That '90s Show (The Simpsons)

"As far as I could tell, I think the main concept that bothers everyone here is that The Simpsons writers are retconning the entire Simpsons history. But suddenly, Bart wasn't born in the eighties, but the nineties. And apparently, Homer and Marge were married in the nineties too?"

- PhantomStrider [citation needed]

"It's like drawing a big neon sign over the series that says "Our characters have no set history and their timelines are continually gonna change with the time", viewers didn't take it very well."

- TheRealJims

That '90s Show is the 11th episode of the 19th season of The Simpsons.

Plot
The Simpson kids learn about what their parents were doing the early 1990s: Homer sang for a grunge band while Marge was in college.

Why It's a 90s Show That Should Be Forgotten

 * 1) It almost destroyed and ignored the continuity from the pre-movie Simpsons seasons have given by the fact The Simpsons was in its nineteenth season from 2007-2008. Homer and Marge met each other in high school in the 70s, had a family starting in the early 1980s and the show started before the 1990s even began, but this episode threw all that continuity out the window just for this one episode.
 * 2) This episode was another sign of The Simpsons jumping the shark since the only purpose that the episode served was to justify why the characters don't age.
 * 3) There is an overabundance of 90s pop culture references.
 * 4) * Many of the pop-culture references are downright anachronistic. For example, there is a Sonic the Hedgehog reference with Amy Rose depicted with her modern design, which didn't debut until 1998 with mh:awesomegames:Sonic Adventure, and the Sonic the Hedgehog logo replicates the modern one instead of the classic logo.
 * 5) Marge is incredibly unlikeable here, as she acts like a snob towards Homer and becomes attracted to her professor.
 * 6) * Speaking of Marge's professor, he is perhaps even worse than her, he even encourages her to cheat on Homer.
 * 7) It tries way too hard to pay tribute to the 90s, but it ultimately does not work as The Simpsons was already airing in the 90s. The Simpsons aired before the 90s even started (The Tracey Ullman shorts aired in 1987, and the show itself first aired in 1989).
 * 8) * Furthermore, the seasons that aired in the 90s are a better tribute to the 90s than this episode itself.
 * 9) Even though this episode (thankfully) was later deemed to be non-canon as a sign of regret from the production crew, the continuity errors continue to this day, as a book named The Simpsons Family History shows the events from this episode as a part of the family history of The Simpsons despite this episode supposedly being deemed to be non-canon.[citation needed] The events being part of the Simpson family history is hard to believe if you think about it.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) "Weird Al" Yankovic's cameo was pretty decent.
 * 2) Later seasons returned to the original setting, and despite the continuity errors and historical inaccuracies, the episode's events were never mentioned again.
 * 3) Unlike episodes where Marge is the one who did bad, she at least apologized in the end, instead of justifying what she did or making you feel sorry for her.
 * 4) The Sadgasm songs are really good.
 * 5) The Sonic the Hedgehog reference has at least Sonic being identical to the classic one.

Reception
That '90s Show received a heavy amount of negative feedback from fans and critics of the show; many called it one of the worst episodes in The Simpsons due to it destroying the continuity from previous seasons. It currently sits at a 6.3/10 rating on IMDb. On NoHomers.net it's ranked the 6th worst episode ever.

Trivia

 * The songs that Homer sings in the episode are parodies of Nirvana songs, and his appearance resembles the band's singer/guitarist, Kurt Cobain. Coincidentally, Weird Al in real life did make a parody of a Nirvana song called "Smells Like Nirvana", which is a parody of "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
 * The episode's title is a parody of That '70s Show and That '80s Show.
 * In 2022, Netflix announced a sequel series to That '70s Show, which happens to be the similarly titled That '90s Show. For real this time.

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