They'll Never Stop the Simpsons
Jan. 10th, 2010 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatOkay, 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.
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.
