20 Years of The Simpsons, 10 Years of Good Episodes

If you've been watching FOX lately than you must have seen the adds for The Simpson's 20th anniversary episode (the twentieth anniversary of the first episode was actually in December, but whatever). Well I tuned into the Simpson's for the first time in a long while out of curiosity. I got 15-20 minutes into the show before I was compelled by boredom to change the channel to ESPN. I get the same feeling watching newer episodes of The Simpsons that I get whenever I see some attempt to revive Loony Tunes or any other classic cartoon. They almost always come off as pale imitations of the original classics. This what The Simpsons feels like now. Some of the jokes are funny, but the plots are not up to the high standards of the 90s, the characterization is off, and the voices are no longer right thanks to the aging of the voice actors. Oh well, at least all the classic episodes from the 90s are readily available on DVD (which is a godsend because you can't count on syndicated reruns with all those 21st century Simpsons episodes in the mix) .