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The Simpsons Month: Downfall of The Simpsons
322 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Satsunami and Andrew deep dive into what caused such a beloved show to fall from grace. But has the show really gotten that bad? Or is the hatred unwarranted? Without any further ado, let's find out!
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Remarks
00:00:00
Speaker
Well Andrew, that's the end of Simpsons Month. What a recording. Uh, Satsu? Did you hit the record button? D'oh!
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Satsunami and joining me for the second episode of Simpsons Month is none other than the one and only Andrew. Andrew, welcome back. Thanks for having
The Simpsons' Quality Decline
00:00:29
Speaker
me back. I had to talk about the more negative side of a topic discussed in depth last week.
00:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, we were chomping at the bit, it's safe to say, last week where we discussed the pros of the show, so things like what made The Simpsons great, The Simpsons Mania of the 90s and kinda early 2000s, but we will get onto that, don't you buddy? But yeah, today we are finally taking off the gloves and we are gonna be laying into a series that, yeah,
00:00:56
Speaker
we love. We're doing it because we love you Simpsons. Before we jump into it, because we have a lot to talk about in this episode, but before we dive in and as we said start curb stomping The Simpsons, when you were younger and you were watching The Simpsons, did you notice the gradual shift in quality of The Simpsons or was it a thing you didn't really notice until much later in the series run?
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was certainly something much later. Given my kind of age, I didn't watch the older golden years episodes as they were premiering live. So what is considered kind of the downfall of The Simpsons was what I was watching week to week and excited to watch week to week. So I was watching the much later seasons with excitement and
00:01:39
Speaker
I certainly held the earlier seasons that I was able to get on DVD or watching syndication to a higher standard in some ways, because they were certainly more my favourite episodes from those earlier seasons. But I would still consistently watch newer episodes as they came out. So it wasn't until much later in my life that I established that there was this kind of distinction between the older seasons being better than the newer seasons and some of the issues that I then had with the later seasons that I was able to sort of distinguish. But how about yourself?
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, I would probably say the same because I used to watch the old episodes. I think maybe because my brothers watched it and then I caught a couple episodes, I fell in love with it. A lot of the old episodes though from the early 90s onwards, they would come on BBC 2, then they would shift over to Channel 4. But before that, when I watched the old episodes on BBC 2, I fell in love with the jokes, the way the episodes were written.
00:02:32
Speaker
the emotional core as we essentially talked about last week, and so much so that for long-term listeners of the podcast you'll know that my very first DVD was the third season, so it was in like a massive pink box and everything and I absolutely
00:02:48
Speaker
I think I burnt through those DVDs quite a lot until I got, you know, season four or five and worked my way up. But I had a really funny perception of not only The Simpsons, but a lot of shows and films that I watched at the time, because I don't really have this concept of, you know, that things I loved could get worse. If that makes sense.
Community Opinions and Comparisons
00:03:09
Speaker
If there was a film or a particular show I was watching, I would always notice there was something off. And especially for The Simpsons, I would watch an episode
00:03:17
Speaker
And I would be like, yeah, it's the Simpsons, you know, there was Homeworld, there was Bart, Maggie, Marge, Lisa, and the rest. But I didn't feel that connection to those stories. And it was definitely the further and further a series got on, the further I kind of thought, oh my God, is the Simpsons going downhill? And I thought, no, no, no, no.
00:03:36
Speaker
you know, it's just like a one-off episode and you and I were actually talking about that before we came on today. The fact that even though Seasons 9 onwards seemed to be agreed upon as the era that The Simpsons shifted from being this well-beloved franchise to a franchise that was kind of in rocky footing, it's quite interesting to see where people think the series had its downfall because some people will say, oh Season 9 with the infamous
00:04:06
Speaker
principle in the popular episode or further on where they'll say, oh, no, no, no, it was definitely season 12, it was late teens. It's quite interesting to see that there's, is it right to say, a divisiveness in the community?
00:04:21
Speaker
There are certainly arguments about where each individual person will distinguish as the decline in quality of The Simpsons. I don't necessarily know if it's a downfall, but there's certainly a decline in quality. I'll get into it a little bit later, I guess, but I personally know the opinion that it's a little bit later on than what some people would say. I think there's a lot of merits in seasons such as season 9 and 10 and some of the also later seasons.
00:04:42
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's certainly quite divisive with regards to what happened to The Simpsons, what's wrong with it and when it went wrong. It's hard to pinpoint though how something that was, as we said last week, it was something that was so widely beloved that something that you and I to this day, we still quote The Simpsons
00:05:00
Speaker
think I brought it up last week as well, there's that very famous meme of, you know that episode where I think it's the Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy show where Homer's talking about Itchy and Scratchy and everything and this geek puts up his hand and he talks about how when Itchy hits the same rib twice in succession that he produces like a different note and he's like oh I bet someone got fired for that and
00:05:23
Speaker
Homer retorts saying, how can someone with a genius of workshirts sit there and say that, you know, for a children's cartoon? And he's like, oh, I retract my statement. And a lot of Simpsons fans have co-opted that for, let me ask you something, how can a Simpsons fan sit there and say, oh, I'm a fan of the series when you only like seasons 1 to 9 or 1 to 11, whenever you decide the cut off is? And it is true. It's like, although a lot of people do care, oh, the Simpsons has been one of the best animated shows of all time.
00:05:53
Speaker
comments all the time. Yeah, can you think of any other sitcom like that? As I say, nowadays, as of 2023, we are on season 34 of The Simpsons, and I feel as if it's only now they're kind of getting their footing back. It's not as bad as it used to be in the mid to late teen episodes,
00:06:16
Speaker
I will say that there are a lot of other sitcoms, I think, that have a very strong first few seasons and then see a decline in quality. I don't know if you would necessarily say the majority of the series, but there are certainly a lot that you do see a decline in. I would bring up community. I think the first couple of seasons of community are some of the best sitcom television, whereas the rest of it is a real kind of decline with the final season or two just being not particularly entertaining.
00:06:38
Speaker
happen with other series that you do see people who can be very praising of the series as a whole but also recognize its weaknesses in large amounts of its content. I'm not saying it's an American-centric problem with sitcoms but it seems to be because a lot of American sitcoms run for just such a long amount of time that it's almost inevitable that they're gonna not fail but they're gonna get worse in quality because there's no way for realistically a show to keep up
00:07:07
Speaker
the same standard of quality for several seasons, like in a row straight, and then keep that into, as we said, the late thirties. But on that note, we are going to dive into what we think about the Simpsons in, unfortunately, more negative terms. But what I do want to point out before we jump into this is
00:07:28
Speaker
We're not just gonna jump into this and start pummeling out with the same tired critiques, you know? We're not gonna be sitting here saying, oh, if you hate these kind of mid-teen seasons or late-teen seasons, then, oh, you're terrible for biking these. You know, if you enjoy these seasons fair enough, I know that's probably a minority of people that do like these seasons in comparison to the earlier ones. So grab your cereal that's on fire, your pink donuts, and your Duff beer, and we'll see you
00:07:57
Speaker
after these messages.
Podcast Overview and Promotions
00:07:59
Speaker
Welcome to Chatanami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and general interest. Previously on Chatanami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:08:17
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:08:40
Speaker
Hello, Mel. Hello, Holly. We're witch murderer. We are witch murderer. And, yeah, you never want to be in a situation where you're with a group of people and you're deciding who you're going to eat. This week's episode is divorce martyrs. You mean evidence for future trials? Yes. Yes. However, unlike the first two victims, Virginia's body was melted to make soap. What? Why?
00:09:02
Speaker
Witch Murderer is hosted by Spreaker. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Email us at witchmurderer at gmail.com or visit our website at witchmurderer.com. We are also on Instagram and Twitter. Just look for the at witchmurderer account or hashtag on our Facebook page and group interacting with other listeners or the Witch Murderer team.
00:09:26
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Zenkaster. If you're a podcaster that records remotely like me, then you'll know how challenging it can be to create the podcast you've always wanted. That's where Zenkaster comes in. Before I met Zenkaster, I was put a naive podcaster, recording on low quality, one-track audio waves.
