LogFAQs > #976237106

The Armin Tamzarian episode was just another episode when I was a kid. Like it's not particularly good, I wasn't interested in the maudlin drama of it even as a kid, but to see grown fucking adults pull it out as "THIS IS WHERE MY CHILDHOOD SIMPSONS DIED" is absolutely ridiculous and it always has been. It's up there with grown-ass people complaining about Lisa being an SJW creator's pet who's always right. And shit like this is almost always from the American side of things too.

Here in Australia, the Simpsons is basically a way of life; try and find someone born between 1990 and 2003 who doesn't know at least one Simpsons quote. It was a 6pm staple on Channel Ten for decades.

The later seasons were definitely different, and the Treehouse of Horror segments becoming bland pop culture retreads became more and more apparent. But I watched up until season 21, and I only stopped because my mum got a new partner who hated the show and wouldn't let me watch it after I'd spent the past 14 years of my life watching it almost nightly.

That being said, there was a nadir of the show that just made me feel weird and angry. It's a season 18 episode called Boys of Bummer - Bart's little league team is in the finals, and the game-winning catch is on Bart's shoulders in the last seconds of the game. Bart fumbles it, and his team loses.

The entire town of Springfield proceeds to harass Bart verbally, emotionally and physically. After being put in the hospital after one of these occurences, Bart becomes so mentally fucked up by the unending abuse that to escape the harassment, he climbs out onto the ledge of the hospital to commit suicide. The mob outside tells him to jump.

It takes an incensed speech from Marge for anyone to even consider making amends, but by the end of the episode where they restage the little league game so Bart can make the catch and restore his confidence, the entire thing is so misanthropic and bleak. Everyone in Springfield bullied Bart to toe point of suicidality. What the actual fuck is that?