your write up on the simpsons was awesome and conveyed a lot of things ive struggled to explain to others about why the show was so great at that time. with this said i have a question for you. a follower of mine recently suggested that the 9th season episode Principal and the Pauper is actually one of the best episodes of the entire shows run. i absolutely disagree, with reasons beyond those of 90s internet fanboy hate. so with that i'll ask you, what did you think of that particular episode?
i think the Principal and the Pauper, as an episode on its own, has a lot of solid jokes and solid execution to them. there's a lot of pretty decent comedy going on there. for example, skinner riding away on a motorcycle and saying "up yours, children!" in that casually semi-up-tempo voice he has is fucking great.
that said, despite the solid jokes within it, we should take the lesson at the end of the episode to heart, and never let it be relevant to the simpsons again