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00:10:13
Speaker
Let's start with the writing and structure, which I feel as if is probably the main critique
Writing and Humor in Later Seasons
00:10:20
Speaker
that a lot of people have with these kind of late teen seasons. Yeah, I think that is one of my biggest critiques with the later seasons, that its writing and the way it tells its jokes don't quite work for me.
00:10:31
Speaker
And the reliance on certain more edgy sides of the tumor, I think, lets it down. But it starts straying into more racial jokes or homophobic jokes. But there was quite a few instances in the early to mid-teens where the punchline was just, what if these characters were actually gay? Or just playing on a racial stereotype?
00:10:50
Speaker
And I don't think that that certainly doesn't stand the test of time. And I don't think it was particularly funny at the time. My understanding is that they were seeing the success of both Family Guy and South Park and that more edgy humor integrating itself into society and to have the social conscience. And so I felt like if they don't match that level of humor, then they're going to be left behind.
00:11:10
Speaker
and that they needed to evolve their humour with what was happening around them. But it is unfortunate to the detriment of the show at large because it doesn't stand up as well and it needed to be its own thing. It did not need to copy those around it, which it was not doing in its earlier seasons. It was trying to stand out itself and the shows that were then trying to copy it were then doing their thing and The Simpsons then started to copy them. It's something that we brought up last week
00:11:34
Speaker
But the idea that The Simpsons, at the time in the 90s, was very much a counter-cultural show. We had shows that were coming out like The Cosby Show, The Brady Bunch, insert any generic, very wholesome sitcom in here that was played at the time. And The Simpsons had more of a, I don't want to say realistic, because at the end of the day it's still a cartoon, but more grounded into American culture, politics, all of these kinds of societal issues that not only were American-centric,
00:12:04
Speaker
but very universal. We've all had our struggles and so on that we could relate to with these characters. But as you said, the more and more it went on, the less relevant it became. And that's especially the case for The Simpsons where he had shows like South Park which
00:12:21
Speaker
I think even today South Park's still considered AG. Whether it's for the right or wrong reasons, it's still always trying to push the boundaries. Same with Family Guy, they've got very AG and offensive jokes in there as well. So when you say the Simpsons do it, the Simpsons have been AG in their own way, but there's just some moments that just, it doesn't sit right with me in terms of like a writing.
00:12:43
Speaker
standpoint. This is something I was thinking the other day when I was trying to think of reasons why the later episodes failed and again were narrowing in on the teen episodes but one of the reasons I initially thought was maybe it's because the episode starts but the beginning of the episode never relates to what goes on later on. Then I re-watched a season 3 episode called Miss Lisa Goes to Washington
00:13:08
Speaker
where at the beginning that literally starts with Homer getting like a coupon for something else and then it ends with him going to Washington because of a speech competition. It is completely disjointed but at the same time I really liked what they did with that episode so I was like well why does that work?
00:13:26
Speaker
and those kind of earlier episodes work but the later series don't and I feel as if it's a thing of escalation. So one of the episodes we were actually talking about before we came on was the mum and pop art episode where Homer goes out and he buys a barbecue and we all know that famous scene that's a classic where he's building a barbecue and he drops all the contents into like some men and he's like wow that's a fine-looking barbecue.
00:13:53
Speaker
it doesn't mind look like that any, has a range. But then the second half of the episode is all about Homer getting into the art world. I don't know, it's not a big leap to take, it's not the worst leap they've ever taken, but it's certainly one that just doesn't seem, I don't know, it seems as if it's like to coin a phrase from Happy Days that jumps the shark quite a bit in these seasons, and especially with something like The Fright,
00:14:18
Speaker
game. That goes from having a screaming, is it a screaming caterpillar or something in the garden, to Homer and Marge nearly getting executed by the state. And there's just no gradual build-up. Going back to that episode of Ascended Season 3, it's as if even though the beginning has nothing to do with the end, there's that realistic build-up that you could believe it would transition into. But with a lot of these later episodes with the writing and everything, I feel as if they come up with the punchline first.
00:14:48
Speaker
And then they have to build backwards. There's certainly a lot of episodes, even in the earlier seasons, where you could kind of see that as well, that they were like, what if we had them in this situation, and then let's build an episode around that. Any kind of episode where they go on like a road trip somewhere, or fly somewhere, like you can tell that the initial kind of pitch was, we want them here, how do we get them here? And they kind of build around to that. But
00:15:09
Speaker
But there are certainly issues around in the later seasons of just that hadn't really fully thought through the rest of the episode. And so it doesn't quite work to that extent. There are a lot of episodes I find where there are individual scenes I really enjoy, but the episode itself isn't fantastic. And so I'm more forgiving of it because it'll have like a memorable joke in it. It's often quite hard for me to be like, Oh, no, this, this season's a dud or this episode's a dud because there'll be something I remember from it that I enjoyed. But when you look
00:15:36
Speaker
at it like from a more grander perspective, you realise that as a whole the episode or season was a letdown, that it did show the decline of
Memorable Later Episodes
00:15:44
Speaker
the series. Do you think that because there were so many amazing episodes in the earlier seasons, and then if there was a dud or one that wasn't as good, then you could kind of forgive it or weave it away because, oh it doesn't matter if that one was okay compared to the other ones,
00:16:01
Speaker
you've got all of these amazing ones to prop up that season to say, actually, this season is good. Whereas for the newer ones, do you think it wasn't the case that there was a lot more duds in those seasons? Yeah, I think that's fair. There would often be episodes when I'd be rewatching some of the earlier seasons where I'd be like, I'm going to skip this one. I don't really dig this one.
00:16:20
Speaker
And then the further along the seasons that you go, the more I was having to do that, and I'd have to be more selective about like, ah, this is a good one. I can watch this one. But like, there would be fewer options. So I'd be having to skip more episodes. The season I did that the fewest with, or the two seasons I think I did that the fewest with was season six and nine. And so nine, considered by many, I think you consider it a little bit as well to be the decline of The Simpsons. But I think it was the season I selected as my favourite, if I'm remembering correctly, in our best seasons episode.
00:16:46
Speaker
So I certainly have a special place in my heart for season 9, like I appreciate certain aspects of it aren't always amazing but I think the majority of that season it's absolutely wonderful. There is a slight caveat with season 9 because I do believe that although season 9 does have some really funny episodes like
00:17:03
Speaker
natural born kissers, king of the hell, trash of the titans, simpson titans, the simpson titans he's invited, oh yeah, dust boss, lisa the simpson, lost our lisa is a good one, reality bites a good one, lisa the skeptic is a great one, stop her!
00:17:19
Speaker
of that. Somebody stop her. Joy of Sect, that is a great one as well. I have to admit, I'll sing the old dancing. No, no, no, no. I like all singing or dancing. I'm in the opposite camp for that. I don't know what a noise might be. I think it's because they set it up as if it was a new episode. I remember at the time, I was so excited, I was like,
00:17:38
Speaker
Oh my god, this is an episode that I have never seen before. And then I watched it and I realised it was just a really bad clip show. I have to say, in comparison to some of the other clips or episodes, it's actually okay. One-on-ones, which I can kind of attribute as being a real decline in the series, I think was Season
00:17:54
Speaker
13 with Gump Roast. In season 13 Gump Roast is arguably like the worst incident of like a clip show episode and like is a real kind of demonstration of the decline of The Simpsons because it doesn't really offer anything. You have the random appearance of Kang and Kudos at one point,
00:18:11
Speaker
And yeah, as you say, it's not particularly funny, it doesn't show many clips that are interesting, so you're not even really getting that nostalgia from it, it just is a poor episode. Going back to season 9 for a second before we move on to the next point, it is something that I feel as if it has a lot of strong episodes, like I can't deny that after all the ones we're going through, but it was certainly the start of The Simpsons being a little bit
00:18:35
Speaker
more outlandish. We had Homer joining the naval reserves. We had Homer going to Cuba. It was all very Homer-centric, a lot of them. We had Trash of the Titans and everything. And this seems to be the turning point that I think a lot of people agree. And again, it's very debated about when the Simpsons actually started getting quote-unquote worse. But it's around this time between season 9 and 11 that the cracks were starting to show.
