Tripping. Goop Hair It Is is still hilarious, the black text one is, the one where they become landlords, fatal attraction with old girl from the Jamie Foxx show where she is literally insane, the episode where Kim comes in town as their country cousin, etc.
S3 has the Colt 45 episode criticizing white people. Theepisode where ol boy keeps still Shawn's marketing once he got the job. The fake marriage story. The temptones episode. Etc etc
ya'll need to rewatch these because they absolutely hold up. Especially in comparison to S5 where Marlon is the successful one from being a famous actor and shyt.
I love season three. But you're claiming that seasons one and two are part of the show's prime when they're not. Season four is one of the best seasons I've seen from any sitcom.
Marlon and Shawn are on record stating that they felt like they were embarrassing the family in the earlier seasons. The writers they were working with didn't get the show or what they were trying to do. A lot of people were getting fired and they had to rewrite the scripts hours before filming. Shawn even complained to John Witherspoon and he told him not to let the network get to him because if the show made it to 100 episodes, they would get a great syndication deal.
Looking at the first two seasons, you can tell Marlon and Shawn don't have a lot of creative control. They were trying to make Marlon more sincere and weren't playing to his strengths. Most of his dialogue sounds like it was written for him, which wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't a writer himself and couldn't ad-lib. The plots aren't that unique, either. You could see a lot of other shows do them, or at least approach them in the exact same way.
I'll give season two some credit because it tried to move things in the right direction. They introduced the newsstand, redesigned the diner, got rid of Shawn's girlfriend, added Dee and T.C. The writing still wasn't there yet, but near the end of season two, it started shifting in the right direction.
The minute season three starts, it's like a light went off. Marlon was allowed to be himself and he became more unhinged, him and Shawn were more confident as actors, and they figured out which side characters worked the best (Dee, T.C., Dupree). Marlon becoming an actor is part of the reason the show got better because it opened up the door for more stories (you mentioned one of them with the malt liquor episode). A few episodes into season three, you can tell that no one's telling Marlon and Shawn what to do anymore and it's 100% their show.
You don't like season five, but the season premiere was arguably a top ten episode, and it has this scene.
I don't like the weed episode, either, but it's probably the only episode after season two that I wouldn't rewatch. Even then, it still has more energy than an episode from the first two seasons.
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