The Simpsons has some of the most memorable gags
done by the most memorable faces
Marge - "Homey, why don't you just go down to Moe's and talk to him?
I bet he'd be willing to share some of the success with you"
Homer - "Nahh"
With the most memorable catch phrases
Homer - "Marge, I'm too upset to eat...
I think I'll go to Moe's
D-oh!"
With almost 30 years on television, the show remains a staple in american culture,
so what's the secret that makes the show so legendary?
"Easy...
easy..."
The secret is balance.
The Simpsons had a comediac advantage over every other tv sitcom at the time,
because it was animated.
If it could be drawn, The Simpsons' writers could make the joke,
they could do just about anything, and that made for some hilarious gags
But what makes The Simpsons so great
is that the creators chose not to do just about anything
"There's a hardcore rule, which is, you know, there's a lot of cartoons
where the impossible can happen.
You think about Wile E. Coyote cartoon,
where he can literaly blow up and then come back, and he is
he's black and he's flat like an acordeon
it was always made very clear to me
that this is a real world
and it gets stretched, obviously, it gets stretched like crazy"
So why purposely hope back the cartoon jokes?
Homer - "More
thank you"
That's the secret behind The Simpsons' success
"At a certain point it was like: 'This is not a cartoon,
we're making a show that's not a cartoon,
and happens to be a cartoon, but it's not a cartoon.
Now we, as young men
like the Gooffy cartoon jokes
and, as silly as they could be, but
slightly wisened older guys
said no, approach as a family,
and it was, as you say, I think it's genius.'
It's through the balance between cartoon gags
and realistic portrails of family life
that The Simpsons stands out.
The show had the heart and the realism of a family sitcom
but the humour of a cartoon. Take Homer's triple by-pass surgery:
the episode has hilarious gags that could only be done in an animation show
Smithers - "Mr. Burns, I think he's dead"
Mr. Burns - "Oh, dear! Send a ham to his widow"
Homer - "Mmmh mmmh ham"
Smithers - "No, wait, he's alive"
Mr. Burns - "Oh, good! Cancel the ham."
Homer - "D-oh!"
But the episode is just real enough to have genuinely emotional moments
Homer - "Don't worry Marge, America's health care system is second only to Japan,
Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, well all of Europe.
but you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay!"
It's a perfect balance between what's real and what's funny
"What I try to do with my life's work is to
breach the gap between
the funny art of this, that I saw in tv
and what I knew was real.
I think that's partly the success of The Simpsons."
The result is a show that's funny but also has us connect with the characters.
What makes Homer such a memorable character
is more than just when he's an idiot:
the best moments in The Simpsons are when he proves he isn't a caricature
and he's actually a caring husband and loving father.
Homer - "Oh, my little Maggie, I may never hold you again.
Ew, stinky pants!"
Shows like Family Guy and South Park are really good at providing social comentary
and funny gags, but these shows don't have the heart
and realism of The Simpsons.
The Simpsons has the perfect balance.
So whenever The Simpsons has episodes on an specific topic,
like politics, marriage or religion,
the episodes tipically have sincere lessons
along with the edgy jokes and social commentary
The Simpsons discusses these topics with the perfect combination of humour and sincerity.
Other animated cartoons focus more on telling the more jokes as possible
rather than presenting a lesson,
and other family sitcoms oftentimes shove a corny message down your throat.
The Simpsons is right in the middle.
Take the episode Bart sells his soul:
the episode is not without its classic sense of humour.
Milhouse - "But every religion says there's a soul, Bart!
Why would they lie? What would they have to gain?"
Reverend Lovejoy - "I don't hear scrubbing!"
But in between the jokes is a very interesting commentary on religion:
Bart sells his soul to Milhouse for five dollars
and he finds himself empty without it,
unable to laugh at his pranks that usually bringed him joy.
The episode actually has extemelly powerful symbolism
when Bart without his soul is left stranded in an ocean
and unable to steer himself in the right direction.
The episode has a great wide shout of Bart protesting against spirituality
in the barren church,
with a heavenly light casting down on him from above
and an eery echoe in his voice.
Bart - "Listen, you don't have a soul, I don't have a soul, there's no such thing as a soul!"
Through his spiritual journey he realizes the value of his soul.
The episode conveys the message that one's spirituality
is not given by some church or by anyone else,
it's created internally
and The Simpsons gives all this philosophical thought in a cartoon.
I'm not saying that The Simpsons is the funniest, most thematic or most realistic show,
but what I am saying is that it is one of the few shows to balance
each of these three elements almost perfectly.
Of course the glaring unanswered question is:
what happened?
Just about every Simpsons' video on YouTube has a top comment
about the show's declining quality
and while people atribute many factors to the decline of The Simpsons
like bad show runners, bland story lines,
lazy writting or overused celebrity cameo appearances,
I think the declines could possibly be summed up
by saying The Simpsons lost its balance.
A Slate magazine review of the show sums it up nicely.
Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge
bicycling into the sunset, now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dard into Marge's neck
Homer - "Thank you"
Even in the new HD opening title sequence
we can see the subtle change in a show that's more cartoon than reality.
The majority of television shows never mantain the balancing act The Simpsons accomplished
although that's not necessarilly a bad thing.
Some shows are mostly to make you laugh
or are mostly to make you feel
and that doesn't make them bad shows,
but what makes The Simpsons so legendary
is that they were able to have the laughter and the heart.