00:19:03
Speaker
You know, you had episodes where Homer would be uncharacteristically selfish, like in Trash of the Titans, he essentially destroys Springfield because, you know, he wants to be the sanitation commissioner with something tidy and it would cause his World War III. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
It was his first day to be fair. It was his first day with Joy of Sex. He takes his family into a cult and a cartridge family which is probably one of the more infamous ones where he decides to buy a gun and he's just very reckless and again that's more of a American issue than it would be for the UK which
00:19:39
Speaker
I feel as if it's a kind of good time to talk about the Universal
Global Appeal and Stereotypes
00:19:43
Speaker
Appeal. So as we talked about last week, the Universal Appeal of The Simpsons was undeniable. It was everywhere. It was on merchandise, comics, video games and obviously TV and foods and things like that. Something, something. Don't you lay a finger on my butt a finger? But then as the show went on, would you say it was just a case of longevity? You know, The Simpsons was around for so long that people started to think
00:20:07
Speaker
I don't normally want to watch more of this anymore. I think there's an argument for that. I think that people do get a bit tired of the same thing. They want something a little bit different, which is what in many ways caused The Simpsons to try and evolve their style with what they saw was the comedy of the times. And so they were a bit of a victim of their own longevity in that regard. But I don't think that that is necessarily the leading factor. I think it's writing declined substantially, which as we were talking about earlier, is what was the main factor. But the
00:20:34
Speaker
did certainly lose a little bit of universal appeal, just kind of even through the way it was written, that we were seeing a lot of references to things that weren't really relevant to a global scale, or that they would try and feature episodes in other countries that ended up just being stereotypes of that country that was funny to Americans. But the rest of the world was like, that's not what it's like, just kind of seemed a bit ignorant. I at the time, however, saying that I watched these as a child, and I thought they were funny, because I also was
00:21:00
Speaker
an ignorant child. But going back and looking at these episodes as an adult, you're like, hmm, this isn't quite work. Oh, I kind of wish they hadn't done that. The episode in Brazil is one episode. The episode in Tokyo, when they go to Africa, which that's a whole other situation where they go to, quote unquote, Africa as saying like an entire continent. I don't even remember what country they end up flying into, but they make a joke about the dictatorship at the time. And then the dictatorship changes by the end of the episode. That actually has a very good point because the Simpsons go into other countries
00:21:28
Speaker
it's not really anything new. You know, you had the episode where they go to Australia. There seemed to be this weird, maybe not obsession, but it's something that has kind of irked me looking back in these episodes because, as I said before, last week, the subsets did have a universal appeal. It didn't have
00:21:48
Speaker
to be set in these countries, you know, they didn't have to go to Brazil, they didn't have to go to Scotland as another one. That episode, as a Scottish person, it doesn't offend me. I'm not going to be in my podium here going, oh it's offensive, it's not offensive, it's just very baffling where they go and hunt down the Loch Ness Monster for Mr Burns.
00:22:09
Speaker
One of the things with that is they're in Scotland so briefly. You kind of feel like they kind of almost had a missed opportunity with regards to the jokes they could be making. They have Willy's parents, they have that pub they go into, and then they flood the area. And that's about that's like the only scenes you actually see in Scotland. The majority of Scottish jokes that they squeeze into the show is just things that Willy says just kind of offhandedly about Scotland.
00:22:30
Speaker
There's one particular joke which I found weird where they find a replica of the Loch Ness Monster and it has graffiti on it that says Aberdeen sucks or something like that and Homer turns it into this like, no way Aberdeen rules and it's like just the most random thing. It's as if they just picked a city at random and they were just like oh yeah Aberdeen yeah get Homer to say Aberdeen rules and everyone's going to be laughing at that in Scotland.
00:22:57
Speaker
Again, it's not an offensive episode, it's just a missed opportunity and I feel as if that is a very common theme with a lot of these episodes. So much so that a lot of these episodes did get banned in the countries that they were trying to make fun of, especially the Brazil one. I remember the absolute storm that they caused with Brazil because they were like,
00:23:18
Speaker
Oh yeah, Homer gets kidnapped and there's this favela and there's very provocative children's TV and Bart gets swallowed by a snake at the end. Don't be sad, it's carnival. Yeah, and then he dances and then that's it. You can tell why they were upset and obviously there's loads of them that
00:23:35
Speaker
we are missing from these in particular, but that actually brings me on to our third point about the use of guest stars on the show, which kind of links into what we're talking about there.
Guest Stars and Celebrity Involvement
00:23:47
Speaker
It's one particular episode I want to narrow in on, that of course being the Regina monologues where they go to London.
00:23:53
Speaker
I've got to ask, what were your thoughts on that episode when it came out? Because I remember here it was very well publicised that The Simpsons were going to London. I'm pretty sure this is one of the episodes I did see as it came out, that I was old enough that I watched this as it came out. I think I enjoyed it at the time.
00:24:10
Speaker
I don't think I fully understood as much of it, but I did enjoy it. I was like, oh wow, they're in the UK. I'm from the UK. Wow. Kind of thing. Growing up and rewatching it, it is a very cringy episode. One of the things that kind of stayed with me, which is weird was the scene where Bart and Lisa go and have UK chocolate.
00:24:26
Speaker
And because it's a lot sweeter in the UK than Americans are used to. And so they have like a sugar rush that for some reason really stuck with me. And I still think about that. And like how much sweeter UK chocolate is to in comparison to American candy bars. I don't know why that particular part of the episode stays with
00:24:41
Speaker
me, but the episode as a whole, it wasn't very good. It introduced a lot of celebrities randomly that didn't need to be there, that felt like they were just there to be like name drops rather than actually using them. The fact that there wasn't really an actual interaction with them, like a lot of the celebrity, and we'll get into this more with the celebrity appearances later, but the celebrities would just appear, say a line, then leave. Whereas in the earlier seasons, you would have them as more integral parts of the story.
00:25:05
Speaker
that is my pet peeve for this particular episode. As you said, when you watched this when you were younger, you kind of think, yeah, it's an okay episode. But I remember watching this, as I said, it was everywhere. It was even advertised in the comics, I'm sure, and like, oh, this is going to be a great episode. And I remember sitting watching it, I finished it, and then I was like, that wasn't good. You know, it wasn't like I was furious or I was
00:25:30
Speaker
angry at it. It was just like a I'm not mad or disappointed moment. You were just like, that was awful, because as you said with the guest stars and that, that is probably one of the worst examples. Obviously we will get on to worse examples than this, surprisingly, but you're completely right. A lot of the celebrities here are just there for the sake of being there. You know, you've got Tony Blair, who was the Prime Minister at the time of the UK, greeting them and Homer thinks he's Mr Bean.
00:26:00
Speaker
you have J.K. Rowling who just appears and she makes like one random comment and disappears. You've got A. McKellen who gets crushed because he says Macbeth in front of a theatre. I think that's it, isn't it? I mean Madonna's at the end but I don't think it's really her. Oh yeah, yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
And the Queen. But yeah, also in the episode, like what I was saying earlier in the writing section, there's a scene where Bart and Lisa are kind of like passed out because of the sugar rush and two aristocratic gentlemen kind of walk by and want to place a wager on it. And then the punchline ends up being that they're gay for each other. Yeah, I remember that as well.
00:26:33
Speaker
I never found it funny that way. Not that it is funny, but what's the joke? I think it's supposed to be an absurdist kind of thing, like what if they were gay though? It comes across as quite homophobic when you look back at it. The fact of homosexuality being a punchline presents it as an abnormal situation and that it would be so absurd. Because I mean, especially when they've had, and again, this is me giving them credit for upholding the continuity here, but
00:26:57
Speaker
You know, we've had episodes in the past like Homer's phobia where they talk about the issues that some characters like Homer had with gay people and how, although he didn't get over it fully, you know, he was still trying to make progress into understanding it. But you go from an episode like that in Season 8 all the way to Season 15 when this came out.
00:27:18
Speaker
And again, I don't know if it's just, as you said, the South Park family guy effect where they just want to throw it in for the sake of this absurdist surreal humour. And again, there's no punch line. It's just too stuck up British gentlemen to just start kissing.
00:27:34
Speaker
Also, the season prior to that, season 14, had three gays of the condo, where Homer lived with a gay couple. I can't remember if there was any cringy moments with that, but I'm pretty sure being gay wasn't necessarily as big as like a punchline use than it was in, say, that episode in London. And other episodes as well, I'm afraid I can't bring up right now, but I'm aware of other episodes that do similar, that they make characters being gay a punchline.
