I'd actually have to put this very episode as my favorite Swartzwelder script. Not saying the dude declined or anything, but "Bart the General" happens to be in my top five Simpsons episodes. I know I'm probably alone in that, but fuck it, I don't care. It's an amazing episode.

Gee, THAT post wasn't loaded and judgmental.

It's 26 episodes.

If you own it, crack out the DVD maybe? Sigourney is listed in the credits and they talk about her extensively in the commentary track. Just a thought.

Randy is a recurring character too, so it seems a bit late to complain about him being stereotypical. Unless you've already been complaining since episode 3. "Hooray, Calculon's back!"

All he handed in was a paper smeared with feces. He tied with Fry.

I feel like in the current gay marriage debate (the obvious analogy in this episode) a lot of people who were previously against it have "come around" and now support it. And if you accept that the original episode took place in "the year 3000 or so" (as Fry put it) and this one is in 3010, it's not unrealistic to…

It's also on about the same level as an anonymous fan sending in letters to a show telling them what they should be writing episodes about. The people who work there and make decisions would presumably feel, rightfully, that they have a better idea of who they should hire and who would work with their show's…

^It's hard to explain, but they just come off as a very specific type of 90s slacker to me. I mean, even their language strikes me as odd. Does anyone say "bunghole" anymore?

I missed out on "Beavis and Butthead" when it was on originally. I've seen a little bit of it in recent years and I think it's pretty funny, actually. The two characters were very stupid, but the writing was actually fairly clever and satirical. And the voices are hilarious.

Multiple episodes?
Is this a one-off dealie or are others going to be available separately? I don't know that I'd want to pay for the whole set of them, but for a couple bucks I can certainly support America's finest news source.

Having read the Weedman piece tonight, if anything it comes off as rather self-deprecating to me. I think she's totally aware of why she got shit-canned, and isn't just blaming sexism (even though she somewhat addresses the difficulties of being a woman there, yada yada yada). I think the writers at Jezebel probably…

Yeah, I remember finding Cenac so awkward when he first came on. I think he has a really understated delivery, and he just hadn't found the right timing or balance for it at all initially…then gradually he seemed to improve a lot, and by that Sweden piece it just clicked. He and John Oliver are my favorites now. …

@Humanist: "the difference is the napster episode was the "don't date robots!"/lucy-liu-bot episode, which was full of absolutely hilarious jokes. if you had subtracted out the hilarious jokes, you'd be left with an episode more like this one."

"Wall-Mart" was funny though. Not so much the name but the actual episode. It was a funny satire. I just assumed they had to give the place an alternate name to avoid legal issues for the show itself, like with "Harbucks" back in the day. It's not really meant to be funny on its own, just a way of making clear…

I'm amazed nobody's mentioned the Napster episode. Have people already forgotten what the show was like before?

Nah, "Mapple" was just bad satire and not funny. One of its problems, in fact, is that it wasn't nearly harsh enough. All the products and names start with "M"? That's the "hilarious" idea the Simpsons writers came up with? Okay.

Big Electron, although Santos is correct, there actually been debate about Futurama on the internet for years. I remember reading about how the show was going downhill when it was still in its third or fourth year on FOX. And I shared your response even then.

While I don't actually specifically agree with Kosmonaut about those being the worst episodes (not that I'm defending them either), he raises a good point:

^That's season three, actually.