HARD to the floating timeline and want to make sure everyone is aware of it
What’s even crazier is that Maggie is less than two years old (possibly one year old) (I think ?). If we accept the floating timeline then she was always born just last year - or the previous year - and continued to do so throughout the late 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s. For some reason the implications of a constantly shifting birthdate seem the most bizarre for a toddler character.
The Simpsons should just become a period show set in the 90s at this point. I can't deal with a millennial Homer
@@JustAFilmGuy its scary to think that Homer, who was originally meant to be a Baby Boomer, would be considered a millennial in this floating timeline within a few years
I think the biggest problem with Maude's death was the effect it had on Ned. The whole function of Ned, from literally the first episode, was to be the anti-Homer. We're meant to identify with the Simpsons as this imperfect but likeable family. Meanwhile the Flandereseses are this nauseatingly perfect, really quite annoying family who of course inspire irrational hatred in Homer. As said in this video, it's all about envy. Killing Maude changes that dynamic.
(As a side note, I really hated the way they treated her death and Homer's part in it. Like, yeah, Homer is dumb and inconsiderate, but he seems totally unbothered by his responsibility for the death of a wife and mother)
Random seeing you commenting here but yes you are right the tone of this is off.
Yeah, if Ned wasn't already becoming super religious before, after her death the Flanders became not a "perfect family", with a lot of episodes centering on grief, how weird and sheltered the boys become without a mother, Ned getting weird obsessive plotlines to fill time.
If it was done in Season 6,7, or 8 they could have pulled it off well. But I feel like by the time she died Homer was already Jerkass Homer, leading to a very unlikeble side to him in the episode. Infact killing Maud seems like something that Season 6 and 8 would have done specifically, atleast to me.
When one of my favourite London/railway RUclipsrs is commenting on one of my favourite Simpsons RUclips channels, suddenly my life seems complete! :) (Actually it won't be until I FINALLY pull my finger out and get my own channel going!) :)
True , but we also synthetic to Flanders. And what’s more synthetic than a single dad
Nothing hits home how weird the floating timeline is like a flashback episode that features a technology that was invented 17 years after the show started.
Nothing also hits home like an episode centering around a person or a fad that's already metaphorically dead (see: N*Sync or the episodes guest starring Britney Spears or Bill Gates, who's swiftly fallen out of favor and metamorphosed into Mr. Burns) so those episodes are considered, "Classic."
Nothing hits home like realising that Todd Flanders is so badass he was helping Ned to welcome the Simpsons to the neighbourhood around three years before he was even born...
“In many ways, Maude Flanders was a supporting player in our lives. She didn't grab our attention with memorable catchphrases or comical accents. But, whether you noticed her or not, Maude was always there... and we thought she always would be.”
―Reverend Lovejoy, 2000
I honestly think that the episode they kill off Maude is the true “jump-the-shark” episode. Not because I care about Maude, but because of HOW she died. The sheer callousness of it all and how little Homer cares that he indirectly killed a person ruins Homer’s character for me. I have a much easier time defending jockey elves and “alligators-being-alive-the-entire time” than Homer in that episode.
I'd argue that the Kidney Trouble episode is the first real jump the shark episode. Homer reaches a whole new level of awfulness by refusing to donate his kidney to his father.
@@JoelJurvakainen That episode sucks too. I guess the difference for me is that nobody dies in that one, and Homer gets some punishment for his actions. Let’s just agree that both of those episodes are awful!
Yeah, I think it also struggles to work with Homer's antagonistic nature towards Ned. Yeah he has the decency to tone it down a LITTLE afterwards, but he's still a contemptuous jerk to him in the end, which is hard to make petty but harmless after he KILLED HIS WIFE.
There's so many characters they botch up because they believe they can do as many horrific things as possible so long as it technically wasn't on purpose. They still couldn't care less, but since it wasn't out of callousness per se it's okay. Spongebob is another character destroyed because of his usually harmless dimwittedness ascending to him systematically destroying lives on a regular basis.
Eh.
@@JoelJurvakainen I'm not willing to judge Homer too harshly for that one. "Homer, you're dumb as a mule and twice as ugly. If a stranger offers you a ride, I say take it!" Abe Simpson was arguably an even worse father than Cotton Hill.