00:27:57
Speaker
What we've been doing a lot of the time as well is we've been focusing very much on the early to mid-teen seasons, pointing toward its decline and what's bad about The Simpsons in the later seasons. We've kind of ignored season 20 onwards, which should be addressed. But unfortunately, from my perspective, I'm not as familiar with those episodes. I have seen every episode of The Simpsons. I don't remember the season 20s.
00:28:18
Speaker
as well. I feel as if by the time the mid-teen seasons came out they probably came out about the same time that they were coming on BBC 2 or Channel 4 and everything and they were a lot more prominent in a way. You were able to see these episodes as you were growing up.
00:28:34
Speaker
but yeah I feel as if by that point once you watch these episodes and you started to grow up and move away from The Simpsons, The Simpsons has always been a part of my life and I know it's been a part of your life as well but it's really more for the nostalgic better episodes. I have to admit there was a lot of episodes rewatching them that I forgot about like for example in that episode where Homer starts building a barbecue it's
00:28:59
Speaker
And then by the end of it, he floods the entire town. I completely forgot about that. I also forgot when I was rewatching the Fran game about the Screaming Caterpillar, and then all of a sudden they're on death row about to get executed. There's like a lot of moments when I'm rewatching these and I'm like,
00:29:17
Speaker
I completely forgot that was a thing, but obviously for them it's always still been there. So yeah, I feel as if while the 20s definitely does have its share, you're completely right, it has its share of bad episodes, I think this is definitely the ground zero of where a lot of these bad
00:29:34
Speaker
whether it was the writing, whether it was the characterisation which we'll get onto, or other things. I feel as if that's the particular point where things started to waver and they started to lose their grasp on what made the show good. And again, moving on to the use of guest stars, this is something again we were talking about last week where we said, oh, using celebrities in The Simpsons, oh, it's
00:30:00
Speaker
because they started using celebrities as themselves in episodes, and that must be why they failed. But if you look back on particular episodes in the early golden age of The Simpsons, there are quite a few celebrities, aren't there, that just play themselves, but they're still quite funny and memorable. I think one of the ones we brought up was Leonard Nimoy on the monorail episode.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, the use of Leonard Nimoy was very well done that they were able to have him laugh at himself and not afraid to say things that might make them not seem as amazing. Whereas as we discussed last week, the more recent seasons are more about kissing celebrities feet and walking on eggshells around them.
00:30:42
Speaker
It's weird though to see that even in the early teens and then it goes on later, there are definitely a lot of moments that you do see. Like as I said for the episode, the Regina Monologues, where they go to London, you have J.K. Rowling, you have Tony Blair, you have E. McKellen,
00:31:00
Speaker
They do absolutely nothing but appear, and that is one of my gripes when you see Marge or Lisa or Homer say, oh look, it's Celebrity, blah blah blah. That kind of reflects all of the shows that they used to make fun of when they'd be like, oh it's Celebrity, so and so, and everyone would clap and go, woo!
00:31:18
Speaker
there's actually an episode. Can you remember the name of it? It's like three separate spin-off shows for The Simpsons. Yeah, I think it is. The one where it's the love tester, the Skinner and Wiggum spin-off. And then at the very end, there's a particular episode where it's like they're all playing The Simpsons, if that makes sense, on the stage. But Lisa didn't agree to take part in it, so they just kept
00:31:43
Speaker
get a random actress to play Lisa and then they get like a celebrity person to come in and it is a good parody but it's like you know when you see a video of someone making fun of something that's very cringe-worthy or something like that and you cringe yourself because it's just so accurate
00:32:00
Speaker
I watched that one recently actually. I really enjoy that episode. I think it's very self-aware. I do think that that one is done pretty well. And I was saying to you, I think it might have been off mic about the experimental episodes. I'm not typically a fan of experimental cartoon episodes. There are some exceptions. I enjoyed that episode. There's elements of like the sort of behind the laughter kind of episodes that I enjoy. There is
00:32:23
Speaker
episodes where they're like short stories. I quite enjoy like the Simpsons Bible stories or Tales from the Public Domain, or there's that one where they talk to a hobo and he tells them stories from like folk tales. These are interesting and there's other ones where like they're getting a bit experimental just with like the episode direction. There was one that was a bit like a true crime drama in I think it was either season 33 or 34 that they do those
00:32:47
Speaker
quite well, I think, but then I'm not as big a fan of when they make The Simpsons all out of Lego as a push towards watching a Lego movie. Yeah, that's fair enough. It's good for them to try, I suppose, at least and try something different, but when they don't land, you're completely right. When they don't land, are you thinking, I don't know about this episode, do you think? Well, what's the point of
00:33:09
Speaker
having these episodes that just kind of land flat in their face, and in particular for experimental ones, rolling them back to like the guest stars. There had been a lot of moments, I remember going back to season two and rewatching the episode where Homer finds his brother and being blown away that it's actually Danny DeVito that voices his brother. I learned that quite recently as well. That's the thing though, it's like it's quite interesting to see how they utilize Danny DeVito, whereas as you said we've got the musk
00:33:37
Speaker
that fell to earth. You've got Lisa Goes Gaga where they kiss the buttocks of Lady Gaga and Musk respectively. Those two episodes are actually considered the worst episodes of The Simpsons. They're on IMDb, they're the lowest rated episodes of the entire like 700 episode list. I mean even if you look at the Treehouse of Horror episodes, there's one particular episode, Treehouse of Horror 9,
00:34:01
Speaker
where would they get Jerry Springer in because Marge reveals that Maggie's like secretly an alien and all of this and it's not a great episode but I feel as if for guest stars in the later seasons they put them in almost as like an attraction just to point fingers and go look at who we got we got so and so and don't get me wrong there is an abundance of them but it's not always the case like for example they've had Daniel Radcliffe in it a couple of times
00:34:28
Speaker
But Daniel Radcliffe never plays himself, as far as I'm aware. He usually plays like almost a parody of like a different young adult kind of thing. I think he was maybe a Twilight character. Yeah, he was a Twilight character and he was mentally unstable. I don't know if I spoil this for the episode, but he was mentally unstable as one of Bart's classmates or schoolmates, as it were. So it's quite interesting to see that they don't always do that. They say, oh, look, it's celebrity, whatever. But I feel as if there's probably more of an
00:34:56
Speaker
abundance of that. It's not so much that they're there because the earlier seasons do that as well, but at the same time they at least try to utilise them in a clever way. I could even have Conan O'Brien for goodness sake. Yeah, well that's kind of
00:35:12
Speaker
my favourite things when they had celebrities on my favourite was when they didn't play themselves that they played a different character on the show and just played it very earnestly. You talked about Homer's brother Herb and how Diane DeVito played that role so, so well, like that is one of the best examples of a celebrity in The Simpsons. So in the episode Simpson and Delilah, they have Harvey Fierstein, I think it is on to as a character to amp up Homer gives him confidence. And it's such a lovely, wonderful character and that he's played so, so well.
00:35:41
Speaker
And so that kind of era of The Simpsons where you have these sort of celebrities coming into voice characters is so much more interesting to me than when they have celebrities just being themselves. One interesting one is it's not actually a celebrity guest appearance, but it is kind of a celebrity guest appearance as when George Bush senior moves in next to The Simpsons.
00:35:58
Speaker
I don't know if it's for that episode or a previous episode, but apparently, The Simpsons contacted every living former president to see if any of them would come on and all of them said no. And they were like, all right, we'll just spoof George Bush Senior then. That's amazing. That amused me. And the fact that George Bush Jr. or George W. Bush rather, Homer makes a joke about how George Bush Jr. was like at the door and it was just like a scarecrow to get him to come outside. Borrow rich with boys.
Emotional Depth and Storytelling
00:36:24
Speaker
going on from the this management is probably an apt word to say of the guest stars to the emotional core which is something we went into in depth last week where we talked about the episodes from season seven with mother simpson or bark gets an F or lisa's substitute or simpson and diviva you've got episodes like that that tug at the heartstrings but then the more they go on
00:36:49
Speaker
There are a lot of episodes that are just so edgy for the sake of being edgy, and there's like an absolute ton of them. I've got here, you've got The Boys of Bummer, which is the one with the town essentially bullies Bart into nearly committing suicide and puts him into a mental spiral. You've got It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge, where she nearly kills Otto's fiance because she thinks that she's trying to kill her.
