As everyone knows, it should have ended years ago. But now the series’ makers Fox are really taking the piss, as the quality drops astoundingly with nearly each and every new episode. Now it shouldn’t be a surprise that Fox don’t care about their audience, or that they are quite prepared to milk every last penny out of the series before it finally ends, as the amount of money they make from it is ridiculously huge, and much of the rest of their weekly schedule is utter utter shite. But considering that they must have made billions since the series launched, they’ve really gone too far now. And have been responsible for utterly ruining a programme which was once unmissable, smart, hilarious, and quite simply the best thing on tv.
So when did it all go wrong? Well, most fans of the series consider it to be the tenth season that should have marked the end, though there’s a fair few dodgy episodes in the previous two years’ worth of shows. Now we understand with such a demanding schedule, where they have to make 22 to 24 episodes a year, quality’s always going to waver a little, but there’s no excuse for the absolute nonsense that we’ve been presented with over the last few seasons. Okay, there have been a few occasionally good episodes in the last two years or so, and a couple of half great, half terrible ones. But none have even come close to reaching the greatness of episodes seen during the series first six years (well, okay, the first season is admittedly pretty shoddy, but from the second year it’s all good). Up until Season 10 the good/bad ration was just about high enough to keep watching. But since then, the last three years basically have been shockingly poor. And some are almost un-watchable. Something I’d thought I’d never say about a show that once was unmissable.
And how did it all go wrong? Well, that’s a little more complex. Most obvious is a lack of original plotlines these days, and original jokes for that matter too. (They’ve even repeated some of Homer’s infamous mmmm’s in recent series, which is beyond laziness). Too many episodes revolve around either Homer doing something really stupid, Lisa or Marge getting pissed off with another family member, someone getting a new job or pet, or the family travelling out of state. And too many episodes are too stupidly plotted and too fantastical. Sure, ridiculously over the top plots have always had there place in The Simpsons, but they worked best when they were at least vaguely believable, something which rarely happens now, and we long for a show with a more relaxed, calmer, smarter approach as in the old days, rather than much zany action and slapstick.
Homer becoming increasingly stupid has spoilt things too. Of course he was never a candidate for Mensa, but in recent years he’s bordered on near lobotomised stupidity, and it’s become tiring to watch instead of hysterical. And it’s just not on anymore. Whilst before each episode could be watched over and over again and you’d almost always spot something new, now it’s barely worth it, and the fake cinema titles, references to older episodes, school notices and spoofs of tv shows just don’t cut it anymore. Once celebrity guest stars would be used sparingingly, and to great effect, but now it seems that every episode has some desperate to be hip Hollywood star in it, and the roles are rarely self-deprecating like they used to be. Too many have been pointless too, presumably brought in just to improve viewing figures.
But Fox aren’t the only ones to blame as the producer’s decision to bring in new writers has been disastrous too. Now this shouldn’t have been a bad idea, as most show’s need fresh blood to keep things interesting, but it was their choice of writers that upsets us so. Most infamous of these is Ian Maxton-Graham, a writer who joined the show at the beginning of it’s eighth season (and who had previously worked on the godawful Saturday Night Live during the Adam Sandler years). Maxton-Graham was responsible for the first ever truly terrible episode, also the first episode he wrote, Burns, Baby Burns, which featured the appallingly awful Rodney Dangerfield as the son of Mr Burns. The mix of Dangerfield (who has never been funny in his entire life) and The Simpsons’ trademark humour is a disastrous one, and it’s difficult to sit through repeats of this episode without cringing constantly.
In an interview with The Independent, Maxton Graham comes across as arrogant, sexist and shows a superiority complex the size of a small planet. Showing a flagrant disrespect not only to fans of the Simpsons, but the show itself he admitted that "He had barely seen The Simpsons before he started working on it. Was this a problem? He lets out a belly laugh. "We were pitching new names for characters and I pitched the names of all three members of the Flanders family [the Simpsons' neighbours]: Ned, Rod and Todd. Everyone was looking at me like 'Tune in, eight o'clock Sundays!'". He also describes any fan who dares criticise him as ""the beetle-browed people on the Internet" and seems to believe that "They seem to have no life except The Simpsons, they see everything as part of a vast plan, but boy, is there ever no vast plan!"
The Independent article tells of how fans took particular exception "to ‘A Star Is Burns’, in which Jay Sherman from The Critic comes to judge a film festival in Springfield. "I loved that one,’ says Maxtone-Graham, ‘but they thought it broke reality or something.’ He shrugs. "Go figure! That's why they're on the Internet and we're writing the show.’" With comments like the above, it’s no surprise that Maxton-Graham is so disliked, and he also conveniently ignores the fact that there’s a hell of a lot of sites on the net which are far funnier (Idiotica, Rather Good, Chairman Moo, Weebl and Bob, B3TA and so many others) than he has ever been. The episodes he has been responsible for rate amongst the most painful to view – the worst of these being the aforementioned Burns, Baby, Burns, The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, The Trouble With Trillions, Trash of the Titans, Lisa Gets an A, E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt), Alone Again, Natura-Diddily, Tennis the Menace, The Blunder Years. All of which arent even worthy of being seen once.
But whilst it’s easy to blame Maxton-Graham alone (and fun too!) this isn’t really that fair. Other writers should be named and shamed for ruining a once sublime show. So step forward David S.Cohen – responsible for the ridiculously unfunny The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show, Das Bus and Lisa The Skeptic; Brian Scully for Lost Our Lisa, Sunday, Cruddy Sunday and Make Room for Lisa; Tim Long for Simpson’s Bible Stories (which squanders such a great idea that it deserves to be much hated and despised), New Kids on the Blecch Half-Decent Proposal; and Larry Doyle for Girly Edition, Treehouse of Horror IX, Wild Barts Can't Be Broken, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge. Though that’s not to say there haven’t been other dodgy writers on the show too, it’s just that their episodes weren’t quite as bad as those listed above.
It’s not just the new kids who are to blame though. A lot of the older writers have resorted to trotting out the same jokes, the same plotlines and have also been responsible for the show’s decline. John Swartzwelder who in the programme’s early days wrote classic episodes such as Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?, Whacking Day, Krusty Gets Kancelled,Rosebud, Homer the Smithers and one of my all time favourites, You Only Move Twice, has recently been responsible for the painfully irritating episodes Bart Carny, Maximum Homerdrive Take My Wife, Sleaze The Mansion Family and A Tale of Two Springfields which must feature the worst celebrity cameo (from The Who) yet seen. It’s time to put Swartzwelder out to pasture, but as he’s already involved in writing next year’s episodes, it sadly doesn’t look like this is going to happen anytime soon.
When fans en masse complained about the decline of the show, rather than address the situation, the writer’s hit back by turning The Comic Book Guy in to an oh so witty representation of the world’s billions of internet users / fans who now hate the series. Suggesting that presumably they should be seen as being beyond criticism, and how could anyone dare to question them, or dare suggest that they’ve become responsible for royally fucking up a once classic tv series? Which is a pretty poor reaction when you think about it.
So what can be done? Well, once again, it’s in your hands. The only way things are going to change is if Fox stops making such a huge profit from the series. So boycott new episodes, stop buying the The Simpson DVD’s and videos, dolls, clocks, console games, and all the other rubbish they’ve licensed over the years. It’s the only way, and you know it makes sense.
Alex Finch.
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