Homer, Conservative Hero

NRO ^ | 11/8/02 | Deroy Murdock

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

America's long, national nightmare is nearly over. After a painful, 169-day hiatus, new episodes of The Simpsons finally return to Fox TV Sundays at 8:00 P.M. Eastern.

The characters who debuted in animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show in April 1987 launch their 14th season on November 10. The Simpsons now ties The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as history's longest-running comedy series.

How has it flourished so long? The Simpsons's knack for making viewers laugh out loud is obvious. However, among its secret ingredients, intellectual rigor is key. The uninitiated still assume The Simpsons is a children's cartoon show. In reality, it is both incredibly adult and, I sincerely believe, television's single most intelligent offering today.

The program's brilliant writers are steeped in history, literature, science and philosophy. Episodes refer to Random House cofounder Bennet Cerf, the Van Allen Belt, the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, hyperbolic topology and the posting of Martin Luther's "95 Theses" on a German church door in 1517. After residents loot stores during a blackout, Otto, the local school bus driver, sneaks past the Simpsons's house carrying Pablo Picasso's chaotic masterpiece, Guernica.

The show works as well because the Simpsons — despite their foibles — deep down, truly love each other. They inhabit a tightly knit community of generally endearing neighbors who, somehow, all get along.

But Springfield is no sentimental River City. The Simpsons scores because its social commentary bites like a sarcastic cobra.

A local parade's salute to American Indian culture includes a huge model of the Cleveland Indians' controversial, grinning mascot. "Interesting side note on this float," says a broadcaster covering the procession. "The papier-mâché is composed entirely of broken treaties."

"Order! Order!" school principal Seymour Skinner tells fidgety students at a Model United Nations meeting. "Do you kids want to be like the real U.N., or do you want to squabble and waste time?"

After being evacuated, Saigon-style, from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Australia, Homer Simpson asks if they will land on an aircraft carrier. "No, Sir," the helicopter pilot replies. "The closest vessel is the U.S.S. Walter Mondale. It's a laundry ship."

Conservatives and libertarians should appreciate The Simpsons for regularly showcasing much that they hold dear.

"There's no ideological requirement to work here," executive producer Al Jean says by phone. Though free marketeers and liberals write the show, Jean says they agree on this: "We mistrust authorities and people who try to hold people down. We believe more in individuals and families."

The Simpsons are a nuclear family led by an atomic power-plant engineer and a stay-at-home mom. They regularly attend church and occasionally seek spiritual advice from their minister, Reverend Timothy Lovejoy. Marge Simpson even homeschools Bart when he is expelled for misbehavior.

Springfield's mayor is "Diamond Joe" Quimby, a corrupt opportunist whose voice echoes that of Ted Kennedy. When citizens approve casino gambling, he expresses his ambition to "grow fat off kickbacks and slush funds."

Springfield's government elementary school is lampooned mercilessly. As she hands students an exam, teacher Edna Krabappel tells them: "The worse you do on this standardized test, the more money the school gets, so don't knock yourselves out." While Lisa Simpson is sharp, many others learn nearly nothing. "Me fail English?" asks little Ralph Wiggum. "That's unpossible."

Trial lawyers endure severe ridicule. When Homer remains hungry after devouring everything at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, he takes the establishment to court. Accepting the case, Lionel Hutz — an attorney at I Can't Believe It's a Law Firm — tells Homer, "this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film, The NeverEnding Story."

Even the EPA gets skewered. The Simpsons must nurture an endangered "screamapillar" that wanders into their koi pond. After Homer accidentally injures it, he is prosecuted under the federal Reversal of Freedoms Act of 1994. The loud, rare caterpillar sits in court, wearing a neck brace, as Homer is convicted of "attempted insecticide and aggravated buggery."

The Simpsons also clairvoyantly predicts the news. After doctors prescribe Bart a new drug called Focusyn for his attention deficit disorder, he becomes a model student. But he quickly devolves into paranoia, wrapping himself in foil and donning a metal garbage-can lid to shield himself from a surveillance satellite operated by Major League Baseball. Five months after the chuckles faded, President Clinton hosted a White House conference on over-drugging school children.

In another installment, Lisa envisions a 2010 newscast on "CNNBCBS, a division of ABC." On October 21, Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner said of a possible merger between CNN and his ABC subsidiary, "I'd like it to happen."

Amid rivers of laughter, this show still displays such verisimilitude. How does The Simpsons remain hilarious after 14 years? As Homer J. Simpson himself once said: "It's funny because it's true."

[Hazzardgate]

Another brillaint line was when Sideshow Bob was being taken away to prison and he quips "I'll be back! You can't keep Democrats out of the White House forever!"

[MHT]

Groening said his entre into entertainment was a story he wrote in elementary school. The assignment was to write a Christmas story. His told the tale of Santa falling through the roof, breaking his back, and dying while no one in the house even knew he was there. Kid always had a great sense of humor.

[L.N. Smithee]

By your logic, these "classic" cartoons introduced children to dynamite, shooting others in the face with shotguns, and the perils and joys of huge rubber bands and electromagnets. And these were designed for children. You have a lot of explaining to do.

I am sure that there were plenty of little rabbits that were corrupted by Bugs Bunny and many little coyotes were crippled by attempting to use heavy machinery to catch a road runner, just as there are human children who have imitated Beavis' burning something for the thrill.

