The death of the Simpsons?

[Guest pappajacks]

The Simpsons

Who turned America's best TV show into a cartoon?

By Chris Suellentrop

 

 

At some point during its 14-year run, The Simpsons turned into one of the best sitcoms on television—and that's not a compliment. At one time, to call The Simpsons the best show on Fox would have been a vast understatement; to say it was the best sitcom on television would have been inadequate; and to describe it as the greatest TV show in history would (and still does) minimize its importance by limiting its cultural impact to the small screen. Who knows when it happened—maybe it was when Homer visited the leprechaun jockeys in Season 11, or when he was raped by a panda in Season 12—but for several years, watching The Simpsons chase Ozzie & Harriet's record for the longest-running sitcom has been like watching the late-career Pete Rose: There's still greatness there, and you get to see a home run now and then, but mostly it's a halo of reflected glory.

 

The hype surrounding this Sunday's 300th Simpsons episode (actually the 302nd because Fox isn't counting two holiday "specials") has underscored the show's decline. To celebrate the milestone, Entertainment Weekly picked the top 25 episodes in Simpsons history: Twenty-four of them come from 1997 or before, meaning that only one comes from the past five seasons (which, not coincidentally, is the time period from which EW selected its "Worst Episode Ever"). Similarly, USA Today published a top-10 list written by the fan who runs the best Simpsons site on the Web. He picked nine shows from 1993 and before, and the other was from 1997. The newspaper also asked Simpsons staff members to select their 15 favorite moments and episodes, and only one person (Al Jean, the show's executive producer) chose something that happened within the past five years. Even as fans, critics, and staff members rejoice in the show's amazing longevity, they all agree: The past five or six seasons just haven't been up to snuff.

 

 

Who's to blame for this state of events? Some of the die-hard fans who populate the news group alt.tv.simpsons have settled on a "lone gunman" theory—that one man single-handedly brought down TV's Camelot. One problem: They don't agree on who's hiding in the book depository. Many fans finger Mike Scully, who served as executive producer for Seasons 9 through 12 (generally considered the show's nadir). Others target writer Ian Maxtone-Graham. Scully and Maxtone-Graham, both of whom joined the show after it had already been on the air for several seasons, are cited as evidence that The Simpsons lost touch with what made it popular in the beginning—Matt Groening's and James L. Brooks' conception of an animated TV family that was more realistic than the live-action Huxtables and Keatons and Seavers who populated 1980s television. Unlike other TV families, for example, the Simpsons would go to church, have money problems, and watch television.

 

But under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon. In A.O. Scott's Slate "Assessment" of Matt Groening, he wrote that Groening is "committed to using cartoons as a way of addressing reality." But in recent years, The Simpsons has become an inversion of this. The show now uses reality as a way of addressing itself, a cartoon. This past Sunday's episode featured funny references to Spongebob Squarepants, the WNBA, Ken Burns, Tony Soprano, and Fox programming, but the Simpsons themselves, and the rest of the Springfield populace, have become empty vessels for one-liners and sight gags, just like the characters who inhabit other sitcoms. (Think Chandler Bing.)

 

The Simpsons no longer marks the elevation of the sitcom formula to its highest form. These days it's closer to It's Garry Shandling's Show—a very good, self-conscious parody of a sitcom (and itself). Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset (perhaps while Bart gagged in the background) now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny, but it hasn't been touching in years. Writer Mike Reiss admitted as much to the New York Times Magazine, conceding that "much of the humanity has leached out of the show over the years. … It hurts to watch it, even if I helped do it."

 

But can you blame one person for it? It would be nice to finger Maxtone-Graham, who gave a jaw-dropping interview to London's Independent in 1998. In it, he admitted to hardly ever watching The Simpsons before he joined the staff in 1995, to brazenly flouting Groening's rules for the show (including saying he "loved" an episode that Groening had his name removed from), and to open disdain for fans, saying, "Go figure! That's why they're on the Internet and we're writing the show." But just because Maxtone-Graham is a jerk (or at the very least, shows colossally bad judgment in front of an interviewer) doesn't mean he's a bad writer. On top of that, a show like The Simpsons is the product of so many creative individuals that it's difficult to blame one person—even Scully, the onetime executive producer—for anything.

