The first half of the episode is solid. Gabbo vs Krusty is an interesting enough premise. The ridiculous media hype over Gabbo is satirized well enough. Unfortunately everything is squandered in the second half by just spamming random celebrities who have nothing to do with the plot or each other, rather than advance the narrative. The episode features Beth Midler literally catching a truck on the motorway by foot, then throwing it barehands in a ravine, with no real context, which is everything you need to know about it. This is the kind of tired, over-the-top, self-referential gags that would make purists mad a decade later. Obviously celebrity cameos were nothing new, but writers in this era usually did a very good job at either writing a touching episode around said celebrity(the Michael Jackson episode), or inserting them as nice flavor of the week backdrop(Aerosmith in Flaming Moe's). Unfortunately Krusty Gets Kancelled tries to have its cake and eat it too. The celebrities involved are clearly supposed to be the highlight, yet only have a series of disjointed gags to their name, and overall serve as plot devices at best.
By comparing this episode to "Zombie Simpsons" I am in no way pretending that 1993 was the beginning of the end for Bart and co. Season 4 was extremely good, and the show had many years before its grizzly demise. However, it is the first time that the show acted as an antithesis to its very premise in a major way. The Simpsons' main goal, at heart, was to criticize and satirize American values, culture and consumerism, and in particular, TV. Krusty gets Kancelled, as an episode based on TV and Springfield's undying clown misses the mark. The answer to being outshined by another entertainer is not supposed to be having more random names and more production value to your own program, this is a very cynical message and it is surprising to see the Simpsons parroting it with no kind of self-awareness as soon as the early 90s. Especially in a season finale, where having the most guest starts in the show's history(at that point) was obviously used to get a few media mentions and a cheap emotional pay-off before a few months break.
Perhaps the writers saw the errors of their way, as the next episodes based on Krusty's rating woes went in a totally opposite direction, even though they were at the start of the show's supposed decline(Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie in season 8, the Last Temptation of Krust in season 9). But that's another story.
By comparing this episode to "Zombie Simpsons" I am in no way pretending that 1993 was the beginning of the end for Bart and co. Season 4 was extremely good, and the show had many years before its grizzly demise. However, it is the first time that the show acted as an antithesis to its very premise in a major way. The Simpsons' main goal, at heart, was to criticize and satirize American values, culture and consumerism, and in particular, TV. Krusty gets Kancelled, as an episode based on TV and Springfield's undying clown misses the mark. The answer to being outshined by another entertainer is not supposed to be having more random names and more production value to your own program, this is a very cynical message and it is surprising to see the Simpsons parroting it with no kind of self-awareness as soon as the early 90s. Especially in a season finale, where having the most guest starts in the show's history(at that point) was obviously used to get a few media mentions and a cheap emotional pay-off before a few months break.
Perhaps the writers saw the errors of their way, as the next episodes based on Krusty's rating woes went in a totally opposite direction, even though they were at the start of the show's supposed decline(Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie in season 8, the Last Temptation of Krust in season 9). But that's another story.