I never liked Maude's death. It adds an uncomfortable level of mean-spiritedness to the show, between the awkward Homer/Maude dynamic that you mentioned, and the audience now knowing that Homer is constantly a jerk to a widower. It's a clear leftover from the edgier, over-the-top Season 11 era, and I agree that it seems like they regretted that choice.
As mediocre as "Clown in the Dumps" is, I think it had the right idea with Krusty's father's death; it allowed a character to cope with grief in a way that doesn't make them a fundamentally tragic character. Ned being a double widower is just sad, and Maude being a fairly minor character overall doesn't change that.
i honestly didn't mind "clown in the dumps" but it's the overhype beforehand that killed it
I agree that they dealt with Maude's death callously and that it makes Homer's meanspiritedness really uncomfortable on the show, but I don't think it was necessarily a bad move. It produced lots of good storylines that I've really liked, it's just the way it was dealt with that was the problem. A season 1 style Homer (not saying that they should have done it that early or anything) trying to deal with comforting Ned in his grief would have been better than the jerk ass Homer that Ned gets lumbered with.
This! That's exactly how I feel about her death.
I think the main problem is homer have caused it
Clown In The Dumps dealt with a death WAY, way worse than Alone Again, Natura-Diddily, which actually got an emotional reaction out of me. Yes it kinda resulted in Ned becoming a more tragic character, but the aftermath and him trying to find a way to handle his grief was exceptionally welldone. Homer is granted far from innocent in it since he did contribute to Maude's death, but I don't think he's as much of a jerk as people say. As misguided as his attempts are he still tries to help Ned, and clearly knows what he did was wrong. It's a far less meanspirited Homer than the one we see in Co-Dependent's Day if you ask me.
It's so weird seeing the simpsons characters using cell phones and laptops
really? they’ve been doing that for 10+ years
@@seatman Yes, but it still feels weird because the Simpsons was the epytome of the 90's and arguably should never have left that decade.
@@seatman Homer is using one in a flashback episode that should logically be before pretty much the entire series; that makes it so much weirder to me.
@@seatman yeah but 99.8% of the time I've watched it was the first 10 seasons so it's still strange
Like, the first personal cell phone came out in 1995, but they weren't widespread until 2004. I could see the Simpsons still having Motorolas and being 2 decades behind everyone else, but not current iPhone users.
Putting my nomination in for a SHs episode about Snake or Bumblebee Man.
We definitely need a snake episode, best( worst) criminal mastermind of Springfield
Choice Choices
Snake video is needed
Wtf is rem doing here i don't like this cross over episode
I also support a snake video
Going back and watching the episode where she died is such a trip. It feels so vindictive. We get Maude killed in an unceremonious freak gag accident. Adding in the part about Homer blocking the ambulance. Almost no reflection on her death from characters other than Ned. Bart messes with her funeral cake to say "Rest in Pee." Homer and Bart put all evidence of her existence through a literal woodchipper. And then it immediately turns into a story about getting Ned to replace her with another woman even though it's only been like a couple weeks.
I get the Fox executives being mad at Maggie but it's like the writers personally wanted to give her a big "fuck you."
The sad thing is that it felt a bit like they were TRYING to be a bit earnest and poignant about it, but we'd reached a point in the show where they just couldn't turn off the shtick. The characters were all wacky shells of their former selves. OF COURSE they would make it all Homer's fault and be nominally remorseful at best because that's their go-to now.
Considering the $150 raise story, I don't blame her for quitting
And of course, a eulogy about what an unimportant character she was. As if to say, "Why do you think you're worth more, Roswell?"
Agreed. This is where the show really turned a corner. The gags start to get more crude/mean spirited, and less clever. The writers start making very odd choices around this time. Family Guy debuted a year or so before, and even though it was kind of a blatant rip-off of the Simpsons, it seems like the Simpsons writers were trying to compete with it and emulate the crassness and wacky randomness of Family Guy..
The cherry on the top of the spiteful sundae is how the episode where Maude suddenly dies ends with a song which has the lyrics "She landed on her head / But now it's time to get on with his life"
I would love to see a Simpsons Histories on Snake. He’s a really weird character, occasionally portrayed as a threat, but usually just stealing cars or robbing the Kwik-E-Mart. The Seemingly Neverending Story gives him a backstory, which I actually kinda like, but it’s probably been retconned.