00:37:19
Speaker
Which at the end, I think it turns out she was going to. I think at the end, Becky revealed that that was her plan. Yeah, then she gets tranquilised by Homer. Trust me, that'll come back again in our final point. You've got co-dependency, where Homer frames March for drunk driving, which is probably one of the more obscene acts that Homer's done during the seasons. You've got Homer versus Dignity, where he gets sexually assaulted by a panda. Oh my God, that episode's horrific.
00:37:45
Speaker
I mean, you've got the frying game where, as we said, Homer and Marge nearly get executed, put in death row for a prank show. That is just horrific to me. I don't find that funny at all. But then you've got going back to Treehouse of Horror 9. This is the thing, whenever I watched it with my parents, if it was too much, then they would just simply turn it off. They wouldn't let me watch any more of it. But one of the ones I always remember my mum and dad turned off was the short from Treehouse of Horror 9 where it was
00:38:15
Speaker
here that would take over Homer and he would start killing people because there's a particularly brutal scene where he stabs like a corkscrew into Moe's heart and pulls out his still-beating heart. It's very violent and very over-the-top. I mean, don't get me wrong, you've still got kind of controversial things like the Cartridge family where you've got Homer playing about with a gun and Bart nearly shoots Millhouse and everything gets horrific, horrific stuff.
00:38:42
Speaker
There's no real emotional core to kind of anchor you to these characters. What I will say as a saving grace is that the later seasons, 33, 34, they've started to bring that back a little for the emotional core. They've started to try and make an attempt at least to be a lot more emotional. But would you say the emotional core was starting to fail by this point in the series?
00:39:06
Speaker
I don't think there was effective at utilizing it for sure. I don't think there was an element of failure to the show in regards to its emotional core. I think that it did still exist. And I'm going to bring up a few examples of some of the episodes that I've kind of identified as having that kind of level of emotional core still, like the episodes I think in the later seasons were done quite well. And I'm going to go a little bit further forward with those as well. There was an episode in season 23, which takes place in the future. It's called Holidays of Future Past. Have you seen that one? Yeah.
00:39:33
Speaker
Is that the one where Bart loves in the school? Yeah, I think so. And he has two kids and they're kind of a bit disappointed in him. He's a bit of a nobody. He's a bit of a rubbish father. And you kind of have that episode of him kind of learning to be a better father, learning from his dad. I feel there's a strong kind of emotional core there where his two kids learn more about his life and his relationship. And it's very earnest. I think Lisa and Bart have a conversation about that. So what's quite interesting is Halloween episodes.
00:39:59
Speaker
that traditionally in The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror has been the anthology story exclusively for Halloween. There are no other Halloween stories. If it's a Halloween story, it's a Treehouse of Horror. But in season 27, or maybe 28, there's a episode called Halloween of Horror, where is just a episode set during Halloween and Lisa is very scared.
00:40:19
Speaker
Homer is able to kind of help her through that period of fear. It has a very strong kind of earnest element to it. I remember there was Bart-hood, which was a play on adulthood or kid-ult-hood. I can't remember what it was called now, that movie that came out about 10 years ago now that went through the life of that child. Like it was filmed over a span of like 10 years or something. And so that was done in a very interesting way that felt very emotional in its kind of depiction of the Linklater movie.
00:40:44
Speaker
And then there was that lovely one with Krusty and his dad, where Krusty's dad passes away. And it's a very sweet and somber story of Krusty wanting acceptance from his father, which he never received before his passing. I was just looking back in some of the later seasons and one that I know you said you weren't a big fan of, but funny enough, this is in the 25th season, the Brick Like Me episode that we were talking about. One of the things I will say that I did appreciate about that one was
00:41:12
Speaker
again it was the emotional attachment that Homer had to Lisa in that episode that the only reason he gets into, you know, the Lego world is because he buys a Lego set and they build it together and then I think he gets hit in the head or something but he ends up fantasizing that he's in this Lego world where he can live with Lisa and Marge and Bart and everything for the rest of his life and everything but he kind of realizes later on that he won't be able to watch his family grow and change and
00:41:41
Speaker
it is quite emotional because on the one hand there's many times where we want things to stay the same, you know, we want the good times to keep on rolling but if we do that then we won't really appreciate them as much if that makes sense. It's like having Christmas every day, you know, it's like we're always going to have that good moment but it's just going to kind of dilute what made those times special for us so in that sense I feel as if they still have the ability
00:42:05
Speaker
to go back to this kind of emotional core but unfortunately it's something that I think it's outweighed, especially as we said in the very way to mid-2000s. This is a kind of age where they were trying to be a lot more edgier. They were trying to show that, oh, we have teeth to compete as a counter-cultural show and it's like, well, you might have been counter-cultural in the 90s but at least you had those emotional moments where people could relate
00:42:33
Speaker
and everything, you didn't have to go to the country of origin that you're parodying or making fun of to do that, but that leads then to our final point which is the characterisation.
Character Evolutions: Lisa, Bart, and Others
00:42:45
Speaker
I'm going to be honest, I have definitely seen a massive shift in the way that these particular characters
00:42:52
Speaker
have been characterised, like a particular Homer. But before I go into my thoughts about that, what are your opinions about the evolution of these characters over the years? Yeah, there certainly has been a little bit of a shift in how they are being depicted. She's going to maybe Lisa.
00:43:11
Speaker
Lisa was always the little girl insert for whichever reason, the need to have it. So like the girl who was obsessed with dolls, and then we've now kind of replaced that element of her, of her being obsessed with the latest pop star that she's interested in a Lady Gaga that she's interested in. In a more recent episode, I watched like a Taylor Swift equivalent, but they were a different name that she was always quite into kind of social movements. And she was a big advocate for protecting animals and protecting the environment.
00:43:37
Speaker
championing the sciences. And now there's a lot more rebellious sneaking in to do some vandalism, some sort of protest movement that you didn't really kind of get from her before. So her character has been pretty consistent in some ways, in ways you could say evolved with the times, but I don't think she's as interesting as I once found her. I think she's quite generic and uninteresting now. I don't know. I can't put my finger on what has done that though. I feel like
00:44:01
Speaker
she's a bit smug. There's a particular episode in season 33 that I was talking to you about of Mike and it's one where Bart wants to become a nuclear safety inspector because he has a newfound sense of respect for Homer.
00:44:17
Speaker
he wants to become like that into things like a whole song about how the American middle class is no longer a thing and everything and it's something that kind of annoys me with season 33 that there's a lot of musical episodes, I don't know why but
00:44:32
Speaker
It just seems very prominent, but it always seems as if Lisa went from an actual child. That's something I was surprised at with the early run. At the very beginning, Lisa acted like a child, you know, she was very immature, she had tantrums, she had very realistic
00:44:50
Speaker
childish emotions but then the more she went on she became a vegetarian and then she became a Buddhist and everything and then she evolved into this character of being the spokesperson for common sense but it wasn't done in a sensible way like she used to. For example there's the episode where Homer gets angry that he has to pay hundreds of dollars for the bear patrol at the
00:45:16
Speaker
get in because like one mayor wanders into the streets and that kicks off the whole conversation about immigration in America but Lisa in that episode makes the very valid point of well I've got this rock here that staves away bears and Homer's like well how can you tell it keeps bears away and Lisa says well do you see any bears around and Homer turned around and goes I'd like to buy your rock Lisa. I feel this issue was sensible but in the later seasons they wrote our kind of on purpose to always be right
00:45:45
Speaker
is one thing for a character to have flaws like there's a particularly good episode I have to admit that I saw in again season 33 where Lisa gains weight because she gets violently ill with Bart and because of that they have to put both Bart and Lisa on steroids and Marge by accident calls Lisa a chunky.
00:46:06
Speaker
And because of that, she has this complete – not breakdown, but she's very insecure about it, she's very upset. And it's such a very realistic portrayal about how Lisa would act. It's not just she's perfect about the way she responds to that.
