I think Simpsons has jumped the shark more than once now. Every time they start tanking, they redeem themselves with a few fresh episodes. The problem that the Simpsons had for awhile there was that Groening was devoting his time to both Simpsons and Futurama. Futurama was the next logical step for Groening, and it's too bad it was so short-lived. Many people just viewed Futurama as a sci-fi Simpsons, which it really wasn't. Neverhteless, it was probably a key contributor to its demise.
They should do an actual 'Jump the Shark' extended hour-long episode on the Simpsons, to poke fun at the fact that that's what they are doing now...
Bart actually jumps a shark, for a Fear-Factor-type reality show... (cameo by Joe Rogan and/or Jeff Probst)
Homer gets shot and killed by a mystery murderer who then gets his next mystery assignment... and starts spying on the other Simpsons...
Marge starts to date too soon after Homer's death, and dates all the eligible men in Springfield, so they can show all the possible new start-up montages if Marge remarried... imagine The Flanders... The Wiggums... the Burnses... etc... up to and including Lisa Loves Chachi...
Lisa rants and rages against the whole 'jump-the-shark' and reality TV craze, and gets noticed by a Presidential candidate, and asked to be his running-mate VP candidate, as the youngest candidate in history, prompting countless shameless cameos from other politicians and celebrities (usual jump-the-shark stuff, including celeb cameos...)
Marge gets pregnant, the ultimate jump-the-shark event after years of same old characters: introduce a baby!! yay!!
The big TV day comes, Bart jumps the shark, Marge goes into labor, and the assassin attempts to take out the mystery target, and sets his sites on Baby Maggie...
Bart is eaten by the shark during the jump (prompting another cameo by Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfus), Marge is shot instead of Maggie, and the assassin is revealed as Groundskeeper Willie, programmed by the same government spook program backed and endorsed by the Presidential candidate that Lisa is backing, who is from some place called Manchuria (The Manchurian Candidate!! )
At the hospital, Bart is treated for his few cuts and scrapes and close-call with the shark, and Marge has twins, a boy and a girl, one looks like Wiggums and one looks like Flanders!! Marge faints from the twist, and when she wakes up, she is home, in bed, watching TV, the HAPPY DAYS marathon just ended now stay tuned for DALLAS!! Marge hears the shower and goes to the bathroom to see... HOMER!! alive and well in the shower! then Bart steps in and flushes the toilet, Homer gets blasted with cold water, and chases Bart around the house, naked...
Marge makes a joke about eating junk food and watching too much late-night TV giving her bad dreams, and everything goes back to normal in the Simpsons...
you guys gotta freakin be kidding me. The Simpsons is still the funniest show on television. You guys just aren't picking up on all the little bits of it all. Sure they've had a couple of lesser episodes, but all in all, it's still a hilarious show.
ESPECIALLY when homer got to smoke medicinal marijuana. I could not stop laughing that enitre episode. But there are others too, i'm usually just too stoned to remember them all...but that's probably part of the reason they're so funny.