Edit: Hey, he did it as the very next one. Thanks!
He was a archaeologist at one point
Snake is very interesting, he has a whole life going around on the sidelines of the show xDD
Yeah I vote for Snake too. He's painted as such an oddly tragic character as the series goes on, like his relationship and single father troubles to his reasons for turning to crime
"Goodbye student loan payments!" I feel like that line alone should open the door to learning a lot more about Snake's past.
I don't know, there's a lot of buzz around Lenny
That T-shirt cannon joke in season 26 is so dark and messed up, it's actually pretty hilarious.
I love it.
It's honestly my favorite gag in the whole show, i love dark humor like that.
Its kinda on the nose honestly. The bit with flanders looking into the camera is a bit eyerolling
“Jerkass Marge’s evil sugar agenda.”
Nice
Honey honey
"Why would the fruit punch advisory board give us bad advice?" is a very underrated joke and has become my shorthand for questioning the motives of any organization when they make a statement.
NO SUGAR!
Marge and Lisa in unison: annoyed grunt
Marge was acting as a caring parent/friend to Springfield and her family. She was doing the same in she tried to end TV violence.
I *love* how Maude and Edna dying are the only changes that stick and haunt the Simpsons - Maude due to how carelessly they killed her, and Edna due to the looming specter of how old the actors are now. Hell, they had to turn Kearney into a bizarrely miniature adult now.
Kearney's been an adult for decades now. Right off the top of my head I remember Lisa the Iconoclast (airing in season 7, 1996) claimed he was there to see America's bicentennial, in 1976.
Gingerbread Cauldron?! I thought they shut that place down!
Took my comment before I had a chance 😆
I wish I could give this 10 likes 😂😂😂
I could tell he put that in here just for this comment.
I think her death made Ned a really interesting character. His grief, acceptance and questioning dating was really something. While she was a forgetful character for us, she meant everything to him. That’s something people forget about in life.
Maude is the gwen Stacy of the simpsons in that her death ended up causing a lot of important changes and development so later fans and writers believe she must have been important and so retconed as much as they needed to make her important
I don't know much about Spiderman history so that is interesting to hear. Did Gwen get a big boost in popularity after killing her off?
I was thinking about Stranger Things and the whole "Justice for Barb" sentiment that went around. There's something about these catalyst characters that everyone gets behind.
@@TheRealJims gwen's death has a popularity of its own. It was a pretty shocking thing for superhero stories back then to have the hero fail to save someone, even implying that spiderman probably killed her out of inexperience. it changed everything.
that said, fans became angry and there is a story about stan lee being criticized at a meeting with fans, leading him to force the writer of amazing to resurrect gwen, which lead to her getting cloned.
if there is one character that got more popularity that is Mary Jane, spiderman's next girlfriend who became more and more relevant
@@TheRealJims gwen Stacy from the 70's is interesting in a strictly meta sense when compared to spidys other love interests
Gwen isnt mind blowing hot and caught in constant love triangles like MJ
Gwen isnt related to his villains like Liz Allen
Gwen isnt a villain like black cat
The whole idea was she was Peters "safe/normal life" option, then green goblin kills her solely because of her relationship with peter
Gwens death sent peter into a dark age where he was almost as edgy as Batman and brought up gwens death for why he stop getting close to people
Later fans saw this thought gwen must be really important to have this kind of effect, looked back saw she really was just that bland saw the only important thing she did was DIE and decide to just rewrite the story to make her important. Thats how we got spider gwen and it's why simpsons writers keep bringing back Maude nostalgia not meeting reality
@@troperhghar9898 i agree with gwen but not with maude. i see her as a victim of circumstances, her death was influenced by external events so when they got the chance to bring her back they decided to fully do it, even if only as a ghost or in flashback
A Simpsons Histories episode of Ned would seem like an appropriate follow-up. After all, everyone in the Flanders family has been covered, except for him.
I think that a character like Ned has so much history that it would take a long time to make, I think he’s mainly focusing on the more minor characters for now, that being said I would still love for him to make it lol
He's a real square tyre. I mean a CUBE, man.
