How This Became The Worst Episode Of The Simpsons

Yeah everybody claims that they had nothing to do with this episode. Nobody wanted their fingerprints on this train wreck. Success has a thousand fathers, failure is but an orphan.

The episode would've made more sense if during the ceremony Skinner comes to realization he's wasted his life and goes back to being the street punk he was to regain the same level of excitement he once had before he was forced into the war. Edit: The real skinner just felt like an unnecessary character to add to the episode

Even if this episode was absurd the classic humor is still there and even today i find it enjoyable unlike the actual worst episode Lisa goes Gaga that is a torture to watch.

It’s really not the worst episode, it’s just the end of the golden era

As truly bad this is, I don't think being the beginning of this trend in the Simpsons earns it the title of the worst episode, specially considering the other contestants

I love the DVD commentary on this episode. It's basically them just trying to defend themselves.

Here's an idea: What if you keep the episode almost entirely the same (it still has some great humor), but instead, "the real Seymour Skinner" is Armin Tamzarian. Young Seymour ran away from home as a teenager, spent a few years in Capitol City being a nogoodnik to get away from his overbearing parents, gets thrown into the Army for the same reason, but Sergeant Tamzarian takes him under his wing, temper his impulses, and begins molding him into the rigid disciplinarian we know. Then Armin is lost in battle, Seymour returns to Springfield, and decides to fulfill his commander's dreams of being a school principal for him. In this scenario, he leaves town when it turns out Armin wasn't KIA, and is ashamed he didn't go looking for his father figure. There may be more tweaks needed, but that's about it.

They actually do refer to it again in episode S15 Episode 9 - I (Annoyed Grunt) Bot. When Lisa adopts Snowball 5 she decides to name it Snowball 2 and pretend like Snowball 2-4 never died. Principal Skinner walks by and overheard this. He replies, “That’s really a cheat isn’t it?” And Lisa says back to Skinner, “ I guess you’re right Principal Tanzarian” 😮😂

With the classic line of "Up yours children" I couldn't disagree more.

When you talked about how the Simpsons ruined Homer, I was like “huh. Normally people talk about The Principal and the Pauper as the show’s turning point for the worse.” And now you have come full circle lmao

The overall story is flawed but the charm and wit is all still there at least. Unlike most anything in the teen seasons and beyond where both are flawed and bad.

I don't hate this episode, but you can even see how the controversy it warranted contributed to the eventual flanderization of Skinner's character. Because the backstory proposed felt so out of line for most people, the original one of him being a mama's boy became his biggest characteristic whereas it was only one part of his whole character, and it became the reason why his relationship with Edna fell apart. Pretty sad since Skinner during the Oakley-Weinstein years is one of my favourite characters in the show.

Well I couldn't really tell you why, but this episode in latinamerica is a certified hood classic. It has a few of the most quoted lines and it's just one of the most liked episodes. Maybe the Latin dub changes it substancially, or maybe just strucks a chord with us for whatever reason, but this is by far not the worst Simpsons episode for us, we love Armando Barreda

I was kind of shocked when I found out how many people hated this episode. I always considered it one of my top five memorable episodes. I loved it as a kid.

I'm inclined to believe the entire episode was written around the "up yours', children!" line. The voice actors are in the studio BSing after a long recording session, then Harry Shearer busts out with said line in Skinner's voice. Everyone cracks up and someone declares, "We gotta put that in the show!"

I thought the worst Simpsons episode was the one where Bart gets demonized by everyone over loosing in a game of baseball.

The only funny joke in this episode was Homer asking why there's so many people in the car, and the camera pans out to include them all.

So basically Skinner was Don Draper from Mad Men?

The hardest part for me to deal with was why Skinner's grandfather from the Fightin' Hellfish looked like Armin Tamzarian.

My theory is that this is a good episode of a show that should have ended shortly after it aired. Like Homer's Enemy, it's an absurd sendoff to the series..but the show kept going, and because the episode is so weird and meta, it unfortunately punctuates the decline of The Simpsons.