Posted on 11/12/2002 9:04:40 AM PST by 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."
The dog was in the sex education episode. The pony was the Scott Tenorman one. That's where this older kid kept making Cartman act stupid and embarrass himself.
Until Cartman planned a chili-cookoff and fed Scott Chili made with his own parents. Absolutely the most stunning ending of a TV show I've ever seen.
"Ne ner ne ner ne ner! I made you eat your par-ents!"
SD
To quote Cartman: "Democrats piss me off!"
You're too kind.
ROTFLMAO!
This reviewer nails it.
That speaks volumes about the writer and/or today's television.
I once considered being an animator for a living. The cartoons of my youth were the classic Looney Tunes shorts with Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Porky, and the Road Runner. They had their own brand of social commentary and pop culture references.
There has long been an animation underground similar to the comic underground that made Robert Crumb famous, but only in the post-Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera age of television has the tide turned toward subversiveness as a stated goal of cartoons on TV.
The Simpsons didn't start as particularly controversial until the merchandising success of Bart's bad attitude. The subversiveness began in earnest in 1991 with John Krucfalusi's Ren and Stimpy, and the homoerotic undertones of some shorts that led to Nickelodeon pulling the plug on the show. A year later, MTV unleashed Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-head, playing "Frog Baseball" and introducing children to pyromania and attitudes worse than Bart's. And now, South Park's depravity knows no depths, regardless of the political views of its creators.
I don't know what you think "the purpose of cartoons" is, but based on your Freeper profile (revealing that you were in college in the mid-nineties), I would suggest your assessment is based too much on current trends.
No, that was the one where they masturbated a dog to ejaculation in someone's face and tried to train a pony to bite off a child's penis.
I see your problem. You think "animation" means it's automatically suited for children. That is a huge mistake.
SD
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.
(And Bugs Bunny didn't have an "attitude?")
SD
The heck it was. The only major difference between West Wing and Dinosaurs is that everyone knew that the dinosaurs weren't for real. Democrats, searching nowadays for a heroic standard-bearer, have taken to pretending that Bartlet is for real.
Oh Well, still hilarious.
It is for those old enough to realize there are implications to playing with lighters. Which was the bad rap Beavis and Butthead got, cause some "parent" let her 7 year old watch them and he caught their trailer on fire.
I distinguish between children who are naive and impressionable versus those who have attained an age of reason, somewhat.
SD
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