Our Honored Dead
“Itchy and Scratchy seem to have lost their edge.” - Lisa Simpson
In the beginning, there was The Simpsons. In 1989 Fox wasn’t even technically a network and it did nothing to make people take it more seriously by scheduling a cartoon for primetime on Sundays. It had been more than two decades since The Flintstones went off the air and cartoons were considered programs for children that only saw network airtime on Saturday mornings.
The show was an instant hit. It pissed off unctuous parent/teacher/authority groups nationwide, mortally wounded The Cosby Show, got into a fight with Barbara Bush, and made its merchandise so ubiquitous that it became a running gag. It was a wild ride and the only other recent television program that can compare in terms of immediate offensiveness and cultural impact is probably South Park, which never would have existed without The Simpsons.[1]
The success and intelligence of The Simpsons essentially made cartoons okay for adults to watch. It opened the eyes of countless people to the idea that you could be just as creative, serious and funny with animation as you could with live action. It eliminated that pesky problem of the actors getting older (and wider) on screen, all but eliminated restrictions for settings and backgrounds and, on top of all that, it was cheap.
My love of The Simpsons cannot be overstated and I’m not going to bore you trying. I realize that humor and comedy are personal and what’s funny to one person isn’t funny to another. In the end it’s all about taste and there’s really no point arguing about it. That being said, and acknowledging the pointlessness of the entire enterprise, I come to bury The Simpsons, not to praise it.
The Simpsons needs to die. I hate saying that and I held out as long as I could, defending the show when other people first started to bash it. I figured that if ever a program had earned the right to have an off season or two, it was this one. I also found that some of the ones I didn’t like at first got better on a second and third viewing as I caught more of the jokes because I didn’t need to follow the plot. I was hoping for a turnaround, for a glimmer of the old magic, but they kept getting worse. I compromised, I’d watch until the first commercial break and if I didn’t laugh, I’d turn it off and shake my head. Now I can’t even stand the commercials I see during NFC football and I involuntarily cringe when they show promo clips.
The Simpsons, my favorite show of all time, a program that taught me more than I ever learned in grade school, is no longer funny. They try harder and harder to be funny, but that just makes it worse. It’s like watching a favorite uncle go from the reason you looked forward to family gatherings to an embarrassment, staggering around loudly with a pint of gin while everyone politely ignores him. The show has been so bad for so long that it’s actually damaged its once invincible reputation. I can no longer just say, “I love The Simpsons” when getting to know someone, now I have to explain that, “I love early Simpsons“. People below a certain age think of it as just another animated show; we’ll never be able to explain to someone born after about 1990 that The Simpsons was once so powerful and important that the President of the United States repeatedly invoked the family as an example of what not to be like while running for re-election. He lost.
The first half hour episode of The Simpsons aired on 17 December 1989[2]; titled “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” it was a vicious send up of the hammy, everyone-hug-at-the-end Christmas specials that are broadcast in December. It openly mocked the conventions of Christmas television, not only denying the existence of Santa Claus but ridiculing shopping mall Santas, Christmas miracles, and even the idea that Christmas is a time for a loving family gathering.[3] It, and the twelve episodes that followed, were a smashing success.
For the next six years The Simpsons could do no wrong, it was one episode of gently vicious satire after another in a target rich environment. That span saw the end of the Soviet Union, the transition from Bush the Elder to Slick Willie, the invention of the World Wide Web, and the rise of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. In the first season, and to some extent the second, the animation isn’t quite polished and the voices don’t totally sound like themselves, but the writing and the gags and the insight are all there.
For me, and I realize that I am perhaps marking myself as an aging codger by saying this, that was the most remarkable run in television history. It’s not just because it was popular and funny, because lots of television shows have been that before, but those episodes have aged superbly. They still resonate because they weren’t making fun of America circa 1990, they were making fun of life.
Then there was one bad episode, and I use the word “bad” lightly, because compared to the thoughtless pratfalls that pass for episodes now it’s brilliant. “Marge Be Not Proud” aired six years to the day after “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” and it sucks. It was the first time The Simpsons ever took themselves seriously. “Marge Be Not Proud” was a “Very Special”[4] episode of The Simpsons and it wasn’t the last.
That was 1995. The seventh season was the first time I ever heard true fans grumble. It was funny, no doubt about that, but it wasn’t perfect. Prior to that, The Simpsons had always been dead solid perfect.[5] That episode was the beginning of the slide, from something different and better than regular television to the ordinary mediocrity of Newton Minnow’s vast wasteland.
Looking back at an episode list, it’s amazing how fast the end came. In the fall of 1996, the eighth season began and for the first time I remember people complaining about The Simpsons. “The Homer They Fall” and “Burns, Baby Burns” were a one-two punch of weak episodes right at the start. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh seasons have salvageable episodes, albeit in decreasing quantity and quality. Those good episodes were increasingly outnumbered by bad ones and even the quality, the ones I still go back and watch, are noticeably less clever than during the golden years.
For me, The Simpsons ended with “Behind the Laughter”, the eleventh season finale. It’s a genuinely funny episode, but the parody of “Behind the Music”[6] is like the first timid sparks produced by our caveman ancestors when compared with the hydrogen bomb of satire that was, and is, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”.
I do not know the cause of the decline. Maybe the people running it got old, or the funny people left, or the pact with Comedy Satan expired. People more obsessed than I have tried to puzzle out what is different with the staff or the network or other behind the scenes information. I don’t know the answer and even asking the question makes me feel impertinent. The geniuses[7] behind those young seasons of The Simpsons have earned a lifetime pass in my book. They created something that literally changed television and American culture, something that I’ll be showing to the uninitiated until I die.
I don’t think The Simpsons is funny anymore. I realize that isn’t much of an argument, but one thing I know for sure is that The Simpsons is no longer smart. It’s degenerated into a parade of improbable setups for cheap physical comedy and the occasional insightful quip can’t save it. When I see clips for new episodes, or see a trailer for the movie, the bile rises to my throat and I feel like my hatred for the current episodes will spoil my love of the canon. Then I watch one of the old ones and it’s a miracle salve for my mind.
When The Simpsons does end, as it inevitably will, I’ll probably invite select people to my home and throw a party. We’ll watch the best of the best and once all is said and done, once the final episode has aired and the last annoyed grunt has sounded, I’ll stand up and shout for all assembled, “The Simpsons is dead. Long live The Simpsons!”
[1] I can feel the Seinfeld fans objecting here. Yes, Seinfeld was big, but it took a while to really get going and it’s aging terribly. Go back and watch it. The laugh track goes into hysterics at things that don’t even rate a chuckle anymore and a lot of episodes are downright boring. Seinfeld was essentially a topical, nine year long standup routine and as the context for it fades into memory the jokes don’t hold up.
[2] Prior to that the family Simpson had been confined to shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show.
[3] Because, let’s face it, if you really liked these people you’d see them more often.
[4] I’ll explain for the lucky few who don’t know what a “Very Special” episode is. A “Very Special” episode of a comedy is when one of the cast faces a serious crisis, typically a moral choice or a health scare. During one of these travesties the characters face serious problems, react poorly and/or selfishly at first, then come together and find out that it’s all going to be okay. It is the worst kind of television.
[5] I’m not looking back on this with rose tinted glasses either. I cannot remember a single episode I or anyone I trusted not liking.
[6] A program that was already a parody of itself.
[7] As much as that word is overused these days, it applies here.