 

So, instead, there are a few conspiracy theories for the show's not-quite demise. Perhaps the problem is too many cooks, as staff legend George Meyer implied to MSNBC.com: "We have more writers now," Meyer said. "In the early days, I think, more of the show, more of the episode was already in the first draft of the script. Now there's more room-writing that goes on, and so I think there's been a kind of homogenization of the scripts. … Certainly, the shows are more jokey than they used to be. But I think they also lack the individual flavor that they had in the early years." Another theory lays the blame on the show's many celebrity guest stars, which have made the show resemble those old Scooby Doo episodes where Sandy Duncan, or Tim Conway and Don Knotts, would show up just for the heck of it. Still others think the problem is the show's brain drain: Long-absent individuals include creators Groening and Brooks, actor Phil Hartman, and writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss (who both left briefly to do The Critic), Greg Daniels (still doing King of the Hill), and Conan O'Brien (who has been linked to the show's decline so many times that Groening once called the theory "one of the most annoying nut posts" on the Internet).

 

But maybe no one, not even a group of people, can be held responsible. Simpsons determinists lay the blame on unstoppable, abstract forces like time. The show's writers and producers often subscribe to this line when they publicly abase themselves for not living up to the show's high standards. Maxtone-Graham told the Independent, "I think we should pack it in soon and I think we will—we're running out of ideas," and Meyer admitted to MSNBC.com, "We're starting to see some glimmers of the end. … It's certainly getting harder to come up with stories, no question."

 

An incredible anxiety of influence hovers over Simpsons writers, who realize that they are judged not by the standards of network television, but by the standards of their own show's golden age. By the end of his tenure as executive producer, Scully was making nervous statements to the press like, "Basically, my goal is just not to wreck the show" and, "Yeah, we don't want to be the guys that, you know, sank the ship." Maybe The Simpsons is killing The Simpsons by setting expectations too high. After all, even while you're wincing or groaning at a particularly lame gag, you're hoping that the show will stay on the air longer than Gunsmoke. It's hard to imagine television without The Simpsons. If it sticks around for another 300 episodes, maybe, someday, the wound of the past few seasons will be remembered like the one Maggie administered to Mr. Burns: an accident, and not a fatal one.

 

 

Related in Slate

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

I'll just say they were wrong for singling out the murderous jockies. That was an intentional joke episode, and as such, was brilliance.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Yeah, people ask me on Sunday nights "You watching?" and I just tell them that it makes me sad to watch the new episodes of the show anymore.

[Guest Kinetic]

Wasn't the episode that Matt Groening had his name removed from the one with Jay Sherman? That's a great episode. Other than that, I agreed with this article entirely. It's time to pack it in.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

For the Conan O'Brien thing, you can trace the downturn of the Simpsons to him, but can't attribute it to him. He was really the guy who took the original concept of the show as a sort of animated Married with Children in contrast to smarmy 80's family sitcoms and injected it with the one liners and pop culture references of today. In paricular I think Marge vs. the Monorail is the most important episode of the series as it's the defined point where the show went from being a more realistic social satire to being more surreal and pop culture driven. This show, of course, is almost completely O'Brien's creation and he has gone on record as saying it's probably the thing he would most like to be remembered for.

 

The problem was that the new people that came on tried to follow in Conan's lead without really understanding what he was doing and having the inate talent he shows for that style of writing and script construction. He employs a similar sense of humor on his own show and that has been going just fine for years now. People tried to copy Conan instead of branching out on their own or finding their own voice within the style he set up and that's what has put the Simpsons on a downward spiral.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I blame 3 eps.

 

Frank Grimes, Hullapalooza, John Waters.

 

Frank Grimes was when the simpsons lost its heart. This eps. is so dark and depressing. The end with Homer falling asleep at the funeral was mean and "that's our homer" has been the shows rallying cry ever since. This is when Homer turned Jerkass.

