The Sub-Standard Simpsons S22 E15

"Howdy, handsome!"

The guys over at the zombie Simpsons blog are going to love me for this one. Finally an episode of The Simpsons that we can all agree on: some good one-liners, a terrible, ill-conceived plot, and a goofy visual gag that outlasted its brief welcome by about 18 minutes.

Last night’s episode illustrates a notable aspect of many recent Simpsons episodes. A show that once made us think about issues like the arrival of shoddy mass transit in a small town (Marge vs. the Monorail) or the implications of cartoon violence (Itchy & Scratchy & Marge–I do love a good Marge episode!) has now become little more than slapstick window-dressing. The Simpsons still makes us laugh, but it rarely makes us think.

I know The Simpsons is an American cultural institution, but I’m starting to think it’s time for a finale. I thought Matt Groening would give it a rest when The Simpsons finally surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest-running primetime television show, but here we are, two years later, and I actually have to look up the narratives of my favorite episodes on Wikipedia since years of devoted childhood viewings of the first ten seasons have been replaced by the mediocre plotlines of later episodes. To quote Homer Simpson, “…every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain.”

The Simpsons has had a good run, but episodes like the most recent one are detracting from the legacy of an excellent television show that, at its best, could cause us to laugh and ponder simultaneously. Every time I watch a mildly tolerable episode that lacks the innate introspection of a fantastic episode, I feel like I’m taking whatever happy drug Grandpa’s on. The more I watch, the more I’m concerned about my own ability to differentiate between the quality and the dreck. And if I’m easily lulled into viewing passivity by this television narcotic, then I won’t be surprised when my retinas detach either. Stay tuned!

Quality, Longevity, and The Simpsons S22 E14

 

"...I'm convinced! Let's start cutting!"

 

Last week when I wrote about The Simpsons, I mentioned that I would never consider some of my favorite episodes to be classic episodes. Tonight’s episode is a good example of this distinction, and it also raises some interesting questions about how we define so-called classic episodes of The Simpsons.

I thoroughly enjoyed this particular episode, but I’m not convinced it has a firm spot in The Simpsons canon. I probably liked it because I’m really a film person, and TV blogging is just my day job (just kidding! still unemployed!) In this episode, Bart’s comic-turned-webisodes “Angry Dad” finally gets some screen time (Confidential to The Office, if you want to make a television episode about characters making a movie, do it like this. Or do it like the episode when Lisa went to Sundance with her own dysfunctional family film and met indie auteur Jim Jarmusch).

The Angry Dad feature is a total flop, but Lisa convinces Bart to cut up the movie and make a short film (as seen above). Award season rolls around and Bart’s Angry Dad short quickly snaps up top prizes. The best part of this episode was undoubtedly the award show clips of Bart’s competition: the Pixar knock-off Condiments, the Wallace and Gromit claymation parody, and the tragic Eastern European animated short about a child in wartime.

Satire is what I’ve always loved about The Simpsons, and this mild jab at awards shows, nominated films, and the ensuing hype was pretty amusing. I know, however, that this isn’t the sort of episode I’ll recall as indicative of The Simpsons of my childhood. I grew up mostly watching rerun episodes from The Simpsons’ heyday, and I probably didn’t start watching the new episodes every Sunday night until 1998. I actually used to do homework during the brief half-hour news interval that aired on FOX between the two pre-dinner episodes, and this clearly hasn’t affected my later television viewing habits whatsoever.

So how do I know that this episode won’t last, at least not in my memory or in the collective hive mind of Simpsons superfans? The subject matter is too topical, almost too relevant to this exact moment in time, give or take a few years. When The Simpsons first aired, Pixar was still in its infancy. Remember Luxo Jr., that two-minute animation about the bouncing lamp? It was completed in 1986, three years before The Simpsons, but by 1995, when the original Toy Story was released to great acclaim, kids around the world were already wearing Bart Simpson t-shirts and The Simpsons had attained a great deal of cultural cachet.

My point here is that The Simpsons is least successful when it is trying to satirize or memorialize popular culture. Culture changes so quickly, especially given the example of Pixar, that a television show cannot expect to stay relevant by mocking popular media alone. Classic episodes of The Simpsons are the ones where we are reminded of just how weird, funny, or completely inappropriate a single family can be. In an episode like “Bart Gets an F” or even “Treehouse of Horror VI,” with its Homer³ vignette, we see specific experiences of universal themes. Who hasn’t studied for a test and felt Bart’s painfully, and unexpectedly, earnest desire to succeed?

