The Simpsons episode titles.

I was thinking about the Simpsons the other day, as I often do, and inevitably depressed myself thinking about how awful it had become. It's quite clearly not the Simpsons anymore, it's a steaming pile of shit masquerading as such. I tend to avoid watching new episodes these days, and if there are reruns on TV I check what episode it is before watching it in order to safeguard myself against sinking even further into a Simpsons-being-shit-now depression. I've noticed that even the episode titles get worse as you get into later seasons...

If you take early season episode titles, you'll generally find that they're simple, and you can get an idea of the episode's content from there, such as Marge vs. the Monorail, Homer Goes to College and Bart Gets an Elephant. On occasion you'll find a pun or pop-culture reference, such as in One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish and A Star is Burns, but still these are clever titles and still reflect the episode's content, as well as being few and far between. However, once you get to about season 9, you start to see more and more pun and pop-culture based titles, and they just get worse and worse as the seasons continue.

Let's look at the titles of the episodes of the latest full season to finish, season 22:

465. MABF21 (SI-2121 / S22E01) Elementary School Musical
466. MABF17 (SI-2117 / S22E02) Loan-a Lisa
467. MABF18 (SI-2118 / S22E03) MoneyBART
468. MABF16 (SI-2116 / S22E04) Treehouse of Horror XXI
469. MABF20 (SI-2120 / S22E05) Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life
470. NABF01 (SI-2201 / S22E06) The Fool Monty
471. NABF02 (SI-2202 / S22E07) How Munched is that Birdie in the Window?
472. MABF22 (SI-2122 / S22E08) The Fight Before Christmas
473. MABF19 (SI-2119 / S22E09) Donnie Fatso
474. NABF03 (SI-2203 / S22E10) Moms I'd Like to Forget
475. NABF04 (SI-2204 / S22E11) Flaming Moe
476. NABF05 (SI-2205 / S22E12) Homer the Father
477. NABF06 (SI-2206 / S22E13) The Blue and The Gray
478. NABF07 (SI-2207 / S22E14) Angry Dad: The Movie
479. NABF08 (SI-2208 / S22E15) The Scorpion's Tale
480. NABF09 (SI-2209 / S22E16) A Midsummer's Nice Dream
481. NABF10 (SI-2210 / S22E17) Love is a Many Strangled Thing
482. NABF11 (SI-2211 / S22E18) The Great Simpsina
483. NABF12 (SI-2212 / S22E19) The Real Housewives of Fat Tony
484. NABF13 (SI-2213 / S22E20) Homer Scissorhands
485. NABF14 (SI-2214 / S22E21) 500 Keys
486. NABF15 (SI-2215 / S22E22) The Ned-liest Catch

As you can see, pretty much three quarters of the titles are either puns or pop-culture references. As far as I can tell, the ones that aren't are Treehouse of Horror, Homer the Father, The Blue and the Gray, Angry Dad: The Movie, The Scorpion's Tale and 500 Keys, and even then I'm not 100% certain with some of them. The puns in the titles just seem to exist for the purpose of being puns, it's as if the writers think that if they can shoehorn a character name into a film/tv/book/otherpopculturething title or change it slightly it counts as a clever episode title. None of these are clever at all, and don't really give you much of an idea what's going to happen in the episode. I will concede that they are effective in conveying what you should expect from the episode, which is that it'll be an affront to everything classic Simpsons stood for, and not worth you or anyone else's time in the least.

Compare this to season 3 episode titles:

36. 7F24 (SI-224 / S03E01) Stark Raving Dad
37. 8F01 (SI-301 / S03E02) Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington
38. 7F23 (SI-223 / S03E03) When Flanders Failed
39. 8F03 (SI-303 / S03E04) Bart the Murderer
40. 8F04 (SI-304 / S03E05) Homer Defined
41. 8F05 (SI-305 / S03E06) Like Father, Like Clown
42. 8F02 (SI-302 / S03E07) Treehouse of Horror II
43. 8F06 (SI-306 / S03E08) Lisa's Pony
44. 8F07 (SI-307 / S03E09) Saturdays of Thunder
45. 8F08 (SI-308 / S03E10) Flaming Moe's
46. 8F09 (SI-309 / S03E11) Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk
47. 8F10 (SI-310 / S03E12) I Married Marge
48. 8F11 (SI-311 / S03E13) Radio Bart
49. 8F12 (SI-312 / S03E14) Lisa the Greek
50. 8F14 (SI-314 / S03E15) Homer Alone
51. 8F16 (SI-316 / S03E16) Bart the Lover
52. 8F13 (SI-313 / S03E17) Homer at the Bat
53. 8F15 (SI-315 / S03E18) Separate Vocations
54. 8F17 (SI-317 / S03E19) Dog of Death
55. 8F19 (SI-319 / S03E20) Colonel Homer
56. 8F20 (SI-320 / S03E21) Black Widower
57. 8F21 (SI-321 / S03E22) The Otto Show
58. 8F22 (SI-322 / S03E23) Bart's Friend Falls in Love
59. 8F23 (SI-323 / S03E24) Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?

Quite frankly, there's an astounding difference here. It's all short and sweet, and where there are pop culture and puns, they're used cleverly, as in Stark Raving Dad and Black Widower, a play on Black Widow. Where pop culture references are used, it's in such a way that someone can understand the title and how it relates to the episode even without having seen the source material.

All I know is in 20 years time, I'll still want to watch Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, but I'll have forgotten that The Ned-liest Catch ever existed. Well, one can dream...