I honestly find it incredibly petty that when Maggie Roswell left the show after a payment dispute (one where it's easy to sympathize with Maggie), they decided to kill off her most prominent character in the show. It sucks even more because Ned, while he does have his flaws, is a nice guy all around, so killing his wife, who he otherwise deeply loved, feels particularly cruel to him. I suppose if there was any positives to this event, it's that it's a status quo shake up the writers couldn't undo; despite magical or supernatural elements occasionally popping up in the show, even outside of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, the show is at least grounded enough to not outright raise the dead after they're clearly shown on-screen to have died. It also lead to the interesting dynamic where Ned marries Edna Krabappel, up until she died anyway, so... man, this is just depressing now.
doctor nick comes back but i guess he gets a pass because his death wasnt as consequential, so he gets to visit from beyond the grave every now and then.
there's also the whole fit tony thing of course...
Putting the nomination in for a Simpsons Histories on those Shelbyville jerks and their attractive cousins.
I think Kent Brockman would an excellent choice for a future Simpson's Histories!
I for one approve this suggestion
I've been pushing for this for YEARS!
Homer’s attraction to Maude was a minor running gag all throughout the first ten years.
I can recall a few instances as late as season 6 where this was referenced
" The wife has a thing for me which she hides behind hostility"
The first one that comes too mind is "Your wifes butt is bigger than MY wifes butt!"
If you recall a few instances as LATE as season 6, then wouldn’t it be just throughout the first 6 years?
@@jonathanriojas2177 Well that first comment was off the top of my head, I can recall a few later examples now, such as “Maude, eh?” in Season 9 and “Ma’am” in Season 11
Was looking for this comment. Haha. Homer had Maude Fever long after season 2
I'm always up for Lenny as long as you don't tell us how he lives.
"Scratch, eh?"
"Yep."
"...Maude, eh?"
Great underrated joke.
I'd love to see one about Jasper. He's just really consistently funny. One of my favorites has to be when the retirement house just got absolutely blasted to bits and he just goes "Was that you or was that me?"
We all know Homer and Ned staged Maude’s death together and made it look like an accident when Ned failed to kill her in Bart of Darkness
But that's just a theory... a Simpsons theory!
Stop it. Get some help.
I think Reverend Lovejoy would be a very interesting character to go over, he definitely has a lot of background I think would be good to cover, as well as being featured frequently but never getting talked about. Would be interested to hear about him in the future
I think that would be pretty interesting
He’s too boring
@@cakes3958 no character is too boring. this was literally an episode about maude flanders, who prefers unflavored ice cream
@@cakes3958 He's borED rather than borING.
All because they didn't want to pay the actress' flights from Denver
TheRealJims: Lenny and Carl have been gaining a lot of ground...
Everyone: NOT LENNYYYY!!
P.S. Please do Lenny and Carl :)
I don’t know, there’s a lot of buzz around Lenny…
@@Ned_Zeppelin_324 *Tents fingers*
So weird to see a flashback episode make a reference to RUclips.
it’s crazy she died in season 11. i feel like she was around for most of the show but there’s been over 20 years without her.
I have a theory that killing Maude might have actually been the Simpsons writers' way of sending a message to Fox. A year earlier, in 1998, there was a famous payment dispute between Fox and all the main Simpsons voice actors (who demanded a share of the merchandising revenue among other things). Fox actually started to seek replacement voices for the main characters but had to back down after Groening took the side of the actors (they probably also realised how negatively the fans would react if all the main characters were recasted). The main actors were given big pay raises. Then, in 1999 Fox refused to give a much smaller raise to Maggie Roswell, who decided to quit. Marcia Mitzman Gaven was hired as Roswell's replacement.
The writers obviously had no control over Fox's payment policy, but they still had to clean up the mess. They could have just accepted what Fox had done to Roswell and continued the show normally, but instead they prominently killed off Maude and turned Roswell's three other characters into virtually mute background characters. They clearly didn't want Maude to be voiced by a new actor who didn't sound the same (and decided to turn the necessity into virtue with an interesting status quo change), but I think there was also a further message to Fox: "If you try to replace our actors, we'll rather kill off all the characters than let them be recasted. Remember that during the next payment dispute. You have been warned." So Maude's death was the writers' way of supporting the actors against Fox, even if it was too late for Roswell.
