Bart Gets and F, Bart vs Thanksgiving and Dancin' Homer, to name a few, are all weaker than the weakest ep from season 10.

They may have less laughs, but they're all round better episodes in my opinion. No way are they worse than the kidney episode.

I forgot about that one. Yeah, it's not great, but I'd still probably take it over Bart vs Thanksgiving.

No and no. Those episodes are so well rounded as Georgi says. They're more than comedy episodes, back when the Simpsons could properly pull on the heart strings.

Simpson and Delilah, while I didn't laugh out loud on too many occasions, is one of the best and severely underrated episodes The Simpsons have ever made.

I can take or leave that. It's nice if it can be worked into an episode without sacrifing humour, but primarily I look to shows like The Simpsons for laughs. If I want heart-string tugging animation I look to my gloriously sentimental animu collection.

So, I'm planning to get the early seasons on dvd when I graduate from high school (different school systems over here obvs but whatever) next spring and get some dough. I figured there might be some really obsessive fans around here which is why I sort of wanted to gauge for an opinion on when you guys think the show really started to go down the tubes. I just have a really weak sense of the seasons, since I first saw the episodes a bit scrambled on tv. It's pretty clear that the first few seasons are on a whole other level completely, but I have to admit to enjoying a lot of the later episodes as well. Obviously I will eventually look up everything online myself and decide whether or not a certain season has enough gems etc., etc., but right now I was just wondering what you guys feel comprises the golden age of The Simpsons.

Based on that, I'd say 1-11, ,(although for me it's 1-9). If that's too many seasons, maybe cut it down to 3-11.

2 smashes 11 out the park.

Agreed, but Smallows says he likes the latter episodes a lot too.

Ah ok, I defer to your recommendation then. Must learn to read things.

Looking over the episode lists now, I'd say 4-8 are absolutely essential gets. 3 and 9 have some equally great stuff in them, so I'm definitely going to go for them as well. With the first two and 10-11, I'm on a shakier ground. They have memorable episodes, sure, but I'll have to seriously think about buying them. Would I really want to pop them in any random time and watch my favorite ones, as I'd imagine I'd do with the others? This might be more probable with the later seasons, I think. On the other hand, it would be nice to start watching the entire series right from the beginning when I eventually do get them. Well, in any case, I won't have to make any decisions just yet.

Thanks for the comments guys.

I think Skinner and Krusty could both stand to be a little higher. As could the two great Phil Hartman characters.

My personal top 15:
1. Mr. Burns
2. Moe Szyslak (the top 2 is undisputed, in my opinion)
3. Ned Flanders
4. Principal Skinner
5. Abraham Simpson
6. Milhouse
7. Chief Wiggum
8. Krusty the Clown
9. Apu
10. Mr. Smithers
11. Lionel Hutz (aka Miguel Sanchez. I can barely think of Hutz without laughing.)
12. Troy McClure (probably a better overall character than Hutz, to be fair, but not as funny, in my opinion.)
13. Lenny
14. Sideshow Bob
15. Kent Brockman

I definitely prefer Skinner to Moe, always found him funnier.