00:46:24
Speaker
We did actually have a similar episode in the teen seasons as well of Lisa kind of dealing with issues with weight and appearance. I remember her going into like a kid's store and they were all like size zero. And there was a TV that showed a model, like walk the cat walking, turns and vanishes because she's so thin.
00:46:40
Speaker
They have done that. I think that the more recent episode was a bit more tactful than the original episode was with regards to that kind of issue. But it's something that's been done and it was something I was going to touch on. And it's a bit delicate that Lisa's character in the 90s was that of women were not respected. So she was always fighting for her right to exist.
00:47:00
Speaker
You can think of like the episode where she goes to army camp with Bart and because she's a girl, there's a whole thing about that and she has to prove herself. In other episodes where she joins sports teams, I'm pretty sure that similar has come up and trying to get herself into various situations which are locked for her because she's a little girl. That does not seem to be as much of an issue in the later seasons.
00:47:22
Speaker
because society is more accepting of having more diversity, more women in these kinds of situations and fields, and she is not having to compete and prove herself. And so it almost feels like the modern day Lisa isn't trying as hard. And as a result seems a bit less interesting, which is an unfortunate thing because you obviously you're glad that she's not having to fight for these situations that in modern day whilst it still does happen.
00:47:46
Speaker
it is not as difficult for women to access those fields as it was back in the 90s. But because of that, you've lost a quite key element of the character that because the character herself is still that age and we are used to her in that situation, the fact that she no longer really has that, you then have to really think of new ways for her character to influence herself. And I don't think they've quite found that. I think that she's a less interesting character as a result.
00:48:15
Speaker
I mean, that is a fair point though. And again, I don't know how much it is the Simpsons fault as a show, because it is inevitable that shows do have to kind of change with the times. Like, we can't keep a show in like a static state of limbo forevermore, but it actually reminds me of a particular scene in Simpson Tide, where Milhouse gets an earring and everyone fawns over him because, oh, it's so cool. And then Bart starts doing the bar
00:48:42
Speaker
man saw him in the front of the bus, and then Ralph Wickham of old people rolls his eyes and goes, that is so 1991. And as I said before, back in the 90s, that anti-society stance would be very popular, you know, the age of graffiti and
00:49:00
Speaker
street culture and things like that. That is something that Bart Simpson slotted into perfectly, but the more and more you look at Bart as a character in The Modern Age, he does become a lot more childish and like a prankster, but I feel as if in the later seasons they do try to tap into more of his sensitive side, which don't get me wrong with the one hand, that is interesting the way they're going.
00:49:23
Speaker
with that but on the other hand you're kind of like, does a Dennis the Menace style prankster still fit into the 21st century? Does he fit into the show nowadays? I mean it's similar to like Marge as well and god bless the voice actress for Marge. She definitely sounds like her voice is going in. I don't mean that as an insult or to say oh it's terrible but you can certainly tell that these characters are getting a lot older and
00:49:52
Speaker
Marge does have some good episodes in the later seasons, but again there's some weird, weird ones. Like there was a particular episode where Marge gets breast implants. Do you remember that? Like in the teen season? Yeah I don't even remember what happened in that one. I think that's the one where Stumpy comes back I wanna say. But for some reason Marge has big breasts and that's, oh that's the comedy of the episode. Not very funny at this point now, but you know
00:50:19
Speaker
I think the worst thing about characterisation, and there's two characters I want to touch on before we finish, but overall I feel as if a lot of the characters leaned into stereotypes, or rather the stereotypes that they embodied with the exception of one or two, otherwise they changed with the times. Like for example, most of us like was this
00:50:41
Speaker
lazy, horrible bartender and everything who still listen to Homer's problems, but then by the end of the recent seasons he's become more like a family friend. One of the issues with Moe was you saw that probably its most prevalent in the early teen to mid-teen seasons. Some of the jokes that they had for Moe were essentially just him sexually assaulting people. There was a lot of jokes he would make about
00:51:05
Speaker
morphine or rihypnol like roofying someone. I think even in that panda sexual assault episode where the panda kind of gets home or Mo makes kind of like a joke about she's not getting away it really kind of makes you go like oh that's so gross. One of the other things that really sits uncomfortable with me is the amount of suicide jokes as well that they throw
00:51:26
Speaker
because obviously they want to show you're always like a loser and everything, but one of the things that stood out to me when I rewatched Omar Phobia quite recently was there's a scene at the very end where Barney and Mo are quite upset that they got saved by John, the gay character in the episode, and Barney points out, oh Mo, we were saved by a sissy. And Mo has this really off-colour comment where he goes, oh it's back to suicide for me again.
00:51:53
Speaker
and I was like Jesus Christ and there's later episodes where he does say he's got a noose in the back and everything and he's tried to kill himself. The suicide hotline's blocked him. Yeah, there's also other ones where he watches other people around him commit suicide, like his mentor for the bar walks into the ocean because he's got cancer or something. It's very, very brutal and it's not like
00:52:17
Speaker
they're doing something insightful or clever or you know because if they were then that would be very interesting to look into that but it's just the fact that it's oh mo's a loser anybody who's thinking these thoughts oh you're a loser for that and it doesn't sit well with me
00:52:32
Speaker
Maybe I'm taking it too far, but I genuinely don't think that it's very funny. Going back again from that to the other characters, you know, the modernisation of certain characters hasn't held up.
Outdated Stereotypes and Character Shifts
00:52:44
Speaker
You know, you've got Disco Stu, who, I mean, he was antiquated when he was introduced, but even more so than at Disco's, essentially. Not as prevalent, let's face it. You've got Mia Quimby, who is a Kennedy-type character, and obviously they can't use him again. Well, they can use him, but not in quite a reduced
00:53:02
Speaker
role? Well, the interesting thing about that is that now that it's been so long, that's just a character from The Simpsons now, like people aren't necessarily able to associate like, oh, it's a reference to the Kennedys. There's like, oh, it's just that Simpsons character with the funny voice. And a point about Disco Stu that when the show came out in the late 80s, early 90s, what I think Disco Stu must have been introduced in sort of maybe like the mid 90s. It had been 15 years since the end of the 70s. Whereas now it's been like 45 years. So if he'd lived
00:53:28
Speaker
through the 70s then you'd now be 70 to 80 years old. There's honestly such a long list, I mean there was Otto as well that you brought up last week, and there are other certain characters that for legal reasons I'm choosing not to mention them in this episode, but there's two characters going back to what we've seen before we wrap up, there's two particular characters I'm wondering on, one being Ned Flanders and the other being Omar Simpson.
00:53:53
Speaker
Flanders is the perfect encapsulation of these stereotypes. It's something that has been coined as Flanderization. So, Flanderization is essentially taking one character trait and making that character that one particular trait. So, for example, Flanders was this middle-class business owner and everything. He was mildly successful, he had a nice house, he had the perfect family, but as the seasons went on, he became more of like a religious
00:54:23
Speaker
obsessive kind of person, and it's the same with other characters in particular, but yeah, before we talk about Homer, because let's face it, we'll have a lot to talk about him, is there anything you want to say about Flanders? He was trained pretty dirty, unfortunately with the death of Maud, followed by the marriage to Edna, and then unfortunately the passing of Edna Corrupple's
00:54:43
Speaker
actress and so they retired the character and so they killed her in the show as well so unfortunately with Ned is he's lost two wives his kids have lost two mothers and you don't really know what he's got going from because I think there was a bit in a more recent episode that kind of suggests that the left thorium can't really compete with the larger left-handed stores that are propped up and so he was kind of looking for like other employment
00:55:05
Speaker
And I think at one point he became a teacher at Bart's school, but I don't think that lasted very long because he wanted to teach more religious type stuff, which wasn't thought to be okay by the school board, which I don't know if that was some sort of commentary. I'm not sure what direction the commentary was supposed to be there, whether or not it was like, you can't even teach religion in schools these days, or if it was like this guy's outdated trying to teach religion in schools.
00:55:26
Speaker
Yeah, there was an early episode where he butts heads with Superintendent Chalmers, who refuses to fire him until he brings religion into the thing, and yeah, I think I was very much a all-of-the-time joke for that, but you're right, he does come back as a substitute teacher. Yeah, you're completely right. He does get done dirty by the show, you know, he loses his lives, which don't get me wrong, as you said, Edna is a real life.
