I wonder if the author of that article realizes this has been done before in other cartoons… From the tone, it kind of sounds like they think they’ve stumbled upon something novel.
When it gets boring, kill it but don’t let it age. Then it would just become something like For Better or For Worse. Yuck. The reason The Simpsons has lasted so long is because the characters never learn (a modification of the “no hugging, no learning rule”).
I was in my mid-teens when The Simpsons started. Oh my god it was glorious. I firmly believe that it went downhill after season four. I never saw an episode I liked after 1993. I’ve been waiting years to find someone who agrees with me about this issue.
In other news; get off my lawn, etc.
I’ll let Bart field this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut9BzjcFYPg
Yes, but let them age all at once like the man who opens the secret box.
If they starting aging the characters somewhat naturally NOW, it’s be another fifteen years of Simpsons episodes I didn’t watch before they got to the point of it being interesting.
I gotta agree with Rob here: they have gone too long without ageing to start now, so Matt Groening needs to declare it dead and be done with it.
Then again, I really don’t care as I haven’t watched the series in about 15 years now, so it doesn’t bother me if it lives or dies.
“before it really starts to stink”
*references copy of *Giving Bad News for Dummies.
you might want to sit down for this…
I have to beg to differ here. Groening’s decision to make the Simpsons unchangeing archetypes of middle class American life was a good one, and will stay viable so long as there is a middle class American life to satyrize.
Oh, right it’s 2013.
Hmm.
If you’ve every watch Avatar: The Last Air Bender (the cartoon, not the movie), it does a very impressive job of aging the characters. It’s done gradually over 3 seasons so that you don’t notice it overtly. Characters get a bit taller, change appearance, and even change cognitively.
The effect enhances the story quite a bit.
I wouldn’t rule them out doing something clever with it, but on the other hand, I feel like they’ve already done the “aging stories” quite well with the flash-forward episodes. I can’t see whole seasons of that improving on what they already did.
Or they could go really dark and tear everybody’s hearts out: Grampa gets Alzheimer’s. Homer dies from what would have been treatable prostate cancer because of no medical coverage. Marge finally has some kind of psychotic break and ends up institutionalized. Bart descends into adult criminality. Lisa fails to follow up on early promise and ends up a bitter, underemployed adult. Maggie just quietly runs away one day and is never seen from again.
O.K., I’m going to go hang myself from the shower curtain rod now.
“before it really starts to stink” is perhaps one of the highest compliment one can give to any show. How many shows have yet to really start to stink after 25 seasons? None, that I can think of. I don’t watch it, but I marvel at how they can keep pumping it out at a not-really-starting-to-stink level. That’s amazing.
End this show already.
I agree with you. I agree with you so much, I made a cartoon rant about that exact issue about 13 years ago. It deconstructs the show and explains how it went from social satire to a toothless celebration of popular culture after the first couple of seasons. Now that I’ve finally met you, let’s get married.
Every so often, a friend will get me to watch an episode with him. 30 minutes later, they’ve chuckled maybe once during the entire show, and then tell me “oh, it wasn’t one of the better ones.”
I’m pretty sure Conan O’Brien ruined the show. He’s the one that started with the totally-unfunny non-sequitorial pop-culture references, and everyone followed suit. If the show had always been mediocre, I wouldn’t care. But for once in television’s shoddy history, something genuinely intelligent and subversive was piercing through the sheen, making people think and laugh at the same time, and then… poof. Thanks, Conan.
Hey, Rob, the Simpsons did die! 20 years ago!
/end rant
To stop those monsters, 1-2-3,
here’s a fresh way that’s trouble-free!
It’s got Paul Anka’s guarantee…
(Guarantee void if you watch FOX TV…)
Just don’t look! Just don’t look!
Wow, it sucks that most of you are terrible people. The Simpsons is still a great show, if you aren’t watching it because “it got bad” or some variation of “I lived with this show for so long that I no longer fit it’s target of humor so that must mean that the show is terrible” then just shush up and go away. You aren’t needed here and you don’t watch the show. It’s amazing the sense of entitlement people have for a free show.
To further a point, how do you even say something like this is terrible? If someone else likes it then it’s great. People need to keep the language and reality of accounting away from humanity, a show does not need to be worth it to survive and you do not need to waste your life trying to define quality.
Sounds good to me, I’d be interested in watching this. But first, how about they hire good writers again, like George Meyer? The main problem with the Simpsons now is that the writing sucks.
I was ten when The Simpsons started, so I was the same age as Bart then.
I’m also the same age as Harry Potter, or at least I would’ve been in the same year as him had my letter from Hogwarts ever arrived 