There were things in Looney Tunes that I would shudder to show my kids today, particularly the times the shorts would end with someone committing suicide with a shot to the temple. But my point was that the goal hasn't always been subversiveness -- it used to be only humor.

Parker and Stone don't seem to believe that the two are separable. Or, maybe, they are just incapable of being funny without being crude.

[Phantom Lord]

Big Gay Al is clearly gay, and Mr. Garrison is gay too. He has been "outed" in many episodes.

[Phantom Lord]

You better watch it or I will make you eat your parents.

[Teacher317]

They obviously despise Christians.

I disagree. They're lampooning organized religion, and since their audience can relate to Christianity FAR better than they can to any other, it is targeted the most... however, Apu's Hindu gods have not exactly been over-looked, Reverend Lovejoy has taken MANY potshots at every denomination, God is regularly recognized as an existent and almighty deity, and doctrinal topics actually get discussed... what other prime-time show can say all that?

I can remember blatant slams on Rush Limbaugh and the NRA.

The Birch Birnbaum send-up was HILARIOUS, and never painted him as hateful, racist, or any of the other slurs the true Lefties use. The gun episodes are brilliant, usually far more pro- than con- (mostly it is Homer's misuse of the guns that is castigated, just as any responsible NRA member would do), and gives the NRA far more exposure than they get anywhere else in the media.

Greedy Mr. Burns and criminal Sideshow Bob are shown to be Republicans.

EVERYONE on the show has broken some law at some point. If you're complaining that the rich are painted as republicans, you might want to look at some demographic breakdowns of the two parties... aside from the super-rich, the majority of the top 50% of wage-earners ARE Republican.

Lisa spouts constant liberal-utopian drivel, although she is sometimes mocked for it.

Yes... BOTH sides get shown, and BOTH sides take heat. What more can you ask for? Heck, it sounds like FR... most viewpoints get represented, everyone gets flamed, the religious conservatives and the libertines certainly don't lack for heated debate and pointed barbs around here... the way it SHOULD be! Expecting a show to soft-pedal to one side to make up for the rest of TV being unbelieveably slanted is hardly reasonable. It's comedy. Learn to laugh at yourself, as well as the bad guys.

[SoothingDave]

But my point was that the goal hasn't always been subversiveness -- it used to be only humor.

Yeah, and is subversiveness always bad? If a cartoon shows people that the liberal emperor has no clothes, is this a good or bad type of "subversion?" When the PC liberal sacred cows are skewered is this bad because the PC liberals run the institutions?

Parker and Stone don't seem to believe that the two are separable. Or, maybe, they are just incapable of being funny without being crude.

I would venture that they probably are incapable of being one without the other. But the point is that this is a crude society we are in. If Parker and Stone tried to use goody goody ideas and language they would fail. It is precisely because they capture the crudeness of the age that their speaking out against the pieties of the age are even taken note of.

I would venture that some of the teens and young adults who titter at the crude jokes will mature into well-adjusted folks who don't think fart jokes are funny, but who will remember that sexual harrassment hysteria or "save the planet" stuff is a shallow fraud.

SD

[Phantom Lord]

Ah, his name is Sideshow Bob Terwilliger. Learn it, live it, love it!

[truenospinzone]

MTV unleashed Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-head, playing "Frog Baseball" and introducing children to pyromania

Yes, because no child had ever been fascinated by fire before Beavis and Butt-head came along...

[the bottle let me down]

The episode name was "Sideshow Bob Roberts," spoofing Tim Robbins political comedy movie.

summary

[Phantom Lord]

I see. I share the same last name as Sideshow Bob so I like to bring it up every now and then.

[Clink]

As the gay and lesbian crowd marches by during the gay pride parade chanting "We're here we're queer, get used to it", Lisa says "We know, we know, you do this every year" (or something similar).

[CARepubGal]

That was a great RKBA episode!

[Salgak]

I haven't watched it since first season, Garrison was just wierd then. The joys of hitting the sack at 9PM (g)

[Darth Reagan]

Thanks. I reread Goldberg's article and enjoyed it yet again. Now that Jack is 2, we can enjoy the show with me (much to his mother's dismay!).

[Phantom Lord]

And when he turns 3 he can enjoy South Park with you! Oh, mom will love that.

[Myrnick]

Great stuff, no?

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Marge Simpson's boob job

Homering in ... Marge sends
hubby wild

By CLODAGH HARTLEY
TV EditorTELLY cartoon favourite Marge Simpson is to get breasts as big as Sam Fox’s — after a boob by a plastic surgeon.

Mumsy Marge goes for a nip-and-tuck op to get rid of fat in a bid to make hubby Homer fancy her again.

But the surgeon mistakenly gives her IMPLANTS and she comes out looking like a Page 3 girl.

Soon she lands a modelling deal and ends up flashing her boobs at the residents of Springfield.

The episode, Large Marge, will be shown in the UK next year. An insider said: “Marge’s boob job causes a huge stir. Homer can’t keep his hands off her.”

Bravo ... locals gasp as she opens dress

Fans of the US cartoon will see self-conscious Marge wanting to have the implants removed at first. But she soon finds herself enjoying the attention.

When Homer takes her out, the restaurant manager gives them a good table and men gawp.

The climax comes when she shows her assets in public. The insider added: “It is one of the funniest episodes ever.”

A new series of The Simpsons starts on Sky One this Sunday.

---

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Seen this?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Imagine who she can meet now.