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THE SIMPSONS MUST DIE!!
Ever
had to disconnect an ailing loved one's life support system? Confront
a spouse about a deadly drug addiction? Have you ever told an aging,
hero athlete that he should Hang It Up NOW, before he's seriously
injured? Then you have some idea of what I'm going through, with
no choice but to call for end of something that has meant so much and brought
me so much pleasure over the years, The Simpsons. The Simpsons
have lost it. Their glory days are gone. The Simpsons must
die.
Before you get your dander up, understand that I'm the biggest Simpsons fan there is, no one has loved and revered the Simpsons more. I've been among their most ardent devotees since Day One, that fateful Sunday night almost ten years ago when HOMER moonlighted as Santa so he could afford a bit of Christmas cheer for his beloved family, MARGE, BART, LISA and MAGGIE. Over the years I've whiled away many a pleasant hour recounting favorite episodes and movie references with friends, and my judicious use of Homer's "WHOO-HOOO" and "D'OH!!" in daily life has evoked laughter from strangers and defused potentially tense moments. I've been THE SIMPSONS' staunchest defender against the naysayers, those who just didn't get it and never gave 'em a chance, folks like Virtues Shah BILL BENNETT who publicly castigated Bart for being "an underachiever, and proud of it." I have dear friends, who, as new parents, turned their noses up at the Simpsons for, as they saw it, belittling the parent experience; years later, these same friends sat by mute and goggle eyed as I swapped lines from classic episodes with their wisecracking kids. At its best, nothing could touch the Simpsons. Their intoxicating, lightning-fast blend of warm human comedy, blistering social satire and trademark film allusions was unmatched. There'd never been anything like it. When MR. BURNS made the Clifford tent and intoned "Let the fools have their tar-tar sauce;" when Marge got ITCHY AND SCRATCHY booted off the KRUSTY THE CLOWN show in an episode that referenced "Psycho" and "Tom Sawyer," and when Homer advised Bart that the three most important phrases in life were "'cover for me' . . . 'it was like that when I got here' . . . and, 'gee, that's a good idea...boss'" I was transported, and I resolved to remember exactly where I was when I consumed those choice morsels because it was clear I was witness to Genius unlike anything previously seen in the global village.
But over the last several years I've watched, helpless,
veering between anger and despair, as The Simpsons have inexorably tumbled
into mediocrity, shedding one by one the qualities that had earned The
Simpsons its rightful place on the Top Shelf of all humor, alongside hallowed
TV legends like SCTV and a few vintage SNL skits, above 
almost-there
story-line sitcoms like Seinfeld, Mash, or Cheers. The Simpsons'
sad decline is an open secret among diehard fans, the ones who once looked
forward to Sunday, then Thursday, then Sunday nights at 8, but who now
steel themselves for weekly letdowns and have come to much prefer the older
episodes in nightly syndication.
Could the decline's onset have coincided with Conan O'Brien's departure? I'm not sure. I first noticed the show's descent some four years ago, during,"Homie the Clown," where Homer attends Krusty's clown college to fulfill a hitherto unrevealed lifelong dream of becoming a clown (a factual betrayal: we've already been told by Marge that Homer's life long goal was "to eat the world's biggest hoagie"). Early in the episode Homer slams on the brakes in his car to gape at the "new billboards" (a poor nod to Steve Martin's "The new phone books are here!" that is more rip-off than allusion), causing a violent pile-up behind him that ends with the wrecked cars exploding in flames, as Homer drives blithely on. That cheap laugh at a massive loss of human life was the start, the signal that The Simpsons were taking a new and cruel turn. Typical of this trend was the particularly nasty "Homer's Enemy," which culminated in the on-screen electrocution of Homer-hating FRANK GRIMES, a new worker at the Springfield nuclear power plant who'd been brought in just for this occasion. Comedic value has been replaced with shock value.
What's happened? The Simpsons have lost their human touch, their insight. They've gone from funny and true to stupid and mean. The tenderness, wit, and spirit has devolved into frenetic hyperviolence and "ironic distance," above-it-all disdain for the daily dilemmas of middle-class family life in these-here United States that fueled so many of the great early episodes. It's as though the writers, perhaps aware that nothing great can last forever, have come to loathe the show and its audience for the high expectations with which they've been saddled. They've forgotten what brought them to the dance. Whatever the cause, The Simpsons have of late become poster children for the old adage that satire is the highest form of comedy, and sarcasm the lowest.