Please do an episode about the boat Painting
The boat painting has such inconsistent origins, this would be great
Yes
It is a buisness gift
@@187Streak There are many origin stories for the painting
This is a really good suggestion!!
In that Season 32 episode, we see Homer delivering Todd Flanders, however in Lisa’s First Word we see that Todd is already born and is walking and talking when the Simpsons first move to Evergreen Terrace.
Boy I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.
There's something deeply fascinating in how Maude was killed off in large part because she was seen as disposable, yet her death ended up with such dramatic and irreversible repercussions on the series that she's now widely talked about.
Someday, TheRealJims will finally do an episode on Lenny. And I'll be there to watch it.
0:44 is still a more touching eulogy than Reverend Lovejoy gave
Faceless Maude is the most horrifying thing, I've ever seen on this show.
Maude Flanders is a classic example of "You truly don't know what you have until it is gone."
Essentially, a small piece of representation of our childhood and her death was a neccessary evil. We care because she was there.
That 'unfinished business' character arc that Maude Flanders was given has something to do with the randomness and tragicness of her sudden death. I saw that episode, what, 20 years ago or so, and I still remember her falling off the bleachers vividly. I think it would have set up any Simpsons character for the same kind of 'unfinished business' arc.
Simpsons jumped the shark for me when she died. Ned had to deal with so much shit from Homer but this went way too far.
It's clear to me that they killed her off to spite her former voice actress.
Agree
Great stuff as always, fascinating from the writer’s perspective even.
I’m sad Professor Frink seems to have fallen out of the running for upcoming histories. Come on! Professor Frink, Professor Frink, he makes you laugh, he makes you think!
Really think its time for a Simpsons Mysteries about John Swartzwelder.
He gave an amazing interview
I still want to see a Maggie Simpson histories
Amazing! I'm looking forward to watching this! :D
How does this have 11 likes
Disco Stu seems like a good candidate for the next Simpsons Histories. He is a really minor character that was only intended for a one-off gag, but for some reason he stuck around, albeit in sparse appearances.
11:16 Can we also talk about Waylon Smithers death for a moment. Holy heck was I the only one who was put off by that. He deserved so much better.
Yeah, I had mentioned it in the Smithers vid, but I wasn't a fan of it. I get what they're going for with the Burns joke. But him killing himself over it is sad 😕
Also is it just me or does it seem sort of odd Smithers would kill himself just bc Burns gets married? I mean Burns has been in many relationships over the show and it upset Smithers, but he never had that dramatic a reaction. It seems like he’s accepted Burns will probably never love him. I guess marriage could’ve been the final straw for him but eh :/
That whole segment rubbed me the wrong way. I get it's supposed to be shocking, but so many of these fates just feel like cheap jokes and are annoyingly anti-climactic.
Specially Homer's. It doesn't even make sense for him to die that young (unless it was another clone).
I never knew they killed him off. I am so glad I stop watching long ago
It's honestly homophobic-borderline "bury your gays."
Maude being with the Devil's not that strange. I mean, Treehouse of Horror 4 and all.
Never thought about it that way! 😅
Did anyone notice that Todd Flanders is so badass, he was helping Ned to welcome the Simpsons to the neighbourhood around three years before he was even born?
Flanders Ladder felt more like a treehouse of horror than an actual epiosde.
I always considered Maude’s death to be one of the shows biggest mistakes
here is an interesting character for a potential simpsons history, mr Largo
He was used a couple of times during the first few seasons, fell into mostly obscurity past season seven but then he made a comeback in season 20's and beyond and they seem to really love to use him for gags
There's been a few characters like that actually, classic era ones that just quickly fell under the wayside and then made a comeback much later on. Rabbi Krustofski, Marvin Monroe, Artie Ziff, even some Season One cameo guys like RV Bob and Santa's Little Helper's old owner.
"Is there something FUNNY about the word tromboner?!"
I love how you are doing Maggie Roswell’s characters because I feel they are often overlooked and underrated
I’m still rooting for Snake he’s gotta be one of the most stand alone minor characters in whole show
Yeah I’m pretty conflicted on Maude’s death tbh. On one hand I like that it opened up so many new storylines for the show, but on the other hand she left a bit of a void in the cast. Like there aren’t that many other married couples in the show where the husband and wife have a developed relationship (like with Hibbert and Wiggum we never really see their wives) so it’s sort of disappointing to just make Flanders another single man on the show.
