Ah, The Simpsons. A show I pretty much grew up with; as much as one really could say with regards to a television series, anyway. Today, December 17th, 2019 marks 30 years since the premier of The Simpsons as a stand-alone television show, starting with that holiday classic “Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire.“
Honestly, to say I “grew up” with the show is an understatement — the show in some ways defined who I am, my sense of humor, my attitude towards many things, and acted for many years as a solid capping off point to my weekend – a Sunday night ritual I wouldn’t give up until into high school. It was one constant in the ever-changing world that is being a kid.
The show, of course, is still on the air. It still has new episodes every year, but many will say it’s well past its prime. Indeed, even the Simpsons Movie from 2007 was considered late by many fans.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. Let’s go back to 1990. The Simpsons had started life a few years earlier as a skit on the Tracey Ullman show, proving popular enough to warrant production into their own show.
After a bit of a struggle getting going, between issues with getting the animation house producing the show to create a “realistic” cartoon (so far as yellow humans are as “realistic”) and finding a network, the Simpsons premiered that late 1989 day to solid ratings and Simpsons mania took off.
The show was a hit, and merchandise sales and general interest in the show were high – high enough that even Michael Jackson would guest star on the show in Season 3. Those first few years were great, but naturally the extreme interest in the show tapered off by Season 4. Episodes were still good, but I guess for many the novelty had worn off, or maybe they had just “grown out of ” the show.
By now were into 1993-1994 range, time I remember well. I always would watch the show — my mother and I both loved it, and I’d never willingly miss an episode. I remember many of the great moments; Homer going into Space, Kamp Krusty, Homer “jumping” Springfield Gorge, Timmy O’Tool falling down the well, Flaming Moes, Homer’s brother Herb, and so many more moment. The show went kind of crazy quickly, sure, but it developed a personality beyond the “normalcy” with which it originally was about.
Then came Seasons 5 through 8 which are, to me, the best of the series. Many will say the show began to go downhill in Season 6, sure, and I can see where they are coming from, but for me these episodes contain some of the best moments in the series. Bart selling his soul to Milhouse, Springfield trying to rebuild Flanders house only to do a terrible job, Homer making bootleg alcohol, Bart V.S. Australia (enough said about that one), and of course the mystery that was “Who Shot Mr. Burns.”
Then of course come some of my favorite episodes — The Springfield Files, where Homer believes he’s encountered an alien, Marge Be Not Proud, where Bart steals a video game, and King-Size Homer, my favorite episode of the whole series where Homer literally makes himself morbidly obese just to work from home. I know, it sounds like a “what the fuck” plot, but the episode is unique in series in appearance and overall feel, to a point where I just can’t help but love it — as a kid when it would come on in the rare re-run it made me incredibly happy to see.
That right there is another thing — syndication, and re-runs of episodes. Sometime in Elementary School I noticed channel 8 (UPN, at least for a time) would air some previous Simpsons episodes at 5PM every weekday, which meant after I got home from school I was able to watch classic episodes. This is how I got to a point where I have whole episodes memorized. It was awesome, to say the least.
Move on to Seasons 9-13. This is the phase where I still watched the show, but didn’t pay as much attention. At this point I was in high school, and my life was chaotic, to say the least. It wasn’t the fact it was a cartoon either — I always enjoy good animation — no no, it was simply a combination of a lack of interest and my life being, shall we say, an absolute mess.
There were good episodes in there, but this is about the time the show began to start having fewer of these per season, and plots seemed to just get contrived, even for me. Some were good – the temporarily black-listed episode about Homers car being stuck at the World Trade Center in New York City was a nice one, only marred by the fact that just a few years later 9/11 would happen — but overall, things began to get a little, well, “meh.”
I’d continue to watch off and on, and sure, the Simpsons Movie came, which wasn’t bad, but as I said in the opening, it was in a way too little too late — it should have hit at the latest in 1997, not 2007, when popularity in the show was half of what it was that previous decade, but still, it was something to enjoy.
Something that didn’t grow as stale, however, were the Simpsons Halloween Specials. They were the pinnacle of my October traditions — the highlight of the season. Oddly, many of them, thanks to scheduling and fucking football, would wind up airing in November, rather than October, but that’s just as well — a late Halloween bonus, you could say. They stayed at least a little better than the average episode, but even by season 13 they had begun to go downhill as well.
We move on another 15+ years, and the show keeps on going. Some cast members have passed on, meaning their characters have been respectfully retired, and you can hear in the voices everyone aging. The show is, in some ways, a shell of its former self, and many say it should just be canceled… or should have been ages ago when it was still “good.”
I can’t say I’ve gone out of my way to watch a new episode in years. I really should, and it’s nice knowing there’s literally more of the show I have yet to see than what I have. There have been a few nice episodes I’ve caught in the past decade — the “Nedna” stuff was a nice twist, and an episode involving some mysterious keys being found was a bit of a trip (I think it was called “500 keys” or something like that), but nothing has really grabbed me the same way the show did when I was a kid.
Maybe that’s just the nature of getting older, or just how I am now — maybe the “modernity” of the show deters me and I love the old episodes because they take me back to good times.
Who knows.
I’ll say this much, though – a shell of itself or not, I’m glad The Simpsons is still being produced, and will forever love all the adventures I’ve had, and yet to have, in the town of Springfield.