No it had started to suck by this point. This was season 8, the first bad season. It was pretty much downhill from there

Season 8 has Frank Grimes and Homer's bootlegging scam so I am forced to assume you are horrible.

Season 9 is the bad one.

Both of those episodes marked a noticeable shift in the tone of the jokes the show relied on for laughs. They were far less subtle and intelligent. It's true that season 9 was a lot worse than season 8, but season 8 was terribly unfunny compared to season 7 and just downright sad compared to the golden years when David Mirkin was in control and guys like Conan O'Brien wrote the jokes.

simpsons snobbery FTW

This is not the right forum for an argument, but briefly:
a) the callous tone was a marked change from previous seasons and still novel, and therefore still funny

b) the episodes still had coherent narratives

and c) no celebrity cameos where the entire gag was that the celebrities were actually in fact themselves.

It was actually Underage Sex Cauldron.

Love Love Sexual Cauldron Yuma!

You mean Maude Flanders? Because I didn't see Helen Lovejoy in there

Then they killed Maude Flanders and with it, the show!

I enjoy that I can watch my DVDs and have no problems. But I see a clip on the internet and I'm instantly on my porch in my bathrobe yelling at kids on my lawn.