Where The Simpsons Went Wrong

If you like The Simpsons enough to be here, you probably already know the story: started on the Tracy Ullman Show...Groening created them while waiting for his meeting...blah blah blah. The important thing is, The Simpsons was on the air.

Seasons 1-4 introduced us the wonderful world of The Simpsons, and was the initial primordial slime of creativity from which some of the shows (behind the scenes) legends emerged, namely:

-John Swarzwelder.
-Al Jean & Mike Reiss.

Evident in these series' is the true to life storytelling, the warmth and pathos of the American suburban family and the un-cartoonlike feel of the entire show: here was an animated family realer than any live action tv-family before it.

One can only speculate but I suspect James L. Brooks had his hand in a lot of this (Seasons 1&2 especially). The gentle mix of comedy and drama, intelligent approach to issues and simply good stories; all very Brooks-esque (Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets).

A lot of fans agree that Season 4 is the best series, and indeed many of the people involved with the original series left after this season; guys like Jay Kogen, Wallace Wolodarsky, Sam Simon and Jeff Martin. According to the Season 5 commentary, the episode Cape Feare was the last episode produced by the 'original team' (Cape Feare was aired in Season 5, however it was a holdover from Season 4).

Season 4 also saw the first writing credits for some of the great minds behind the seasons I would call The Simpsons' Golden-with-a-yellowish-tinge Years: Conan O'Brien and future show runners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein.

The the next few seasons (5-8) saw some of the best and most popular episodes of the series, certainly some of my personal favourites.

Show-running duties over these 4 seasons were split between David Mirkin and Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein. During this time the Simpson strayed more from the realism of the previous seasons, it's said that the gag in Marge vs The Monorail, an episode written by Conan O'Brien, where siamese-twins are separated by the dragging makeshift anchor is the first foray into unrealistic, cartoony jokes.

This departure from realism allowed the writers more freedom and so it was during this time, in my opinion, The Simpsons struck the perfect balance between gags and story.

Some of the best and most memorable episodes were aired during this period:

-Homer's Barbershop Quartet
-Deep Space Homer
-Rosebud
-Who Shot Mr Burns? (Parts 1 and 2)

It was a pretty damned good time for the Simpsons, then along came Mike Scully.

By no means do I blame the decline of the Simpsons on Mike Scully, however, as the writer of this articles points out: "under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon." He goes on to point out that "Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset. . . now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck."

Though for all its criticism, this era yielded its share of top notch episodes, amongst them:

-The Cartridge Family
-Trash of the Titans
-Homer to the Max
-Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder

These are episodes I would count among my favourites. However, the show was becoming very self conscious with less focus on story and characterization and more focus on one liners and pop culture references.

Then something happened and the Simpsons went from 'not as clever as it used to be but still damn funny' to 'not a trace of intelligence and not really all that funny'.

The emerging popularity of Family Guy.

The first series of Family Guy originally aired on January 31, 1999 and ended on February 14, 2002. During that time it was plagued with network problems and eventually was (undeservedly) canceled.

After massive DVD sales the show was renewed and has since gone on the become arguably the most popular cartoon on television today.

Let's looks at that next to the corresponding seasons of The Simpsons.

-Family Guy becomes a sensation around about 2002/2003
-The Simpsons airs Seasons 13 and 14 around 2002/2003

Season's 13 and 14 were the beginning of the end for The Simpsons, that was when it just stopped being funny, coincidentally, it was also when Family Guy was taking off. Why? I think I have the answer.

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The answer is simple, the creators of The Simpsons got scared of Family Guy. Instead of realizing that they had it over Family Guy in every aspect (Family Guy is a good show in its own way, but compared to A-Grade Simpsons it's like Flying High versus Life Of Brian - gag a minute versus humour and intelligence in equal spades) they decided to retreat and attempt to imitate the competition because of some delusion that there was competition in the first place.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Marcus Aurelius.

It's also probable that the fear of competition was caused by initial anger. Family Guy, at first glance, is a pretty obvious rip off of the Simpsons, and I'm sure it angered the staff and creators of The Simpsons. However, instead of harnessing that anger and focus on their many strengths, they turned to weak imitation and killed themselves.

Season 13 saw the return of Al Jean, but it was too late, The Simpsons had lost its magic. Earlier this year saw the lowest rated episode ever. Dark days indeed.

So who is to blame for the demise of The Simpsons? Well, I guess I can only quote Trey Parker's line in Baseketball: "Well, it was a team effort, and I guess it took every player out there to lose this one".

Oh well, we still have South Park and King Of The Hill. And the good old Simpsons episodes never get dull.