No
one has suffered more than that once-loveable, big ol' lug, Homer Simpson.
Homer was the archetypal everyman. He may have been selfish, lazy,
and none too bright but we loved him out of recognition. There was
a little bit of Homer in all of us, that part of us that longs to slack,
to eat too much, to laze in front of the TV and guzzle beer, to sleep late
on a cold winter Sunday rather than put on an itchy suit and attend church,
to duck out of work early for a tour of the Duff Brewery.
We forgave Homer's flaws because deep down he was a good soul who cared
about his family and strove in his own way to be a good husband and father
... witness Homer's longing to be "a good husband" and please his wife
in "Some Enchanted Evening," where Homer makes up with Marge by whisking
her off to a fancy dinner ("another bottle of your second least-expensive
champagne," he instructs the waiter) while the children are terrorized
at home by the Babysitter Bandit, and, "The War of the Simpsons,"
where Homer and Marge attend REVEREND LOVEJOY's marriage retreat
weekend at Catfish Lake. When we laughed at Homer we
were laughing at ourselves. In recent years, though, Homer's universal
qualities have dimmed, and he's become downright evil. He sits
by unconcerned as his infant daughter plays with dangerous power tools.
He becomes so obsessed with handguns that he takes to turning off the lights
in his house by shooting them. He kills his Navy submarine captain
by firing him from a torpedo tube. Oh, sure, it might be a good gag
that some misfortune should befall that captain who moments earlier had
unwisely avowed his complete faith in Homer, but to have Homer snuff out
his life without any regret or concern as the punch line is a profound
step down from the dry wit that marked the early Simpsons and does nothing
to reverse Homer's slide into brutishness. What ever happened to
the simple soul who wanted nothing more out of life than "seconds on dessert,
sleeping late on Saturdays, and occasional snuggling?"
It's part and parcel of the way the writers have sacrificed
the consistency of The Simpsons' carefully cultivated personas for the
sake of a few stupid throw-away gags. A recent episode commenced
with Homer having a cookout . . . by stoking a roaring blaze in the fireplace,
ascending a ladder to the roof, and holding the meat over the top of the
chimney where it's licked by the leaping flames. We've long known
Homer as the prototypical, burger-flippin' backyard chef who once
earned a "toast to the host who can boast the most roast," and we know
he's lazy to boot. That he'd even bother to haul all that stuff up
onto the roof instead of just filling the Weber with briquettes and squirting
on a jug-and-a-half of lighter fluid, as he did in "Treehouse of Horrors
I," moments before space aliens KANG, KODOS, and SERAK THE PREPARER
made their first Simpsons appearance, strains credulity and removes him
yet further from the common homo suburbanis with whom we
all identify. When school bullies JIMBO, DOLPH and KEARNY
beat up Bart and steal his Sharper Image-style utility belt, Homer tells
Bart that "it's time to squeal! Squeal to every teacher in the school!"
How different from the Homer of six years earlier, who said he'd "rather
Bart die" than violate the "code of the schoolyard" by squealing on elementary
school bully NELSON MUNTZ! And do we really believe
that Homer, gourmand that he is, commonsewer nonpareil of pork chops and
glazed donuts, would blithely set about to drink a beaker of sulphuric
acid, as in "Homer's Enemy?" Bart, too, has been known to morph till
he bears little resemblance to the hip, mischievous lad you couldn't help
loving in spite of yourself. In one episode from the last season,
when the stick-on facial disguises and gags that Bart has just purchased
from a costume/novelty shop fail to stick to his face, best bud MILLHOUSE
recommends "dog doo" as an adhesive. Bart rejects that suggestion,
but 
only
because the dog doo has been lying "on a filthy sidewalk." Can we accept
that the way-cool Bart Simpson would even consider appearing
in public with
dog doo on his face? Or that any ten-year-old
boy would, even the nerdy Millhouse, who despite being socially challenged
is still the best friend of ultracool Bart?
Not even sweet, reliable Marge is safe; her long-established
character as the sensible, compassionate uber-Mom through whose veins coursed
the blood of June Cleaver has taken an utter trashing as of late.
In one of the more recent episodes, Marge opines that Nelson the Bully
is a lonely, troubled, sad, little boy . . . who "needs to be isolated
from everyone." Huh? After Homer's chimney barbecue,
she cheerfully ascends the 
ladder
to clean the incredible mess he's created with nary a trademark disapproving
"Hmmmmmm," chirruping that "now's my chance to shine!"
