They'll Never Stop the Simpsons

[vovat]

Okay, I never saw Supersize Me, but what I've heard about Morgan Spurlock makes him sound like a total jerk. So I wasn't too happy about his doing the Simpsons twentieth anniversary special documentary deal, but I guess he wasn't particularly annoying in it. As for the documentary itself, most of it was pretty typical stuff about the show I'd heard a whole bunch of times, but there were some interesting tidbits. I'd never seen anyone with a Milhouse tattoo before, and I didn't know about the battle between people from different parts of Scotland to claim Groundskeeper Willy as their own. They didn't mention how he also claimed to be from Loch Ness and North Kilttown, not to mention how different episodes didn't agree on whether his dad was still alive.

It does strike me that The Simpsons no longer has the cultural relevance it once did, but I guess that's more or less inevitable after so many years. And I suppose it must still bring in good ratings, because it's not like Fox is at all reluctant to cancel shows. Nonetheless, it seems like it's more common to overhear people these days talking about Family Guy jokes than Simpsons jokes. And hey, I like Family Guy, but it doesn't hold the same place in my heart. I've probably said before that I feel that FG is basically The Simpsons taken a step further away from reality, which means that they can get away with some more surreal humor that would be out of place on the show that obviously inspired it, but also that it's harder to find the characters believable.

So what was the appeal of The Simpsons in the first place? I guess it would be a cop-out to just say "it's funny," so I'll also add that it runs that gamut of comedy, and is incredibly quotable. Really, if you were to describe the premise to some hypothetical person who's been on a cave in Mars with his eyes shut and his fingers in his ears (I TOLD you it was quotable!), I don't know that it sounds like it would be that funny. It's an animated sitcom about a family. Big deal, right? It's something you really have to watch to understand why it's funny, but since it's hard to find someone who hasn't watched it, that's not a problem anymore.

As for tonight's new episode, it was nothing special. I think most of the episodes recently have had the problem of just meandering and not building up to anything. The ideas are okay, and there are good character-driven jokes, but the actual plots leave me flat. This one was no exception, with two fairly promising stories that don't live up to their full potential. The Homer subplot was a little difficult to swallow anyway, as it would have us believe that another power plant would WANT to hire someone as dangerously incompetent as Homer.

Comments

[alicornmoon.livejournal.com]

I'm really not as let down by the Simpsons as most people seem to be...I think it is because I have been watching most of it for the first time now, because I was never allowed to watch it growing up, and because I hate the more nasty undertone Family Guy has a lot. Those sort of 'so bad that you laugh anyway' jokes just don't make me laugh. Especially when I like Meg as a character :P

A lot of my taste is more light hearted slapstick, which the Simpsons often is :)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

While I do think The Simpsons isn't as good as it once was, I still have a loyalty to it. It's sort of like, after all this time, I know the characters, and want to see what they're doing even if it isn't as funny as it could be.

The Griffins are definitely openly meaner to each other than the Simpsons are. Compared to some of what they've done to each other, Homer's strangling Bart is pretty minor. The treatment of Meg is particularly weird, in that it seems we're normally supposed to think it's funny how nobody in her own family cares about her, but then find her sympathetic when she's the focus of an episode. I mean, I think there's a reason why we never see Hans Moleman as the central focus of a Simpsons episode, but that's sort of what FG does with Meg.

[alicornmoon.livejournal.com]

I never found how Meg was treated funny, even before I saw any episodes where she was the focus. I think the level of how much you were picked on as a girl really has something to do with liking it or not although..I have to say, I'm normally noy gender focused at all but...FG seems to not like females much at all :|

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I have noticed that FG contains an inordinate amount of violence against women. I mean, I don't necessarily think anything should be off-limits for joking, but sometimes there's no joke BEYOND a man beating a woman. And, well, that in and of itself is pretty much the opposite of funny.

[alicornmoon.livejournal.com]

I know...honestly, I think FGs maker might have some issues he needs help talking about :(

[revme.livejournal.com]

I'd heard a bit of pre-show advertising that was saying that they'd hired Spurlock to do the documentary thingy as a Real Documentary rather than just a standard "we are rad!" thing -- and, so I was a little let down that it was, y'know, just a standard "we are rad!" thing. I have to say, too -- with stuff like this and DVD features and whatnot -- do we REALLY need constant clips? I mean, if we've bought the DVD/watching a friggin' 20th Anniversary special, we're probably familiar enough with it, so we don't need constant reminders of jokes we've seen. I guess it wouldn't be bad, except that a lot of times it's at the expense of something interesting. They cut down an interview to show a thing we've seen five hundred times before.

Like, there's a difference between B-roll which is useful/fine... and just "Hey, here's a random joke!"

I think what it is with the Simpsons is that there's a pretty good emotional core that makes the show work (better than, say, Family Guy, which is just Joke Clearinghouse. Which, nothing wrong with, but....). That's why I like Futurama even better -- they did the emotional/character-driven-stuff EVEN better.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I have to say, too -- with stuff like this and DVD features and whatnot -- do we REALLY need constant clips?

I suppose the clips were inevitable, but it really does seem like they were pretty much chosen at random. Like, whenever anybody mentions a specific character, they just put in ANY clip that features that character, even if it wasn't particularly memorable or representative.

From what I remember, a lot of the pre-show publicity for Futurama highlighted the wackiness, and while that's certainly there, it really did also give us strong characters that we can care about.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Morgan Spurlock? So *that's* who that guy was ...

[colleenanne.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, why have you heard bad about Morgan Spurlock?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Partially his adherence to the "obesity epidemic" meme that seems to be more about criticizing people than actual health concerns, and partially because of something I remember hearing about his essentially bashing poor people when speaking at a school assembly. I'll admit that it's mostly based on hearsay, but the stuff I've heard gives me bad vibes. The fact that his most famous documentary was centered around a Stupid Human Trick doesn't help matters either.