 

Hullapalooza is when the simpsons went modern. Before, their pop culture references were retro, rather than current. By having the Smashing Pumpkins and Cyprus Hill on the show they became Y2K compatible (for lack of a better term). Bart and Lisa were now all of a sudden 'hip' and 'with it' and Homer was now trying to be cool and get acceptance and popularity from everyone. This gets reflected into a dozen shows afterwards (300th game, anyone?) - It really marked a transition in the shows outlook on the life of springfield. Now there is the internet and shit like that - the nuclear family has become digital and I can't stand it.

 

The John Waters eps. was the day that dennis the menace turned into the olsen twins. Bart never fully recovered and lost his top spot to Homer. Before that, the homer-centric eps. were the best in part because they weren't as frequent as the Bart eps. and even in the Bart eps. Homer was always the one to watch. Now that Homer is the main focus of EVERY SINGLE SHOW it's the same gag over and over again (That's our Homer!). Plus Homers homophobia is irrational - he never showed it before this and was never that ignorant of other peoples differences. It also was way too preachy for my tastes and dealt with a 'modern' issue that really didn't need to be dealt with on the simpsons.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

And WHEN THE FUCK did the simpsons become 'white'?! They are yellow! YELLOW! YELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOW!

[Guest El Satanico]

The news of the death of the Simpsons...has been greatly exaggerated.

 

 

Personally I still love the show. Of course when I watch older episodes and compare them to the newer episodes I can see a big difference between them. The new episodes aren't nearly as good as the old episodes, but the show still isn't that bad.

 

Besides the newer episodes are only shitty when being compared to older episodes. The new Simpsons episodes are still alot better than most other sitcoms out there and that's all I'm concerned about.

 

I like goofy off the wall humor just as much as i like humorous social satire.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I like Futurama. It basically has the exact same comedic style as the simpsons. But I can't stand it when the simpsons use it because it *isn't* the simpsons.

[Guest Eagan469]

Wasn't the episode that Matt Groening had his name removed from the one with Jay Sherman? That's a great episode.

Matt said that he hated that episode because it was just a 30 minute commercial for "The Critic".

 

I loved that episode personally

[Guest Youth N Asia]

My main problem with the show now is that they use too many one shot characters. Like LT Smash, and Hank Scorpio, a character who took up a ton of the episode, and you knew you'd never see again.

 

And don't hate me yet...I loved Hank Scorpio, just wish they would do more episodes like they use to. Where the main focus would be the main characters.

 

And the boy band episode was the worst they've ever done. They just seemed like they didn't have any jokes written up so they filled the time with singing.

 

I also hate when celebs WHO WON'T POKE FUN AT THEMSELVES are on the show. I love the moments with Stan Lee and Ron Howard, cause they would make fun of themselves and it was funny.

[Guest Karnage]

I think the current Simpsons episodes try to much to be like Family Guy with all the out-of-nowhere bizarre gags.

[Guest Crazy Dan]

I love the Simpsons. It still makes me laugh, more times than naught. Sure it isn't as funny as it used to be, but it still one of the better comedies out there. Also, when I see repeats, I usually will pick up more of the jokes I missed, so it's a show which you can watch time and time again. Some of the newer ones I liked have been the reality-tv one (it had Squiggy on it) and the one where Homer's second wife from Vegas returns.

 

I liked the boy band one. It ripped on the concept of boy bands (studio magic) and when Lt Smash day dreams about the evil hippies, that had me rolling.

 

I do think the missed the opportunity to rip on religious nuts in last week's episode, so that was one of the more weaker episodes that I have seen.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

Heh...I'm currently drinking cream soda out of a Homer glass that keeps drinks really cold and has Homer slapping his forehead yelling "D'oh!" on it.

 

I didn't mind the boy-band episode. I laughed at it, because I find joking about boy-bands to be funny. YVAN EHT NIOJ~!