Marge had long been accorded respect for keeping her family on an even
keel and running her household; now, the writers have apparently decided
that even those modest goals are worthy of contempt. Witness Marge's
recent statement that Bart -previously her "little guy"- is valued as a
family member only "to help fold your father's underpants." Her transition
to dimwitted ditz is complete.
Ever wonder why we've seen so little of ITCHY AND SCRATCHY
lately, the brilliant Tom-and-Jerry cartoon- within-a-cartoon homage
that Springfield kids used to watch religiously on the Krusty the Clown
show? Itchy and Scratchy's traditionally violent cartoon world, where dismemberment is undone and forgotten by the next installment, was a
reference point that established Springfield as the real world mostly beholden
to the laws of physics and mortality. Itchy and Scratchy are
superfluous, now that their brand of surreal, Tex Avery violence
has become par for the course in the daily life of Springfieldians.
Thus, in the episode where Homer purchases at auction a muscle car seized
from career criminal
SNAKE, we witness KIRK VAN HOUTEN's
hand and forearm severed by a wire trap meant for Homer. Millhouse's
dad raises his hand while driving his convertible, and zip, no more hand.
So, that's it? Hand gone? Did he then bleed to death, or does
he thereafter sport a prothesis, or perhaps a pirate's hook?
Mayhem that's welcome in the hands of Itchy and Scratchy is edgy, cheap,
and annoying when inflicted on the real folk of Springfield.
I could go on . . . like the increased focus on minor characters and bit players that no one gives a rat's ass about -- that episode exploring PRINCIPAL SKINNER's shady past is a prime example, what a real who-cares snore-fest THAT was -- not to mention the corruption and outright AWOL status of old favorites Krusty, Mr. Burns, and Smithers. But why bother? The point is, they've lost it. And despite all that, I still love them. No matter how far they've fallen, I can't hate them. That's what makes this so hard. I've got tears in my eyes right now. I feel exactly like I did on that terrible day when I had to turn off those awful machines that the doctors had my mother hooked up to (nothing happened, 'cause, as it turned out, they were just the same machines they hook every patient up to after knee surgery, but, at least my heart was in the right place).
It's not like The Simpsons doesn't still have its moments. They can be counted on for a few yuks per episode, and the movie references are still mostly there, albeit less subtly. In particular, the last epsiode of March, featuring a funny if unoriginal concept steakhouse, was amusing. But that's not good enough, not for The Simpsons. They've set too high a standard to settle for what they've become. It's like watching Muhammad Ali at the end of his career. And already the poor episodes of recent years have infiltrated nightly syndication, where they'll soon outnumber yesteryear's classics, and it'll be harder and harder to catch comedic masterpieces like "The Crepes of Wrath," where a student-exchange program finds Bart conscripted into slave labor in a seedy French vineyard while Homer befriends a pint-sized Albanian Spy; "Some Enchanted Evening," the Babysitter Bandit episode, where, when Marge promises to "slip into something more comfortable" at the Off-Ramp Inn, Homer asks "is it the blue thing, with the things?"; the unparalleled "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge," or "Simpson and Delilah" where Homer grows hair courtesy of a fraudulently obtained prescription for 'Dimoxinil' and is promoted to executive ("take two minutes to say goodbye to your former friends and report to a better life"). It's a point of universal accord that SNL has long ceased to be any good. The Simpsons deserve a more dignified fate.
And maybe that's what's in the works: recently,
FOX unveiled its new animated series "Futurama," by Simpsons creator Matt
Groening, featuring a cynical robot who's been given Homer Simpson's domed
head and goggle eyes but none of the hope and good intentions that once
made Homer great. Perhaps the new series is a sign that The Simpsons
are enjoying their last days . . . that the human hands behind the show
are moving on to newer, fresher projects. On the other hand, without
a central, make-or-break presence to bite the bullet and pull the plug
like Seinfeld wisely did with his show, there's likely no reason why they
won't continue trashing their fine tradition of warm and sophisticated
humor, and just keep churning 'em out so long as complicit sponsors can
be found and there remains a dollar to be made. As the Late, Great,
TROY
MCCLURE foretold some three years ago in "The Simpsons' 138th Anniversary
Show," "who knows what adventures they'll have between now and when the
show becomes unprofitable?" If recent developments are any guide,
those adventures won't be pretty . . . or especially funny. 'Nuff
said!
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