Filed under: Urban Advice | Tags: american dad, family guy, hang overs, humor, humour, simpsons, southpark, the simpsons
15 years ago, the Simpsons was without a shadow of a doubt, the funniest programme going, so whats gone wrong? How have they gone from lampooning the classic remake of Cape Fear with the brilliance of Kelsey Grammar as Sideshow Bob , to Homer going to Scotland to catch the Lochness fucking Monster? Well lets have a look….
1: The Writers – From what I can gather, many of the writers that contributed to the brilliance of the Simpsons during the “golden era”, have moved on to bigger and better things. As this is to be expected when people are producing comedy gold as part of a large team, surely the producers could have brought in people that captured the zeitgeist? Or even held some of the writers on retainer or invited them back, rather than people that seem to think comedy is slapstick randomness more suited to Sponge Bob Squarepants.
2: Try to pander to viewers – With the likes of Family Guy, American Dad & Southpark providing animated humour for adults, the Simpsons has had to change to try and keep up, except that without an adult twist, its unrepentant wackiness (Tomacco anyone?) has made it look like a middle age man trying to prove how cool he is (or once was). Remember when the Simpsons handled political satire with a touch so subtle that both children and adults could appreciate the humour on numerous levels?
3: Loads of Money – The Simpsons is undoubtedly one of the most successful franchises of all time, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess but I doubt Matt Groening, James L Brooks & Sam Simon are wondering where their next meal is coming from. Anything that makes that kind of money is going to end up selling out to a certain degree and its cash cow status for Fox means that they’ll always have a hand in what the show churns out. But at one point they were fearless, no political figure was safe from the yellow skin treatment (George Bush Snr being sent up as an old crank stands out) and it was much better for it.
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