I like episodes that mock current events, but I know that they won’t stick with me the same way earlier episodes do. I think much of the backlash against more recent episodes of The Simpsons is likely due to their tendency to fictionalize any cursory cultural trend. This habit creates a generational disconnect between the first viewers of The Simpsons and current viewers. I never have to explain a cultural reference or an extended joke to my mom if we’re watching a classic episode of The Simpsons (although she usually says, “Do we have to watch those stupid cartoons right now?”), but I’ve had to explain passing trends that are often mocked on the newer episodes.

I don’t think The Simpsons will ever revert back to its initial formula, but it would be nice to see fewer cultural references that won’t seem highly dated in ten years. I have some theories on why current episodes rarely deal with widely experienced themes anymore, but I’ll save those for another post. Stay tuned!

Narrative and Plot in The Simpsons S22 E13

Lisa and Homer discussing Marge's hair color

Lisa: Well, as a feminist, virtually anything a woman does is empowering.
Homer: Is my job creating power empowering?
Lisa: No. It’s oddly dehumanizing.

If you’re an occasional blog reader like me, you’ll no doubt have encountered a specific type of post or comment about The Simpsons. It goes something like this (key words bolded): Aww man, classic Simpsons episodes are the best! Everything started to suck after Season 8. I don’t know why this show is still on the air. It hasn’t been good for years.

You’ll soon see that I’m not a member of this particular internet phenomenon. I maintain that every new season of The Simpsons contains some good episodes, some great episodes, a few real stinkers, and a mostly mediocre collection of cheap laughs. There are about 20 episodes in each season, and while some seasons have offered up more gems than others, there has always been a pretty big difference between the best and worst episodes of any given season. The Simpsons has been running for over 20 years now (in fact, we’re about the same age!) and it’s natural that viewers might tire of some of the reworked storylines, but multi-use plots and sometimes predictable narratives are not indicative of the show’s overall quality.

I’ve certainly seen enough episodes where Bart does something bad, realizes he can’t live with the ensuing guilt, and eventually does the right thing by minute 19. I’ve also seen enough episodes where Lisa does something precocious that distances her from her average family, but everyone has reconciled by the end. My favorite episodes, however, are not necessarily the episodes that I think are best. The best episodes of The Simpsons follow a certain narrative framework that was somewhat visible in this most recent episode.

Good episodes of The Simpsons contain an A-plot and a B-plot (and occasionally a C-plot!) First something happens to start off the narrative, and in this case, the episode begins on Valentine’s Day. Homer is enjoying a quick pink cocktail at Moe’s and as he leaves the bar, he realizes that the gargoyle-faced bartender doesn’t have a date for the big night. This is the A-plot.

The B-plot takes shape post-Valentine’s Day, when Marge discovers a grey hair. She visits the salon, where her stylist informs her that she’s actually been grey for years, but the blue hair dye he uses on her emits toxic fumes that cause her to forget the entire experience. As the stylist hovers over Marge’s silver locks with a brush dripping blue goo, she makes an empowering decision: Marge will forego the dye altogether and embrace her grey beehive.

As the episode progresses, the A and B plots unfold concurrently, but they do not engage each other. Homer acts as Moe’s wingman and Marge encounters various reactions to her grey hair, but even when she displays her new ‘do to Homer, their conversation does not address his involvement in the wingman plot. Characters interact with each other, but their simultaneous plots do not generally overlap.

At least until the end, when a sequence of events brings the two plots together. In this episode, Marge meets with her chain-smoking sisters, Patty and Selma, at a Starbucks rip-off. She overhears two hot young women discussing whether Home will appear at a club that night. Marge gets in her car, furiously applying make-up while steering with her knees, and crashes into a ravine. As Marge extracts herself from the car and tramps through the woods to the club, her appearance becomes increasingly witch-like. When she arrives at the club, she finds Homer, and he convinces her that he loves her despite the grey hair. Marge asks if he prefers blue hair, and he assents through a brief montage of blue-bodied and blue-haired women, including a Na’vi female from Avatar and Smurfette. Marge again dyes her hair blue, and everything goes back to normal.

The critical aspect of this ending is that everything must return to normal. Both Homer and Marge had independent experiences via the two distinct plots, but eventually their storylines culminate in a single shared experience that makes them closer. A stronger episode might have given another subplot to Bart and Lisa as well, though they shared a particularly comic scene when they both stood in front of a mirror and hyperventilated as they tried to figure out where their heads stopped and their hairlines began. Will Bart sport a Milhouse next week? Stay tuned!