Ron Simmons is ready to settle down and get married, but first, he must survive his out-of-control bachelor party. With his best buds shoving booze, women and more booze in his face. Ron journeys from his Cleveland, OH, home to Miami’s South Beach with his three league bowling buddies, led by the thrice-divorce Derek Murphy, whose day job is manning the counter at the local cash-and-go. (more…)

Season Nine (1997-1998) brought us a new Executive Producer, Mike Scully, who has been referred to, as “the guy who started The Simpsons’ decline”. Bitter sentiments of Internet fans aside, there was undeniably a change in style from this Season. Episodes feel very sitcom-like, almost as if there was supposed to be a laugh track in the background. Whether this change was good or bad is debatable – but another thing that’s certain is there are still many quality episodes here. We see Homer buying a handgun to apparently protect his family; the school children stranded on an island, a la Lord of the Flies; Lisa believing she is going through a process of ‘dumbening’; Bart befriending Ralph Wiggum; and another milestone episode – the 200th – in which Homer runs for Sanitation Commissioner. Just for completeness, among the bad eggs are Skinner being revealed to be an imposter (they must have been eating rotisserie chicken when they came up with that one); Homer being a jerk as Bart’s football coach; and a clip show with no real story. (more…)

Description:

This is undoubtedly my favourite Season ever. Simpsons-mania was still prominent and showed no signs of stopping. Season Five (1993-1994) carried on the trend of Season Four with witty, multi-layered jokes, but also introduced more character-based episodes: we hear the story of how Homer, Barney, Apu and Principal Skinner became Bigger Than Jesus for five and a half weeks singing barbershop; Apu living with the Simpsons after losing his job; Sideshow Bob make a welcome return in a parody of Cape Fear cleverly titled…Cape Feare; and no less than three major appearances of Mr. Burns. This year starts Homer’s “dumbening” – you can really tell the writers consciously made him stupider – but it works quite well here. This Season also marks the show’s 100th episode, Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song, which has the blackboard gag “I Will Not Celebrate Meaningless Milestones”.
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