Definitely do Kearney. There are so many weird jokes about his age he could almost be a Simpsons Mysteries episode
Do an episode about Kearney's son specifically.
in some recent videos he stated doing the sort of trio of bullies in one video (Kearney, Jimbo, and Dolph) which i think is kinda sad 'cause i think each of them have enough to discuss, and enough individuality to make a unique simpsons history on each of them.
though i do love the idea of a simpsons mysteries episodes about his age, and the complete imposibility of his son who goes to the same school as him
A Simpsons Histories on Duffman would be interesting.
Yeah he has some unexpected depths established later in the show
"A moment of silence for the Super Taco...OH YEAH!"
I’d like to see a histories video on Clancy Wiggum, think there’s a lot of change that happened to him as a character to talk about
Hearing she died 20 years ago made me feel way to friggin old and I was a kid when that happened.
I don't think Maude's death was a mistake. It's a shame about the circumstances that brought it about and I'd prefer if those has been resolved differently, but I think given the situation, it wasn't a bad call. I also kind of like how mundane her interactions were leading up to it and that it was so early in the episode. It gave the sudden nature of her death more weight and let the rest of the episode explore how this event affected Ned rather than banking on the shock itself giving the moment value.
I never really noticed that she actually has a realistic human face compared to the other cartoony look simpsons has
The series has gone on so long, that RUclips is now part of Simpsons flashbacks....
Jesus christ.
They should’ve made her come back by saying she faked her death and she’s been living a very sleazy lifestyle but she wants to come back to Ned.
That would be so much worse really because then she left her kids and let them suffer for so long thinking she was gone. But it would be doable.
Maude Flanders is definitely weird in the fact that she...only became important due to the fact she died. Her death is really excessive and deliberately cruel, clearly a spiteful jab at losing the voice actor and wanting to make it as clear as possible they were disproportionally pissed off. I do think it’s fascinating that we probably wouldn’t even think about Maude without her dying, however, so I darkly see her death as a “happy accident”, in terms of adding to the writing of stories overall.
The Todd forgetting his mom episode was pretty dreadful and unexpected.
I just love this channel! It takes Simpsons to another level. I'm glad to see, somebody else is meditating about meaning of each episode and also discussing with itself so lot. Thanks.
Also, it doesn't try to glorify the "golden years" while acknowledging the later episodes' existence.
*In hindsight I am baffled that this RUclips series is what finally got me into The Simpsons, into watching the movie again and appreciating the secondary characters, into listening to all the commentaries and even checking out Disenchantment (not bad, stience)*
Thank you for daring to ask questions about a show, for summarizing content only the hardest of fans would have known on the forums and bringing it to us all with great visuals, and for giving retrospectives that got people to appreciate Modern Simpsonsa little more
This was an interesting one to watch :) I really love to see a history of Quimby, I love to see the friendship of his and Wiggum and how he has developed into simpsons :)
“Lenny and Carl have been gaining a lot of ground”
Aw nuts-I mean...aw nuts...
Another excellent video. Your vids are always such a treat, keep up the good work.
I get so excited when I see a new simpsons history I always have to watch it immediately, great work man!
I'd kind of like an examination of Maggie, frankly. If one exists, that's great, but I'd like to know how relevant the eternal baby is to the plots.
Yes! Lenny’s my favourite character, so proud of him getting this close. I’d like to nominate Comic Book Guy and Groundskeeper Willie too. Great characters, meh spotlights in Season 12 and 17 respectively, but they have fared a bit better since.
On the subject of Maude, I really can’t think of her without thinking of her death (or funny jumping animation in Bart After Dark). With how much they’ve been doing with her in the past decade, it really does seem like they regret their decision to kill her off. Unfortunately, her disappearance for most of the 2000s made her feel much more like a prop for Ned’s character arc, but I’m happy they’ve rectified that now.
