I mainly wanted to make this video to see if there’s still discourse around the way The Simpsons looks now. There’s a pretty sharp divide between fans who don’t mind how clean the animation has become, and those who preferred when it looked rough and unusual (or simply associate it with better times). It isn’t a topic that completely overlaps with the writing quality either, because I’ve heard people who like the HD style but are still dismissive of those episodes. Personally, Season 3 has my favourite animation of the show, but I’d still say 6 & 7 are my favourites for jokes and stories respectively. I’m sure some of you can relate to that conundrum, your favourite-looking season not necessarily being your favourite overall.

The HD animation is often so "perfect" that it's boring. The old animation is so imperfect that it's perfect.

The large pupil things is so funny to me because it's actually my favourite style despite what they wanted. Something about them just made them look so cute and endearing, and helped with that 'slightly daft' look. That, and tons of my favourite episodes had them lol. RIP large pupils.

Seasons 4-8 are my favorite era of the show animation-wise. Aside from it being animated on cels which is already a plus, the characters designs, backgrounds, animation, etc, had a perfect balance between looking consistent and on-model while still being simplistic and cartoon-ey like seasons 1-3.

I'm a sucker for off-model animation. It looks more expressive and interesting to me, and it makes creating fanart much easier because there's less pressure for perfection. So long as you get Bart's spike number right, of course 😄

The late cel animated era was a pretty interesting one, because you really feel they had perfected how it looks. Much like most of Nickelodeon's shows it's a shame the 35mm was not preserved.

I’ve always said that the hand drawn animation from The Simpsons is incredibly underrated as far as animation on the whole goes. Some of the most beautiful moments the medium has to offer. Great video, my friend!

that teenage couch gag you included where the kids have a party i had completely forgot about i followed the artist that did it and was so excited to see them make a couch gag because i had followed them previously for their simpsons art spikermonster is a goat and was creating this teenage simpsons comic spin off and the fact they included it was soo cool

I think you forgot to mention the period around Season 19 when the cel-like shadows were toned down and became what I see as proto-HD. Otherwise, awesome look into these art styles. I hope to see some analysis from more shows/franchises that have gone through changes in their animation.

Season 5 is like a thick leather wallet full of $100 bills useful for years. Current seasons are like a plastic dollarstore wallet filled with gift cards for a place you don’t want to shop.

Season 5 has my all-time favorite animation out of the whole series. The wacky animation we see in Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood, Homer Goes to College, and $pringfield just make those episodes even more hilarious. There's so many classic moments from this season that get amplified because of how goofy and silly the animation is. You can really tell the animators were having fun during that time!

Thank you for this well researched video. I've never known about how those Korean animation studios affected the visual look and style of The Simpsons (usually you only hear about the significance of Klasky Csupo and Film Roman), so that was definitely interesting. I had noticed myself that the character animation became a bit more stiff and the colours more bright in the last few cel-animated seasons, but I never knew exactly when and why this shift happened, so this video was informative on that subject as well. I have a feeling that some episodes from seasons 9 and 10 are still pretty close to the more expressive old animation style while others (especially on 10) have the slightly more stiff new one. Scrolling the list at 5:29 makes me suspect that the more old-school looking episodes of those years tend to be among the Anivision ones. I think the animation of The Simpsons probably peaked somewhere around season 4 (with highlights such as Homer's heart attack scene in Homer's Triple Bypass). I also love the look and character designs of seasons 5 to 8, but I might be biased because that's my favourite era in terms of the writing. I still find all the cel-animated seasons (up to 13) more visually charming than the later ones. Something in the show died when they went digital, and the sterile look of the 20+ seasons made it worse. Although the individual directors and animators can still make a difference by doing the best they can with this new technology. Speaking of that, I think Lauren MacMullan deserves a mention. She directed a bunch of episodes on seasons 12 to 16 and they really stand out visually from the others of that era in their use of camera angles and dramatic lighting.

16:57 Holy cow you actually added "him"... That sequence really mimics the later cel era / season 11-14 style very well, though I wonder if the Graggle fad came after that episode entered production so they probably didn't have the chance to even consider putting / referencing him or something.

I'm a new fan and your videos are really well done! Your timing for editing is impeccable, and the research you do is awe-inspiring. You should definitely make this a series.