00:55:52
Speaker
issue rather than the show itself so that's just unfortunate and a shame. The death of Maud was a result of contract negotiations with the actress that played Maud. Was it really? Yeah they didn't want to pay what she was asking and so they took her as a voice actress off and so the final couple episodes which Maud is in is a different voice actress and then they just sort of killed her character.
00:56:14
Speaker
which just felt very petty. And that brings me on to, of course, Homer, because there's a particular line in that episode when she dies where he has like a throwaway line where he says it was like his car that blocked the paramedics from trying to resuscitate her and it's just a said in such a throwaway line that you're like, Jesus Christ, that's horrific for Homer to say something like this, but that leads into the very popular theory of the whole zombie Simpsons.
00:56:41
Speaker
and the idea of Jerkass Homer, which is a theory that Homer went from this very understanding, caring father who was a bit dolty and wasn't the smartest, but he always put his family first. And then he goes from that, and I honestly think this is one of the worst character assassinations ever, where he wasn't the brightest bulb, he wasn't the greatest father at times, but
00:57:05
Speaker
he cared for his family. All you have to do is look at episodes like in Maggie Makes 3, even the episode later on where he gathers up all the Simpsons relatives to show Lisa that she's not going to become one of the stupid Simpsons. Yeah, exactly. There's just so many episodes where he does look after his family, but the later we go into these episodes
00:57:26
Speaker
especially with these episodes that he just does his own thing with Simpson Tide, with Trash of the Titans, which are these Season 9 ones that although we enjoy, we can see this as the beginning of him doing his own thing. You just see this absolute shift from this father figure who remembered in Season 1, I think it is, I think it's Season 1 where he was going to kill himself because he got fired from his job and he believed that he wasn't
00:57:55
Speaker
a provider or he wasn't going to be a good provider for this family, so he was going to off himself so they could get the insurance. And that is probably one of the darkest scenes ever, and the same with the one where they nearly killed himself by accident with the fugu Sushi place. Compare that Homer.
00:58:12
Speaker
to the later seasons where he just doesn't care about his family, he just does his own thing. I think it's a shame, to put it very bluntly, I just think it's a shame that they saw the kind of weird antics that Homer got up to, and that's the things that they narrowed down on this Peter Griffin-fication of Homer.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah, I would certainly agree that he is becoming more and more like Peter Griffin in these teen seasons, that he's just the alcoholic dad who doesn't really think things through that puts himself first. There may be a moral at the end, but the main content of the episode is him just being a jerk.
00:58:46
Speaker
There are exceptions and I do think it doesn't go as bad as Peter. Generally, we did bring up a few like the episodes where he convinces Marge and the police that she was the drunk driver and not him. That is a very Peter Griffin thing to do. You could see that episode in Family Guy. It did not feel particularly Simpsons-y, but that is sort of a big issue within those later seasons where this was happening.
00:59:07
Speaker
that you are seeing a very different Homer than what we were used to seeing that he's much more selfish, he is much more narcissistic, and his actions are borderline that can be a bit sociopathic at times. But I don't think that it's necessarily new. I think that there was elements of that throughout the earlier Simpsons episodes as well. Like there's always been an element of Homer just being a bit of a jerk, bit of a selfish
00:59:31
Speaker
so and so that he would forget anniversaries and he wouldn't think about his wife and he'd do silly things. It's a bit kind of outdated now, but like the whole episode where he goes to the strip club and does a dance with the erotic dancer, Princess Keshmina, I think is her name, and that was a whole issue within their marriage. The earlier seasons has so many of these, oh marriage on the rocks kind of thing, oh Homer's a bad husband, oh Homer's a bad father, like that does exist in the earlier seasons, but I think it does rise to prominence more so
00:59:57
Speaker
in the later seasons that he just, you know, more and more kind of thinking like, why is Marge still with him? He's a moron, he's selfish, he doesn't look after himself or the kids or you. I think that is actually encapsulated perfectly. See in season one, there's an episode called Life in the Fast Lane, where Homer buys a bowling ball for Marge, but he puts his own name on.
01:00:18
Speaker
it so that he can use it. Exactly. And she ends up out of spite doing that and she nearly has an affair with someone else. The fact that they had these outlandish situations, but see at the same time though, you're completely right in the sense that everything we're talking about, when people talk about the downfall of the Simpsons or the decline of the Simpsons,
01:00:45
Speaker
they always seem to think that seasons 3-9 are these golden seasons. They're perfect, they're absolutely fantastic, and maybe there's one or two duds. But what I think a lot of critics fail to bring up is the fact that everything we've talked about that we find bad with the later seasons have always been there. There's one particular episode I brought up before we came on, and that was the left-todium episode where Ned Flanders gets the left-handed
01:01:13
Speaker
business and more or less it fails because there's not enough interest and Homer relishes in the fact that his business is failing and everything and it's so, so horrible. But say at the same time though, eventually he learns from his mistake and he decides to help at the very end and that is a
01:01:32
Speaker
beautiful moment at the end where everyone bands together to help. But in the later seasons, if he had that exact same scenario, I think Homer would just kind of laugh it off and walk away. I mean, he is the reason that Maud Flanders is dead. You know, he's the reason that Maud got frightened. He's the reason that, you know, he is just such a horrible, horrible person.
01:01:54
Speaker
that he doesn't really repent for his particularly bad actions. You're supposed to turn around and go, haha, oh Homer, you lovable scamp. You're not supposed to critique it because I think that is one of the leverages of the show. They think, oh it's a cartoon about the representation of the American
01:02:12
Speaker
family, or you shouldn't really think about it too much, but when you do think about it, you think these characters have changed, and there has always been that to put in what I learned about psychology and to affect here.
Future and Adaptation of The Simpsons
01:02:24
Speaker
You know, it's almost like that sense of the it, the desire to want to do things, but in
01:02:30
Speaker
the earlier seasons that ego is balancing them out, they're kind of saying to themselves no we should do things for the benefit of the family or for my job or whatever but in the later seasons it does feel as if they just go for the outlandish situations and go oh look it's Homer being silly or whatever
01:02:50
Speaker
So I would completely agree that these particular points aren't just exclusive to these teen episodes, although we kind of bet these particular parts down, it's not exclusive to the early parts of the Simpsons. Fortunately, as we said before, it seems as if they are getting a little bit better. I don't want to end it so much on a downer, but do you think it's too late now that the Simpsons are finding their feet in the modern age?
01:03:17
Speaker
I don't know if it's necessarily too late. I don't know what you could maybe define as why it would be too late because you're allowed to have a period of poor episodes and regain your form. And I think they're starting to do that. There's still issues within the more recent seasons that I've been watching them with my partner and I point out a little bits that when I see a newer episode, a lot of the time it has to do with the writing where they clearly are looking to fill time. And so they'll make jokes last longer than they need to. And so things that otherwise in the earlier seasons would have been a one reaction act.
01:03:47
Speaker
And then they would move on. They're now spending a minute or so on that particular joke. And it's like, okay, we get it, just move on now. They almost feel they need to add in the pop culture bits of the time. There was an episode that included a Harlem Shake. I think it might have just been a couch gag. It might not have been within an actual episode, I remember now. But that's pretty cringy that they had, I assume Bart, maybe another character flossing. At one point, that's very cringy. They don't need to do these things.
01:04:12
Speaker
Who do you think the demographic of the recent seasons is? Do you think the demographic of the recent seasons is Simpsons fans who've been watching the show for the last couple of decades that are now our age or older or maybe slightly younger? Or do you think they have found a new younger audience? Here's the interesting thing about that. You would think initially that they are trying to get a younger audience because they do have Barr becoming like an esports star at one point. You have Lisa who's doing documentaries and taking part in these activist movements. It's very much
01:04:42
Speaker
geared towards the younger audiences at times but then on the flip side they've got things like referencing the old episodes, whether that be digging up the grave of Homer's mum for the fiftieth time or having that gif in a very meta joke of Homer walking into the bushes or even the coyote for some reason, Homer driving through the desert or someone driving through the desert and
01:05:07
Speaker
They have a Johnny Cash coyote just chillin' out on the rock for no reason. There's a lot of references, like there's even a funny one, granted. I did laugh at this, where Lisa turns round and says, hey, remember the time that mum and dad let you take a mental patient into my room?