 

Everything everybody else has said is pretty much true. The show is still 10x better than any other sitcom (save for maybe common-day South Park, because Trey and Matt have been GOLD this past season), and is a cultural landmark.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

The reality TV one blew. The sheer absurdity of the whole episode and the haphazard "plot" progression showed exactly what's gone wrong with the show.

[Guest El Satanico]

Wait...absurdity is a bad thing?

 

Hmm I had it all wrong then.

 

If i want social commentary/satire I can always watch South Park. Heh...now there's a comment not seen often.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

South Park is actually one of the most intelligent shows on television, as Trey and Matt have so many great episodes relating to "issues", but they wrap it all up like only they can. Who here honestly liked Homer's Phobia more than Sparky the Gay Dog? Exactly.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

I think, I'm the only one who didn't like the Hank Scorpio episode. The show needs the rest of the town to really work. The Simpson's has family wasn't as funny. The supporting cast adds so much to show. After season 9 or 10 is when I would of ended it, before it got really bad.

[Guest El Satanico]

South Park is actually one of the most intelligent shows on television, as Trey and Matt have so many great episodes relating to "issues", but they wrap it all up like only they can. Who here honestly liked Homer's Phobia more than Sparky the Gay Dog? Exactly.

Yeah i know that, but i said what i said because alot of people don't give the show enough credit.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

"Does that mean we have to go to church on sunday, dad?"

 

"No, we get to son...we get to"

 

*Shits out of his mouth*

 

South Park is godly.

[Guest JangoFett4Hire]

Halfway thru that article, I found myself imitating Homer: Boring!

[Guest nl5xsk1]

If you don't think the Simpsons is funny anymore, don't watch. There are still A LOT of us who watch the show every week. Yes, it's not as consistently great anymore, but it was so great for so long, it would be impossible to maintain that level. If it's not funny enough for you, grab your remote and change the channel. It's that simple.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Hell, I *don't* watch anymore.

 

And when ever I decide to tune in I get shit like Marge with muscles. WTF?

 

Just a question to all those who still watch the show and have been defending it: How long have you been watching?

[Guest Mad Dog]

I've been watching it since back in 89. Still watch mostly b/c nothing better is on and out of a vain hope that it'll get better.

 

But the last 2 seasons have been really bad.

[Guest red_file]

Been watching since '89 and even enjoyed it at its nadir. But I apparently have no taste.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I've been watching from day one...I still try and see it, but now if I miss an episode I could care less...where as 5 or 6 years ago it would have pissed me off.

[Guest El Satanico]

I believe i missed the first two seasons when they were originally shown, but have been watching since season three give or take.

 

I wasn't actually defending the new episodes. I fully admit that the newer episodes are shit compared to the great earlier episodes.

 

However as i said the show is still one of the better shows on tv and that's all i'm concerned with. If a current episode entertains me or makes me laugh then I'm pleased with it and don't really care how well it stacks up to great earlier episodes.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Besides the argument that the Simpsons has turned into a "That's my homer" sitcom, I don't really see the point of bashing a show that is still great, for not being AS GREAT anymore. Plus with the DVD releases, we all get what we want anyway.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Considering that Homer takes up 90% of the show, I think it's a valid argument.

 

The Simpsons today is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SHOW. It's not even comparable to the simpsons of old. So it's not just "as great" it's in an entirely different (and lower..much lower) world that seasons 3-7. Hell, I'd rather take Season 1 and 2 ahead of everything past Frank Grimes because at least THOSE episodes had heart. It shouldn't even be called 'the simpsons', it should be called 'The Homer Simpson Variety Show' where Bart is Gay and secondary characters go on magical romps through springfield with the most annoying character in television today (Homer J. Simpson).

 

It's like the writers try to think of funny sight-gags and one liners and base an ENTIRE EPISODE around them.

[Guest Jack Tunney]

The moment for me that was the true downfall of the show was when they went to Africa.It was the least funniest thing I have ever seen,nothing funny happened.I just sat there and watched,and waited....and nothing came.