A 23-year-old Simpsons episode highlighted a major issue the show still faces today

The Simpsons became a landmark ahead of its time with its first airing in '98. The show featured elements of satire, layered humor, and heartwarming tales, all of which set a new standard for animated comedy.

More than 3 decades later, with the show entering its 36th season, countless fans and critics seem to agree that there is no longer magic in the show. Episodes feel dull and forgettable, and to top it all off, the realization of the entire situation makes it even worse.

This, surprisingly, isn't new to the show. A decades-old episode has already warned us about this problem.

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The Simpsons - Gump Roast and the beginning of self-parody

In 2002, as part of the show’s 13th season, The Simpsons released “Gump Roast,” a clip show that, even by the modest standards of clip shows, still felt like filler.

What differentiated the episode was its self-awareness, alongside parodying its gags and pop culture parodies, the episode further mocked itself with a desperate song about how they would handle disjointed seasons in the future. Their approach seemed humorous at the time, mocking critics, yet now it comes off as prophetic.

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Satire turned to survival mode

Fast forward to 2025. Season 36, Episode 17 – ‘Full Heart, Empty Pool’ – depicts the iconic moment where Homer Simpson steams out guacamole after reacting to a particularly poorly executed OPEC pun. He is blankly staring in a way that suggests he is processing what the audience is thinking, which is, “That joke was terrible.”

The windows of self-commentary give Homer a chance to wink at the audience, “We know.” As appealing as this form of humor was in the past, now it feels more like a show’s means to defend its frailties.

That brings us to an awkward conjecture: If writers acknowledge the fact that fallen puns are being deployed, what logic prescribes the need to continue using them?

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The burden of legacy

The challenge of creating amusing, new plot lines within the context of over 750 episodes is quite well known. Nearly every single aspect of American life and culture has been parodied by the show, often with clever wit.

Nowadays, however, it feels like it is trapped in a never-ending cycle of reusing the same concepts and providing bland, monotonous, half-hearted, final jokes, punctuated by ironic smirks toward actual exhaustion of their creativity.

A more concerning issue is that the jokes don’t land. It is that the show is now too self-aware of this fact that it builds this self-imposed decline into the story structure, not as a critique, but rather a premise. What used to be sharp satire is now self-deprecating endurance.

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When self-awareness becomes a crutch

A program that once satirized the world around it now seems to be satirizing itself. Part of The Simpsons retains its volcanic sparks of brilliance, but more and more it seems to be a parody of its own legacy — smart enough to critique its stagnation, but too timid to do anything meaningful about it.

The devastating punch line? The writers tell a self-referential narrative about poor writing, describing it as satirical, and it remains bad writing.