Not sure I need to add much to that. When I want to assess a TV show, I’m willing to actually watch it!
The episodes I mentioned make the point far more eloquently than I could, except perhaps by quoting their scripts in full (and then we’d lose the brilliant performances), but hey, if you can’t be bothered to sit and watch the episodes, why would you read the scripts anyway?
The bitter irony is that this is exactly what Groening was so good at
with his Life In Hell strips. I mean, the guy nailed the shallowness
of our culture, the vast hypocrisy that plagues adulthood, better than
anyone, and with just a sharpie. It was punk rock comics at its
finest.
Whereas to me, compared to the deluge of rich comic imagination of the first 9 years of the Simpsons, when I investigated Groening’s earlier work it seemed both unfunny and about as subtle as a sledgehammer. His name rarely appears on the writing credits of The Simpsons (or Futurama for that matter). On one episode of the Simpsons where he is credited, it’s about Homer becoming the manager of a country singer and it’s the exact opposite of the kind of student-activist polemic against straight society (maaaaan) that you seem to enjoy. But it’s also a very weak, unfunny episode, more like a dreary soap opera than a comedy.
