All good things must come to an end. Yesterday, the eleventh, and as far as I’m concerned final, season of The Simpsons came out on DVD. Yes, there have been many episodes broadcast since the Season 11 finale in 2000, but they bear only the most superficial of resemblances to what was once known simply as The Simpsons. In terms of intellect and humor what is broadcast these days is a hollow shell, just one more vacuous television program distinguishable from the others only by its noble history. If the current episodes premiered today under a different title (as, say, The Thompsons) it would be cancelled inside of a month. At this point the show is little more than Zombie Simpsons, the heart and the brains went out of it a long time ago.
It’s not as though Season 11 is some sterling collection, the golden age of The Simpsons ended in Season 7 with “Marge Be Not Proud”, but there are good episodes in it and the finale, “Behind the Laughter”, would’ve been a decent way to end things. Instead, of course, it staggered onwards, descending into the unwatchable crap we have today. Many things have gone wrong over the years, the constant overreliance on Homer getting hurt (in increasingly convoluted and elaborate ways), ever more intrusive and hackneyed celebrity appearances (often playing themselves), and stories that grow more outlandish and bizarre with each passing season.
Speaking only for myself, the most devastating change has been the increasingly self-aware nature of the characters. Homer, and to a lesser extent Bart and the rest of the cast, have devolved from American Everybodies into messy caricatures of themselves who are all too aware of their special status. What originally made Homer Simpson a great character was his very ordinariness. He was an everyman, the low brow guy working the dead-end job to support the kids who don’t particularly love and or respect him. The same was true for Marge the unappreciated housewife, Bart the undisciplined troublemaker and Lisa the overlooked overachiever. These were recognizable characters and it carried through to the supporting cast. Now Homer is invincible and he knows it, the rest of the cast even treats him with special deference.
Let me give you an example. In Season 5 Homer goes to college in order to keep his job, and when the Dean gets hit by a car he has to go to the hospital and the plot turns on the event. In Season 11 Homer is asked to house sit Burns’ mansion (for some reason), becomes a party boat captain (for some other reason) and ends up fighting pirates and floating back home on a raft made of his dead friends (you get the idea). This is obviously a selective example but the difference is undeniable. The Dean getting hit by the car takes less than a second and has real consequences, the “action” on the boat goes on for half a minute for no real purpose. Oh yeah, and Britney Spears (at the height of her popularity) guest stars as herself.
I could go on in that vein but there’s no point. Either you know what I’m talking about or you don’t. To catalogue just how bad things have gotten I was all set to bite the bullet and suffer through some of the new season for examples of the awfulness that is modern Simpsons. The first two episode descriptions were not encouraging:
Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes (28 September) - When Homer is given $25,000 bail after his participation in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade fight, he and Ned team up to be bounty hunters; Marge takes a job at a bakery, unaware that it sells erotic cakes
Lost Verizon (5 October) - Bart takes a cellphone discarded by Denis Leary and starts making prank calls pretending to be him; when Marge squeals on Bart to Leary, he tells her to turn on the phone’s GPS tracker so she can track him, but Bart attaches the chip to a bird headed to Peru
You couldn’t sum up the general problems any better. In the first Homer gets another new job (as a bounty hunter no less, I’m sure there’s an oh so thrilling chase and that he absorbs tremendous damage); in the second it’s celebrity cameo time once again! Fortunately I was spared the indignity of having to watch them when this clip of Homer voting (presumably from this year’s Halloween special due on November 2nd) was leaked online:
Long story short Homer goes to vote for Barack Obama and the voting machine changes his vote to one for John McCain. It’s a funny concept but even in this short clip you can feel them stretching the gag to fill the time in way classic Simpsons never did. At first Homer is directed to a voting booth much too narrow for his ample frame. As a cheap gag he tries to fit for a few seconds (accompanied by some rubbery Foley effects) before being directed to the “double wide” handicapped booth. Homer votes for Obama and the machine counts it for McCain and it’s funny. But it doesn’t end there, oh no. It goes on for another thirty seconds in which the machine inhales Homer, a massive pool of blood spreads on the floor, and then Homer’s mangled corpse is ejected.
I certainly appreciate the dig at Ohio but much of the sequence feels like overwrought filler. That’s a subjective judgment on my part, as is my low opinion of the countless episodes I endured before I finally quit watching the new ones, but Homer’s on screen for barely sixty seconds and yet there are two drawn out jokes about him being fat or getting hurt. I realize that this clip is from a Halloween episode so rules don’t really apply, and I have no idea how this fits into the larger plot of the segment, but it’s still indicative of just how thin the humor has become.
The Simpsons was once great and profound and my opinion that it is no longer either of those things is just that, my opinion. But does anyone out there seriously believe that it’s the funniest show on television anymore? Does anyone out there seriously believe that it’s the smartest show on television? Those contentions were once all but inarguable and now even asking the questions is laughable. The early seasons were lightning in a bottle, the right show (written, voiced and animated by the right people), for the right time on the right channel in the right context and they set an impossible standard, but what goes up on the air now isn’t just substandard, it’s sad.
By a happy coincidence tonight is the fall premier of the reigning grand champion of television comedy. South Park, which is now in its twelfth season, is still going strong. It has the occasional weak episode, but has there been any episode of The Simpsons from the last decade with as much pop culture panache as “Trapped in the Closet”? Or as keen a take on a controversy as “The Passion of the Jew”? Or as many wall-to-wall gags as the “Imaginationland” episodes? Please.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Simpsons needs to die. The current episodes are over-animated, under-thought out and mediocre to the core. They aren’t worthy of the name.
Think of the Children! (end note):
Two weeks ago I was sitting in a Panera Bread café/bakery/whatever the hell that place is. It being Panera there was a clutch of teenagers in the next booth. The company was mixed and the tone of the conversation sounded both friendly and flirty. The bench seats were filled so one late arriving male pulled a chair up to the booth. I didn’t directly witness what happened but after they’d been there for a half hour or so there was a small commotion. Amidst still friendly banter the kid in the chair then got up and went to the bathroom, apparently to tend a minor injury.
Upon his return the female in the booth who had been adjacent to him apologized; I think her flirtatious horseplay had gotten a little out of hand. Resuming his seat in the chair the kid said, “You made me bleed my own blood.” My immediate reaction was to think “excellent usage” and then I felt a small swell of pride in our youth as the entire group got the reference and laughed. At most this kid was seventeen which would make him about negative two when that episode was first broadcast.
There is hope. The kids are alright, and good Simpsons always shines through.