7:03 - That's mainly due to telecine process. Teal was especially problematic for it, thus why Krusty's hair often appeared blue instead of teal.

You should do these for other long running cartoons too, Arthur, South Park, Family Guy, Spongebob, Fairly OddParents, etc.

Always found it interesting how the designs in the TU shorts improved later on, especially when you compare the characters from the 87 to 89 shorts.

I much prefer the rougher look to the earlier seasons, there’s a charm to it, when the animation gets too clean it just feels sterile and corporate

Season 1-10 animation is where it's at.

Amazing editing and great video. But the newer seasons lean WAY more in to the off-model free-form style than the 2000s or 2010s seasons. It looks AMAZING now. It needed more credit

definitely prefer the older animation style

16:57 Gumbly jumpscare

I thought I was the only one who noticed that they stopped drawing lines on the clouds! Once I noticed that, I couldn't stop unseeing it, there were actually some moments where the outline came back, like, I think in season 14's C.E.D'oh around the start they had a background where the clouds had the outline, but sadly it seems that it won't come back...

There is a very slight difference between Season 28 and Season 34 animation, outlines seem to be just slightly thicker in Season 34 as opposed to that of Season 28

They said for years that Smithers colour change, was an animation error, but recently, the showrunners admitted they didn't want Smithers to be POC, because they didn't want to stereotype him. They did well with Heavy Weight champ, Drederick Tatam (sorry I got the name wrong), Carl, Bleeding Gums, Apu, Janey? Julius Hibbert, Officer Lou. I am sure they could have done it well with Smithers too

1:30 Man, the Ullman Simpsons' house has a hell of a lot of hallways.

I don’t care too much for the animation, as long as it looks alright and I like it it’s fine

Amazing video.

Really interesting to know that they once switched out the black line art for brown

also i cannot stand Marge's voice in the current seasons. it just sounds so painful for the VA, even if its not in reality (i have no idea if it is or isn't)

Fascinating trivia!

For me telling apart older and newer Simpsons episodes is very simple, since our country had a different man voicing Homer Simpsons in the past, and due to his passing, and unfortunately in the future some others (Lisa's VA, mr. Burns' VA), I can tell apart when it's an older episode and when it's newer. I'm from Czechia btw :)

1 thing I loved about the older seasons is the way they draw the backgrounds, it just looks soo eerily, lonely and peaceful at the same time if you remove the bright yellow characters away. Like the one scene of Bart and his friends just saw 'Principle Skinner' riding out of the shed lot on his Harley Davidson and riding down the empty road.

Older animation of the shows make it feel more nostalgic, amazing. Now it’s like…….ehhh

Bro just solved the Springfield mystery in one sentence 2:18

I hate the fact directors/animators end up going ‘safe and marketable’. There’s not a single person who doesn’t like older Simpsons because the animation was more expressive.

the best way to tell if a Simpsons episode is new or not is that it's not funny then you know it's one of the new seasons

What is the difference between studios such as Film Roman/20th Animation Studios and Rough Draft/AKOM, as in what duties in animating the show do they handle?

This is such a stupid thing to complement the video on, but I love that for the mug shots of the people who worked on the show, you put their names under the images but their names are all screencaps from the show

I know I'm probably alone on this, but the digital ink is my favorite art style from the show. It just feels like the perfect in-between to the nostalgia of the classic art style and the smoothness of the modern art style.

For over a decade now, _The Simpsons_ has suffered from the colour grading mania that infected the minds of Hollywood DPs almost 20 years ago. _The Simpsons_ is now plagued by ugly teal skies and yellows that just don't look right.

Homers Head used to look like a thumb😂😂

The first 20 years of this century just got forgotten about?

I'd gladly watch more vids like this

I watched an episode from season 25 the other day and Kirk vanhouten had pure grey hair in a background scene in the church and then it was back to the correct blue grey.

They Simpsons don't necessarily live in Springfield Missouri. The creators purposely leave it ambiguous , almost every US state has a Springfield somewhere in it

80's. 90's. [missing decade]. [missing decade]. And now!

it took me a while to figure out there was the virtual Springfield theme in the background

where's that clip at the beginning from ? where two guys say the bitey line and high five ???

It's my personal opinion as a lifelong Simpsons fan that the quality of both the writing and art has improved in the last 2 to 3 years. The shift from SD to HD was a rough one, it lost so much character because of the lacklustre animations. My favorite art style is still from around season 5.

