The ‘Gasoline Alley’ comic strip did this EIGHTY YEARS AGO.
They did this because they had a good plot reason to do it – not to just “keep the strip fresh.”
Are you all aware, that ‘Simpsons’ has written at least three episodes I can think of, where they did in fact age the characters to show what some story element would do to them? what did you think of those episodes?
The lesson here: The story matters. The gimmicks (like aging the characters) don’t. Does ‘Simpsons’ have a good story reason to let the characters age? Is there something that the writers want to say consistently, from week to week, about how these characters would age? Would aging these characters affect the episodic stories that the Simpsons usually presents? This is a big step.
If all you want to do, is to keep stories fresh, then get rid of a couple of producers; hire some extra writers in their places, and write better stories.
I agree. People are piling on because the show’s been successful for so long. Yes, there are more tired plots than original ones, but they still can hit the sweet spot enough that I still watch. Hey, it’s gotta be tough to still be cranking out new material after 25 years. They still fill a gap that no other show does.
While I can’t avoid agreeing that it can be a depressing experience to catch a new episode, your belief that the show abandoned social satire so long ago just doesn’t hold up. Here are a few examples from seasons 15-17:
“Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays”. You may be able to sense some flavour of social satire in that title, I don’t know.
“Bart-Mangled Banner” deals with societal pressure to appear patriotic
“Fraudcast News” depicts Burns as a Murdoch-style media monopolist
“She Used to Be My Girl” in which Marge-as-homemaker clashes with a former high-school co-student with a fancy career
“Midnight Rx” where Homer takes advantage of Canada’s healthcare system, contrasting it with the US
“There’s Something About Marrying” (same-sex marriage)
“Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore” (outsourcing jobs to India)
“Girls Just Want to Have Sums” (feminism, gender-stereotyping in educational theories)
“The Monkey Suit” (Flanders campaigns to get Creationism taught in school)
Compare this to the first two seasons. There are really no episodes in season 1 that revolve around a social satirical plot line. In season 2 there’s “Two Cars in Every Garage, Three Eyes on Every Fish” of course, but that’s about it. Season 3 gives us “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington” and a couple of other borderline ones.
In any case, no actual fan of The Simpsons would insist on a solid diet of dry, grumpy commentary about the state of the world. The character comedy, sending up the small-scale foibles of human beings and family relationships, is the centre of the show’s best episodes and always has been. And pop culture references are funny, and Conan’s monorail episode is clearly excellent.
Yes. Everybody gets a gold star, everybody wins, and every show should be allowed to air indefinitely regardless of quality (which, apparently, doesn’t exist).
Your outrage at the judginess of people who rightfully criticize a show that hasn’t been relevant or funny in decades is kind of hilarious when you open up your post by baselessly calling them all “terrible people.”
Apparently, in your world, art and culture should never be judged, but it’s totally a-OK to insult people based off of a cursory reading of a handful of internet comments. Good job at being consistent, you moral superman, you!
What does should have to do with it? In commercial television, quality has nothing to do with whether a show is “allowed” to air. It’s popularity that matters, and any time quality and popularity correlate we have cause to rejoice. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
You want the Simpsons gone, get the people who keep watching it to stop.
I was a teenager as well when the Simpsons started. But rather than call for its doom I wonder if it isn’t still relevant to some viewers? I know the generation that grew up with the Simpsons is over it, but perhaps the new generation actually likes it?
What I am trying to say is that you and me might outgrow the Simpsons, but 30 something adults isn’t really its demographic. As long as it stays relevant, or at least entertaining to teenagers I think it still has life in it.
Adventure Time does an utterly fantastic job gradually aging Finn, and to a much lesser extent Jake. Just watch the first season, then the fifth. Finn’s voice matures considerably. Watch all the seasons in order, and you don’t notice the change at all. He also matures in his thinking to degree, and he becomes much more self-aware.
In regards to The Simpsons getting canceled, as many suggest should happen, I came into this thread prepared to quote Neil Young - “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
I didn’t know that backstory on Groening before reading your post. It’s a very interesting parallel with Kurt Cobain, who of course used that Neil Young line in his suicide note.
But Neil Young didn’t actually mean it that way (IMO). He saw several friends die of overdoses (and wrote several other songs directly addressing that), and I see the song with that line as a satire/spoof of the “live fast, die young” idea.
Which ties this back to The Simpsons. Many shows are canceled too soon, and then you wonder - what might have become of them if given a few more seasons? (along the same lines as, “what might have become of James Dean and Kurt Cobain?”)
With The Simpsons, there’s no wonder. We know what happened. Many people still like it - for different reasons than people originally liked it, perhaps - and many don’t. I don’t know anyone who watches it, but even in its “prime” I never watched it regularly (though everyone else at the time seemed to), so I’m not a good judge of who its audience is.
Count me among those who used to consider The Simpsons compulsory viewing but now reserve that status for South Park after seeing too many utterly lacklustre Sipsons eps…
I know there have been a lot of great eps since the Simspons’ first nadir, but watching a show you’ve grown to dearly love and seeing only lame slapstick and pop culture references feels like being gypped in a shell game. No wait, it feels more like a mad scientist was paid by a billionaire to exhume and re-animate your favourite childhood pet into a shambling, pus-belching zombie.
It’s just too hard to weed through all the dross for the gems… perhaps somebody has compiled a spreadsheet to help? Failing that, it’s hard to imagine what would rekindle my interest in The Simspons…
I tell you what’d make it feverishly compulsive again, though - if all the writers would just go and read this Rolling Stone article. It makes normal folks boil up with impotent rage, but if you had a really loud voice like those guys, there’d be an outlet for the fury…
And I’d lap it up like manna from heaven.
Why I love South Park: brutal, vicious, steel-capped boot-shod satire.
It’s like the Loompanics catalog- Even though I haven’t actually seen one in years, I just felt better knowing it was there if I ever wanted it. Then it goes away, and nothing ever really replaces it.
I am quite super. Again, remove the accounting from your language, art and culture don’t need a blanket statement like “can never be judged”, they don’t need a rule of exchange. If you don’t like it, don’t support it, the art survives without you, or it doesn’t.
So because you say it’s bad it must be bad? Because I say it’s good is it good? It just is and exists in both good and bad states. I would use demand to regulate how long a show should be on air.