This came up on my feed as a recommended vid. Glad I watched. Very interesting dissection. Subscribed to watch more, thanks for the vid :)
What a great show you’ve made here. I’ve watched a bunch of these videos. I’m obsessed with The Simpsons all over again. Keep up the great work.
"Maude eh?"
Ol' Gil will never get a Simpsons Histories! What does Gil have to do for a gig? Dance!?
Can't Gil get a lick of the brass ring?
Thank you, you have always eluded to Maude, and growing up in the 80/90's maudes death is still shocking to this day. She was such a great character.
You are one of my desert island channels. Thanks for the smart, thoughtful, highly enjoyable stuff.
Maude's death gave Ned a more unique characterization, gave us some nicer Maude moments in flashbacks, and we got to see Mrs. Krabappel find true love and happiness before her death (Rest in peace, Marcia Wallace). As weird as this may sound, killing Maude was a very good move, despite it being for a pretty bad reason
I await the day that you do one on Ned Flanders.
God, that video would be, like, an hour long
@@them. and it will be worth *every second*
Ned's development is such a rollercoaster. His introduction as the picture-perfect neighbor, the "flanderization" into a source of religious related satire, his transformation into a figure that's even more tragic than Moe. There's....a lot.
And they gave Ned a pretty good conclussion. He became a teacher thanks to Edna's inspiration, and it's surprisingly wholesome for this era.
@@matti.8465 hence why I really want a video of it. Plus he's so much of a Chad good Christian boy he married Pattie, who may I remind you is a lesbian. Dude's got the charm to literally make his own damn harem.
Maude is quite an interesting character. Thank you for doing a video on her Jim, keep up the great work!
So glad this channel exists! Sharing you everywhere so you hit the well-deserved 100k!
I remember Al Jean saying he regretted killing Maude in some of the DVD audio commentaries (I think once in the episode where she was killed off, and again in a later S11 episode. I only bought DVDs up to S11 back in the day because that's around the time I thought the show went too far down hill, personally. So him mentioning this regret in those commentaries must be somewhere around there. I'm guessing the second time he said this was somewhere around the S11 episode where Ned has that pointless flirtationship with that Gospel singer who he never actually did anything much with).
I personally hated how they killed her off - and it's all the worse and more distasteful knowing her original voice actor left over a pay dispute. It's just very mean spirited how they killed the character off after that - *especially* when the replacement voice actress nailed Maude's voice so well that 'you can't tell the diddly-difference' so to speak.
Like, there really was just no need to do it at all. Maude never may have been a favorite character of mine - but she was nontheless a useful supporting character (and personally I wouldn't have minded them fleshing out her role as the supportive wife more over the years. Instead of just killing her off - maybe we could've seen that even a relationship as 'perfect' as Maude and Ned's could still have some forks in the road, like Homer and Marge. If they wanted to give Ned some drama, they could've done it without killing her off).
The death itself was also frustrating. It's like they REALLY hated Maude (or her original actress) by the time they chose to have her die such a ridiculous, played for laughs death. And the later credits song of 'She landed on her head' in the episode where Ned met the Gospel singer was likewise very cheap. They did Maude dirty. It's kind of frustrating how the show wanted to have it both ways - they wanted us to laugh at her death, but also feel really bad for Ned grieving (which yeah, of course we would feel the latter). It's just...the show does 'sad comedy' really poorly in instances such as this. It's not that I don't like dark humor or 'sad comedy', Bojack Horseman was one of my favorite animated shows (and they managed to make Herb later dying of a cause that wasn't his cancer funny - despite the audience being pretty sure he could die soon, he likewise had an unexpected death, though his was offscreen. We still saw the sadness of Bojack never making up with him over the betrayal).
The problem for me is that The Simpsons have just never been 'the show' to use this kind of ultra dark comedy - when they do, they just kind of set themselves up to fail. When a show like Bojack does it - it feels well thought out (the character Herb was already dying when we as an audience met him. Not to mention it is not a 'status quo' show, the characters age and face big life changes and growth throughout the series run, unlike The Simpsons). When a 'status quo' show like The Simpsons does it....it'll just always come across as cheap and spiteful. It just doesn't work with the status quo formula to kill off a key supporting character - especially not so suddenly and cheaply. I think it's their 'status quo' formula where most characters will just never ever age or die which makes it all the more jarring when a character like Maude is needlessly killed off (again, she had a voice actress which fit the role. I was upset that Edna died, but I understood it perhaps couldn't be helped that time - nobody could've nailed that voice like Marsha. At least you also knew the producers still loved the actress who played Edna...again, with Maude's death it just felt like a big 'f you' to the original actress for leaving).