Early 90s was best, no soul now

I defiantly prefer the earlier art from the 80s and 90s. The new art is good but the old art is way better in my opinion.

The 90s were my favorite Simpsons

The 90's Simpsons were still the best. The new episodes just aren't what they used to be. Too serious, more like a soap opera with themes that simply have nothing to do with The Simpsons. Just my opinion.

I guess it nostalgia but I think it looked way better in the 90s than now

Neat

2:35 Brad Bird gave us that face?

16:57 is that a real episode?

Tf is that number in the middle?

I do think the cut stuff from the pilot looks nice, in its own way. Complicated shots and smooth animation too. But it’s not the Simpsons way.

1:07 there i am gary there i am!

I didn't have a problem with the digital art but when they did change some of the artists were clearly lazy cause the simpsons would find reasons to slow down in the first couple of seasons of it. Sometimes it'll do something and in the same episode the movement would be like stop animation almost. That's the most annoying of it, it's so clean that animation is simply look to the left and to the right with no personality. You lose a lot of the charm until recently animation wise

90’s was the best

Personally I find the modern animations more stiff and dull. I found that the older animations seemed to be more lively and expressive

Why is Graggle in the clip at 16:57?

3 days 380 likws 4,82k subs

cursed 80s simpsons

I quite enjoy the art style of seasons 14-18

16:57 GUMBLY?!

the old way was so much better. feels way funnier. the more realistic, it loses the charm. same thing happened with south park. the early animation was hilarious on its own

Once the Simpsons switch to digital it lost all its charm visually, there's an organic flow that can only be done with hand on paper.

Southern Missouri?

That begining clip confused tf out of mr

You have to be 13 or older to watch this show. :)

90s rules

I’m surprised you didn’t talk about how they have been using puppet animation.

How long until they start using AI to completely animate the show? Will we look back fondly at this "sterile" era of the Simpsons?

Go over how south parks artstule has gotten worse. The stule clash with apl the old charaxters and the new stuff with the weird realism and extra detail

This show came a long way

I like the new animation. Sure there's less moments where characters look off model and glimpse of squash and stretch but overall it looks new and clean. Reminds me of how The Simpsons Movie looks. That was mind blowing to see back in the day and still looks good and its understandable why they would use that as a template for the animation in the HD episodes.

it should have ended in season 30

I like this deep analysis of Simpsons art evolution, new suscriber 🗿

I only like the early seasons of the Simpsons.

"Obviously the visuals are given a lot of thought and everyone involved wants it to look as appealing and presentable as they can, but it hasn't always been that way". >Goes on to show a clip of an older episode with better animation and charming visuals that exposes the blank, soulless stares of modern Simpson characters and robotic animation. I've heard enough. Good luck with your endeavors, son.

17 minutes and It all circles back to "Nu simsons bad"

I didn't expect to see a hunky adult Milhouse and now I'm not sure what to feel.

Bros gonna blow up

Big fan of the show. I loved watching on Disney Plus..

#0:11

80’s 90’s 2000’s no, 2010’s no 2020’s yea ig but you could’ve made it clear instead of being lazy with your thumbnail

What's silly is the obsession with such minute details as pupil size. I don't think my 10 year old self could tell the difference between Bart with regular pupils and Bart with larger pupils. Let alone care about it. As long as the jokes are funny, who really cares? A show like Ren & Stimpy had the opposite approach where no two drawings could be the same and there was no "on model"... which I think is a superior way to make animation.

Yeah the animation ruined it for me, I preferred the janky inconsistencies, a lot of times it made it funnier imo

generally id say most animation from the 80s looks a whole lot better than any modern stuff but the simpsons is an exception. it looked horrendous back then...

They used to be funny but every since they started getting Political i cant wait them. Family guy is getting to that point now too

The old animation is how I determine if an episode is gonna be good before watching, Simpsons went down hill as soon as that new cloud intro.....sadly

The newest HD animation is off model.

I prefer the old version back when it was hand drawn instead of on computers plus the old episodes are way more funny then the new episodes modern simpsons is rubbish apart from the halloween episodes they are fine

16:41 you say "FRESH" everyone yells "GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!"

Like most things in life Homer.was better in the 90s.

I am a defender of modern Simpsons. I think it's still very good.