01:05:23
Speaker
the middle of the night to sing a song, and Bart turned around to say something again to like, oh yeah, it was a different time and everything. That made me laugh, granted. That episode is very interesting. One of the showrunners of The Simpsons has come out and said that they, I apologize if I got this wrong, but
01:05:38
Speaker
My understanding is they've come out and said that they're very sorry that that episode existed because they feel like Bart hanging out with Michael Jackson allowed Michael Jackson to seem like a more approachable person to young people. That because he hung out with Bart, he must be OK. And I'm not going to claim anything. Panda lawyers on the wings. Yeah.
01:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to be done for any kind of libel here. But it is interesting that that episode is kind of looked back at with such an, Oh, that's not okay, because of the ways it dealt with mental health, the ways it dealt with the assumption that a more flowery, gay or colored shirt suggested mental illness, but having this Michael Jackson character who was not actually Michael Jackson, but I think voiced by Michael Jackson.
01:06:21
Speaker
Yeah. There was a period of that where they had Michael Jackson but they didn't see they had Michael Jackson. In The Simpsons and funny enough and one of the Sonic games they said that he worked on the music but then they didn't credit him. Yeah. There was that weird period of it's like the game of is that Michael Jackson or isn't it? Yeah. I mean also there's the doing the Bartman I think includes a line about Michael Jackson. You're right. Yeah.
01:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, and so that was a whole issue with regards to The Simpsons legitimizing. Not that he was already a very legitimate individual, he was the biggest pop star in the world, but the two children he was okay to engage with, and that's very unfortunate. But moving on, we were talking about the characterisation as well. One thing that should be addressed is in the later seasons, this more recent change of the characters who've had voice actors changed or have
01:07:08
Speaker
had characters removed from The Simpsons World. We have not seen Apu, the convenience store clerk, for quite a while now following not the retirement of his character, but I think the character has been put on a sabbatical where Hank is no longer voicing the character and they're trying to figure out how best to work
01:07:26
Speaker
on the Apu character going forward, if at all, that they don't want to have this character, which for many people of South Asian background has been fueled to the fire of racial insensitivities. And then you have the likes of a lot of the Black characters in The Simpsons who were voiced by white men, mostly Harry Shearer, now being replaced by Black voice actors, I think with majority of them are voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, so Dr. Hibber, Lou, the police officer, they're both now Kevin Michael Richardson. You can certainly tell hearing them now. And Carl, Carl Carlson of Carl and Lenny, he has a new voice actor, Alex D'Zare. So Alex D'Zare is now the voice actor of Carl, which that was the one that kind of re-stood up to me. I was like, Oh, that sounds different. And it's been a couple of like Carl centric episodes in the last couple of years has kind of made it that stand out more than normal.
01:08:12
Speaker
I think it's Kevin Michael Richardson that they've been doing a lot when they've done a lot of the singing in the show. It is now him doing it. I'm not really a fan of his style of singing and their use of that as a comedic tool. I just don't think it's funny personally, but I don't think they've done necessarily a funny singing bit for about 20 years. So I think that's something that I hope that is better going forward, but I'm not sure. What about yourself?
01:08:34
Speaker
Yeah I have to say I remember watching one of the later episodes and being taken aback that they had updated his voice because it was kind of like, oh because genuinely I hadn't realised. I knew about the Apu situation and for obvious reasons I'm not going to comment on whether it was right or wrong that they took him out and everything because it's obviously not my place to say but at the same time there's a lot of characters that they have tried to shift
01:09:00
Speaker
didn't change which is weird because there are and I can't remember the character's name off the top of my head but there are a lot of stereotypes that I personally I'm kind of looking at going so one stereotype isn't okay but this other one is and it's I can't remember his name but you know one of the gay characters that Marge seems to hang out with quite a lot. Oh is that Coolio?
01:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's Julio, yeah, and he's just over with lamboying. Like the Latino gay character? That's the one, yeah. And it's like, on the one hand, there's obviously, you know, people that present like that, so that's fair and good. But I don't know if, you know, when you've got a show about comedy with The Simpsons, it's like, how far do you go with certain stereotypes? You know, like, especially with Willy being Scottish, he is not the most offensive Scottish stereotype I've seen.
01:09:49
Speaker
quite frank but you know you've got all of these characters that are based on stereotypes and you kind of think how far can you take some of them and how far can you take other ones and again it's like that kind of juggling and I think especially nowadays you're completely right there is that restructure of characters and the modern era of The Simpsons that they're not so much leaning on this ageness that they heavily leaned into in the late 2000s but
01:10:17
Speaker
They are definitely trying to move it in a different direction, which is great for the most part, but I guess the thing about it is, is it's constantly evolving, isn't it? It's like we'll have to see where it goes from here, whether they do a good job of it or they fall into the same pitfalls as they have in the past, which don't get me wrong, I don't think they will, but it's just something we're going to have to see with the later seasons and of course how long they actually are going to keep up the Simpsons.
01:10:45
Speaker
Yes, it is interesting to sort of witness how they're going to go forth with some of these characters and how they're going to develop the show up until its eventual end, which I mean, despite what some people might believe, it will eventually end. I think it's probably got another three or four seasons in it, but it might well go on longer than that. I personally think they'll probably go up to episode 1000.
01:11:06
Speaker
and maybe try to can it because there was talk ages ago because the voice actors and actresses were paid an absolutely ridiculous amount per episode and they were going to end the Simpsons because of that dispute but they renegotiated and everything was fine.
01:11:24
Speaker
With the rise of things like, and I hope to God they don't go in this direction because it would be a damn shame, but the rise of AI voices and computer-generated voices and things like that, I hope that's not the way they go. I would even be quite sad if they went for the sound-alike route, but we can always see, can't we? We can always see how they're going to actually approach it.
01:11:47
Speaker
The day that we lose the likes of Dan Castellaneta or Nancy Cartwright, for whatever reason, by the stepping down or passing away, or even someone as integral as like Hank Azaria or Yardley Smith and Julie Caffner as well, those kind of actors I think are so integral to the show that if any of those were to leave, I think that is the beginning of the end of The Simpsons.
01:12:04
Speaker
That's 100% agree. They are the heart of The Simpsons. You can have all the fancy animation that you want. You can have all the celebrities you can stuff in. You can have all the yellow painted characters. But at the end of the day, they are the ones that brought these animations to life. Between them and the writers, of course, you know, I can't
01:12:23
Speaker
underwrite the writers, but the writers are the ones who put them into this situation and these voice actors and actresses gave these characters life. They are how we perceive and define these characters to this day, so to lose them, you're completely right. It would be an absolute shame. But yeah.
01:12:40
Speaker
As a closing point, I would just say that although The Simpsons has had its rocky ups and downs, it's still a testament to how strongly we feel about this show, that we are still making jokes about it, we're still referencing it on the podcast and everything, and the fact that we've dedicated an entire month
Closing and Next Episode Preview
01:12:58
Speaker
to it. But next week, we are going to go into probably greener pastures, where we're going to be talking about The Simpsons movie, which came out in 2007.
01:13:07
Speaker
green deer pastures. Oh God, I forgot about that. As always Andrew, thank you so much for joining me in this episode today. No problem, thank you so much for having me. It was fun to rant about the later seasons of Simpsons and kind of find some points that I didn't, off the cuff, that I didn't realise that I had. To all the lovely listeners at home, if you want to listen to more of our episodes you can of course catch us on podpage.com forward slash chat tsunami
01:13:31
Speaker
You can also find us where all good podcasts are heard on Spotify, Google Play, or any podcast platform really. And you can also find the podcast on Twitter, at ChatsunamiPod. You can find myself, Green Shield95 on Twitter. I don't tweet very often from there, so up to you if you're interested. And you can also follow us on Patreon.
01:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, you can get a bunch of exclusive content at patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami, and you can also get early access to episodes. So if you would like your episodes a week early, yeah, go check that out. I would also like to thank our Pandora Impatrons, Robotic Battle Toaster and Sonya. Thank you so much as always for supporting the show. But as always, thank you all so, so much for listening to this episode. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.