Honestly, Maude's death doesn't bother me that much anymore, but that's just because it's been supplanted by *_Homer delivering Todd by using a RUclips video._* I swear the writers are trolling us at this point. "Oh, so you like continuity, do you? Well, here's what we think about that!"
Great Simpsons Histories. I guess everything is now wrapped up in a neat little package.
First half of the video: I understand everything you said.
Second half: I have no idea what your talking about
I still follow, so I knew what he was talking about.
These Simpsons Histories' are the only way i find out what happens to certain characters after season 13-ish, and so many of the choices made by the writers in the modern era are just so bafflingly bizarre and inexplicable. It almost makes me want to soldier on past the point I originally tapped out of the series just to see how some of these scenarios play out. Almost. When I watch RealJims break down the arcs of characters like Ms. Krabappel, Waylon Smithers, and Mona Simpson beyond season 20, it genuinely makes me worry for Al Jean and wonder whether he needs to schedule an MRI..
See a lot of those characters I'd agree, but Edna Krabappel? She probably had some of the best development and stories in the series. Her dynamic with Ned was actually extremely good.
Great video as always!
Since you're taking suggestions, I take a fun thing to explore would be the "relationshipt" between The Simpsons and The Twilight Zone, since there are so many direct references to specific episodes and settings. If that's not enough for a whole video, you could always tack on some classic Star Trek; you can tell how much the sci-fi references in the show were inspired by that.
Speaking of which, have you done a video on Comic Book Guy? Not that he is one of the more interesting characters, but something that amazes me about him is that Classic Simpsons basically predicted Internet culture. Just look at the Poochie episode, it's still relevant today, it's aplicable to the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, for once.
Attempt number 2 at asking for side show Mel! Lol love the vids man! I’ve always thought Maude was a really interesting character in the way they use her, also the scene of her jumping up and down on the statue in Bart after dark made me laugh so hard as a kid when I first saw it, love that you included a pic of that iconic Maude moment!
I enjoy your Simpsons content, thank you.
Imagine if they did a halloween episode where to try and fill in the void left by Maude's death, someone tried Cloning her, but something goes wrong and instead of settling for just one, they create an Army of Maude Clones, and they need to do something to resolve this issue, unless they already did an episode with Maude Clones, not entirely sure if they did or not.
That sounds really good!
Less go new vid
Great as usual man
You are probably my favourite channel on this whole platform. You keep the same content formula that was popular way back in 2012.
I remember when Maude's death aired. Having been a fan since the show started, I was shocked that the show would perma-kill character everyone knew, albeit one no one felt too strongly about. I remember thinking it was the show's writers feeling like that they had to catch up with South Park and Family Guy on edgy humor. The Simpsons had certainly lost a lot of relevancy at this point and SP and FG were red hot. To me, this episode marks the end of an era for the Simpsons. Many say it was Grimey's death that kicked off Jerk Ass Homer, but I think it was Maude's.
HECK YES!!!!! I really do hate what they did to her in later seasons. Especially with Marge and Maude's relationship. Flan canyon is one of the worst from what I remember.
Another top quality video !
Loving your work, Jim.
I don't know how popular my suggestion will be, but I would dearly love to see the history of Groundskeeper Willy.
The writers outright state in the commentary for this episode that they regret killing Maude.
It is actually a good example of the strange amount of emotional investment we have in fictional characters. She was, for all intensive purposes, a background character for most of the show. But her death, and the circumstances surrounding it (both in the show and real life), resulted in Maude gaining this weird mystique that she has today.
I think the reason most people view her death as a mistake is that it takes away more potential for stories than it provides. Sure, you could argue "Nedna" would not have happened, but who knows what they could have done with Flanders family with Maude still alive for the last 20 or so years.
That's interesting 'cause I recall them saying in the commentary for some season 4 or 5 episode that Maude was better off dead. Either they regretted killing her off just within that time between those recordings or there's different opinions among the crew.