Writers, producers, voice actors, even Rupert Murdoch were interviewed.
The Simpsons
“A kid watches it because he likes Bart and he thinks it's silly and fun, and an adult likes it because there's a really great Iran-contra-hearing joke in there.”
"So don't bother pointing it out."
I didn't get the sense that he really does anything, except for a brief mention of 'collaborating' near the end of it.
Finally the domain for improvident lackwit, my lower-case-titled weblog about The Simpsons—or, rather, how stuff I see reminds me of bits on The Simpsons, i.e. stuff the TV show has already mad fun of—is live at improvidentlackwit.com. It may take a few hours after posting this announcment, but that is now the permanent URL for the site. Anybody who has a weblog should probably get a domain of their own, so that if they need to switch hosts, they don't have to rely on someone else's domain when they move. Yes yes, in the future, URLs won't matter, but they do now, and having a TypePad subdomain meant that if for whatever reason I want to move the files to another server in the future, all the links would break. Since TypePad still hosts the site, all existing links still work, so there is no real need to update bookmarks or RSS feed locations.
Ashley Bristowe on a scathing review of her husband's book, Planet Simpson: “Seems to me that if The Simpsons was so universally accepted as genius, someone would have written a book prior to the fifteenth season of the show, hmmm? While everyone who's anyone in New York may be well aware of the show's brilliance and its gifts to the world, at least 70% of the deeply saavy media types we ran into on the various tours everywhere (including NYC) would eventually tip their heads to the side and lower their voices and ask Turner, "You do realize that it's just a cartoon, right?"”
Some intellectuals just don't get The Simpsons.
Caterina: “Homer Simpson and his "lovable irresponsibility" wearies me. I don't find it lovable at all. We watched some of the third season on DVD last night, and it turns out I like The Simpsons less than I thought I did. If there is one show on TV they could shuffle off all those deadend stereotypes and 50s nuclear family tropes, it is in an animation as groundbreaking as The Simpsons. But they don't. Marge is the June Cleaver of the 90s. It is really depressing.”
A contrasting opinion can be found in Carl Matheson: “not only do the detractors of the show miss a great deal of its humor, they also fail to realize that its pattern of quotations is an absolutely essential vehicle for developing character and for setting a tone. And, since these people are usually not huge fans of popular culture to begin with, they will be reluctant to admit that they are missing something significant. Oh well. It is difficult to explain color to a blind man, especially if he won't listen. On the other hand, those who enjoy connecting the quotational dots will enjoy their task all the more for its exclusivity. There is no joke like an in-joke: the fact that many people don't get The Simpsons might very well make the show both funnier and better to those who do.”
What Caterina fails to realize is that The Simpsons parody the very stereotypes that she finds depressing. Marge Simpson isn't the June Cleaver of the 90s: Marge Simpson is making fun of the June Cleaver of the 50s.
Makiko: “suddenly, I've realized that I was feeding my mind the equivalent of junk food, and my mind wasn't appreciating it. And it really did hit me during the Oscars, of all things, during the brief retrospective of the movie people who had passed away during the last year, starting with Gregory Peck. Gregory Peck is one of my favorite old-time actors. Yet, I realized with horror that I have never actually seen his two most famous movies, To Kill A Mockingbird and Gentleman's Agreement.”
While millions of people were watching the Oscars, I was watching shows that had some comedic value (two episodes of King of the Hill, a really funny show that is hitting its prime, and The Simpsons) and Solstrom. After watching a documentary series on Cirque, I've been wowed by the majesty of the performers, who effortlessly—with mistakes in the live shows, but "flawlessly" due to the advantage of takes on the TV series—and fluidly do things that I don't even have the ability to dream about, much less imagine in my waking hours. The TV series shows a world that is very sensual, in that human touching, between men and women, children and adults is a prerequisite not only essential for the stunts they pull off but, it seems, to the world's inhabitents' peace of mine. Since reading it, I've been thinking a lot about James W. Prescot's article on the inverse relationship between pleasure and violence [commentary/summary], and the key argument of the article is that human touching is absolutely necessary, and the people of Solstrom understand this perfectly. While many millions of people were watching millionaire overactors competing for award statuettes but $32,000 gift bags just for being nominated (!) I was watching something that made me laugh and then something that amazed and continues to amaze me.
Makiko says that reality TV is the junk food of the medium, and she's right. It's the one genre of TV I never cared for. I still think that TV is drugs and that less is better. Because TV is drugs though, I haven't fully kicked the habit (not having cable has helped tremendously), and sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—the drugs work.
Chris Suellentrop wonders who turned America's best TV show into a cartoon. Slate continues to have its finger on the pulse of American culture (and may even be reading my mind). Amongst friends, I've defended the last 5 years of episodes, but no longer. This past Sunday's episode was almost totally unwatchable.
The Simpsons and King of the Hill renewed: I'm very pleased about this. Although I gotta laugh at Fox Entertainment president's Gail Berman's self-congratulation: “"The Simpsons" could be "the most extraordinary television show maybe even in the history of the medium.” And I don't know if I agree that The Simpsons is “"doing some of its funniest episodes"”. But it still has great moments, and even though The Simpsons is half as good as it once was, it still makes for good TV.
