The Principal and the Pauper- Is it really THAT bad?

They referenced it a few times since.

Honestly I thought the ending was a great parody of sitcoms' "Everything's back to normal!" endings and a nice jab at the fans.
 
I saw the episode maybe twice, both as reruns. The first time I didn't give two flips, I just wanted a good Simpsons episode. Second time I saw it, I actually watched, didn't too much care of giving a whole episode to a support character that would just reset at the end, but it was still a good episode.
 
I've always thought of this episode as one of those weird ones, like "You Only Move Twice", which is why I didn't as much hate as others did for this one. It's an outlandish episode that would never be mentioned again, aside from some one-off jokes.
 
It's a great episode. Well, maybe not great compared to the non-stop awesomeness that was season eight but it (along with The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson, Lisa's Sax, Trash of the Titans and Treehouse of Horror VIII) was one of the best of the season.

It wasn't ONLY a cop-out ending. It was a complete parody of a cop-out endings and the outrage it gets from the fans only makes me love it more. I love it because of the depth it gives Skinner and Agnes and it has a LOT of great and funny jokes (my favorites are the run in the car, Skinner being a street hood as a youth, and Homer's "Can I see your copy of Swank, Armin?")

I also must confess I have a lot of love for the much hated Miracle of Evergreen Terrace episode from this season. It's not perfect by any means but it is a great dark comedy. Every decision the family makes in this episode is the wrong one from Bart burning the family gifts and lying about it, to the family blowing all of their money on a new car that Homer promptly wrecks. It's plays like an animated Spike Lee movie.
 
Well to me it wasn't the worst episode but I do tend to try to ignore it. It had some good jokes here and there such as Homer trying to figure out why Bart and Lisa are coming and why Gramps is coming to find Skinner. However its just the way they did Skinner here, they ruined him giving him this character that stole some one else possible future. Than when that newbie character returns they send him off just cuz they don't like him LOL. That ending was funny and all to me, but I don't know it just ruined things for me I guess. Its hard for to explaine :sweat:
 
Well, it was a parody of sitcom endings. Also, it was referenced when Snowball II died. Lisa got a new cat that looks the same and named it Snowball II.

Skinner: Isn't that odd?
Lisa: Sure, Principal Tamzarian.
Skinner: Carry on.

I think it was I Doh-Bot, but I could be wrong.
 
I didn't really hate this, but I felt like it was one of those episodes that begs the question...."why was this made?" The comedy alone is no worse than some of the stuff that succeeded it.

Harry Shearer said: "That's (TPaTP) so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."[1]

Source: http://simpsonswiki.com/index.php/The_Principal_and_the_Pauper
 
The big difference between The Principal and the Pauper and more recent episodes that mess with the audience is that, in the case of Principal, they were legitimately pointing out that people shouldn't get so uptight about things that happen on a simple cartoon show. Nowadays they just seem to get off on screwing with the audience under the belief that they've already gotten away with it before. Either that or they just don't care. Probably both.
 
Combined with "it was funny the first time, maybe it's funny the zillionth time!" and the writers struggling to find ways to fill up the half hour, yes.
 
Removing that massive continuity hurdle is part of why the revived show did well. The production staff have even hinted that if a later team wanted to it wouldn't be hard to bring the Time Lords back.

And now, back to Simpsons discussion!
 
You know, I would have to watch it again to form a rock-solid opinion. I had to look up a synopsis online to remember everything that happened.

But from where I'm standing, it seems like a very interesting idea. Skinner's backstory is actually rather touching. He didn't take on the identity out of malice, but compassion, and he was carrying on for a man that he respected. Is that so terrible? That said, I'm a bit put off about how the real Skinner--a bloody war hero!--is told to take a hike just because the town was used to our Skinner and realized that they missed him. Hell, our Skinner respected him, right? But who cares, let's just tie him to a train and ship him off.

All of that balances to a net positive, but I do think it says something that Matt Groening hates it. Ken Keeler loving his own work is not exactly surprising, and the arguments that boil down to "bah, you just don't get it, he wrote what he wanted!" remind me of bad arguments in favor of Family Guy. It's all well and good to say for Keeler to say that it should be taken as an experiment, and seen in that light I think it's probably fine. But who knew that back when it was first on the air? No one. While it may stand up fine as an "experiment" today, he doesn't get to mock the fans and critics that had a problem with the episode messing around with what they knew.

Finally, I completely part ways with episode supporters when it comes to the "it's just a cartoon!" argument. It's astonishing to hear such boilerplate from any animation fan, though it sadly isn't uncommon. Oh, okay, cartoons don't have to be consistent? They don't have to obey internal logic? The writers can do anything they want on a whim because they're making a cartoon? Is that really what you meant to suggest? Sorry, not buying it. If you hate the most current episodes, guess what, that's the kind of thinking that produced them. And it's no argument to say "oh, this is no big deal compared to the crap that comes out today!" If episode A is bad and episode B is horrible, that doesn't make episode A good by way of comparison. Just less awful. No, I'm sorry, have some standards. If you're going to defend it, do it on the merits.

But yeah, to reiterate, as an "experiment" it strikes me as an interesting episode, albeit an imperfect one. Very likely not "really that bad" or the worst episode ever. But I can see why a lot of people would prefer to remember it--fondly or otherwise--and then move on.
 
I think the episode needs a few repeated viewings before you appreciate it. Like most people I hated it the first time I saw the episode, but after seeing it again (and now that I'm older), I appreciate the episode a hell of a lot more. On top of that, the episode is actually quite funny and has a number of great jokes.

Skinner never had any parents and lived as a street punk before he went into the army, and they say right in the episode after he came back he lived with his mother for 26 years. Isn't this the same thing as an adoptive family?

Skinner and his mother shared real love for each other even though they aren't blood-related. Do people miss this point? Because that's what made it good, and why she would want the man who lived with her for 26 years over her real son whom she knows nothing about.
 
Yeah, but Harry Shearer is on of the few people who have or currently do work on the show to vocally criticize it more than a few times. He seems to be the only cast member who thinks the show has lost it's quality (even Matt denies it has), and it's been said that he was reluctant to work on the show in the first place, that he didn't want to work on a cartoon show. I'm sorry, he does great voice work and all, but I'm just not a very big fan of his.
 
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