I’m of the well documented opinion that the show that used to be The Simpsons has basically been on auto-pilot for a decade, and a very low altitude auto-pilot at that.  The underlying structure of the show is so incredibly strong that the actual content of the episodes can be filled in paint-by-number style and, no matter how dull and formulaic it becomes, at least a few people will still call it brilliant.  As a result, the quality of the new episodes has very little effect on the amount of profit the franchise can generate.  And since the quality of the episodes isn’t a priority, it’s gone to hell. 

It is with that in mind that I read this post from The Animation Guild’s blog:

The Simpsons crew is pared down now, with lots of empty cubes in the layout department now that the show’s budget has been … ah … constrained. Do it faster, better, cheaper. Those are the watch words.

There’s more at the link, but that’s exactly what I’m talking about.  The technical quality of the animation has gotten better and better over the years, but it’s come at the expense of anything that could be called care.  There has, of course, always been a budget and a schedule, that’s nothing new.  But as the writing of the show has become more and more rote, it follows that the same would happen with the animation.  You can always churn out more of something (with less people) if your standards fall. 

(Also, a little bit of Zombie Simpson bitching breaks out in the comments of that post.  Hooray.)