Do a Simpsons Thing

[Phil]

You will help me with something if you do a Simpsons thing.

Statistics to Prove Anything: Take a Brief Simpsons Survey to Help Me With a Study!

[Ridley]

[Seb Patrick]

I forgot to say that I’d done this, but I done this.

[JamesTC]

I also did this. My list of favourite episodes was copious and excessive.

[Phil]

Many thanks to everyone who did fill out the survey! It’s been very helpful. I’m still compiling the data as there were a lot of responses that just indicated “The one where x happens…” and for just about anything after season 10/11 that means I need to do some research. Which is no problem at all, but it’ll take a while to crunch all the numbers.

I’ll update the thread when I post phase two. It should be interesting, so thanks again!

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I pitched in and completed the questionnaire although at the end I couldn’t quite clarify why I prefer the earlier seasons and it bugged me because there’s a very elemental difference, at least to me, between the first few seasons and the modern era.

There’s a sweet, endearing nature to the earlier seasons of The Simpsons that just feels completely absent now. The amount of writing and rewriting that went into the characters and story was a rarity for an animated show, even today, and serves as a testament of how joyous it must’ve been for the first batch of writers to work on the scripts and not only know how successful it was but why it was. It was down to the hard graft of writing sessions going on into the wee hours and really pushing and pursuing the dynamics and subtleties of each character. That characterisation serves as the catalyst for the plot and the inherent traits of each character are never taken for granted simply to fuel a plot-line as seen now where comedies and dramas just exaggerate the more obvious traits of each character to beyond impossibly absurd and unfunny levels as the episode count reaches into the hundreds.

I don’t mind if The Simpsons reuses elements or whole chunks of plot and story from earlier episodes, there’s limited routes for wholly new themes after so long but there’s unlimited ways of expressing those ideas and showing how each character reacts and reflects within those stories. I don’t mind if The Simpsons accelerates forward and shows how Marge and Homer got together in a different era other than the original backdrop of the ’70s, but never, ever let the playground of nostalgia and the ability to pull pop culture references into the plot overshadow the endearing tale of how that silly, foolish but loveable guy manages to win the heart of Marge Bouvier.

I don’t even mind new avenues of comedic expression being utilised such as the rise of sight and reaction gags, cutaways and meta humour but let them be intertwined fully and seamlessly into the episode. When they are used correctly, they work beautifully. When they’re lumped in to bring an episode up to time or nod and wink at the audience, forget it, you’ve dismantled the core of The Simpsons, which is to tell tales about a very average but extraordinary family and the town in which they live.

I once asked my girlfriend what part of the $pringfield episode she remembered most and it was Bart’s casino. The total length of those segments that derive from the main plot but never wholly break away was what, two minutes or so but it was fucking gold from start to finish. From Bart hustling on the phone to book Robert Goulet to the man himself singing Jingle Bells, Batman Smells before whacking Milhouse with the microphone. You ever gonna see something so profoundly crazy but seemingly right ever happen again in The Simpsons?

I just don’t see the love in The Simpsons now, it seems so… well made but useless.

[peas_and_corn]

I’m just amazed that after 26 seasons the writers STILL haven’t told us how Marge’s father died.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

From The Simpsons Wiki…

We know that Clancy is deceased from the only episode where his death is mentioned (Jazzy and the Pussycats), where Homer says he had bought Marge a “white-noise machine” to help her deal with her father’s death. The cause or time of his death is undetermined. In an issue of the comic Simpsons Illustrated, Lisa reveals that Clancy died in an accident in 1985. What is known is that his death occurred some time after Lisa and Bart reached a toddler age, since he still appeared alongside toddler Bart and Lisa in “Walking Big & Tall”. Clancy is also known to be dead because he never appears with Jacqueline, who is portrayed as a single woman.

In one Treehouse of Horror episode, he was eaten by King Homer at his and Marge’s wedding.

So now we know, kinda.

[peas_and_corn]

Well yeah, I get that, but given that there has been a flashback episode answering the question “when did Bart and Lisa stop hitting each other all the time?” it is amazing there hasn’t been one covering Clancy’s death.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

In the episode Stasis Leak, when Lister plays Rimmer’s skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is a magic xylophone or something? Ha-ha, boy, I really hope Ed Bye got fired for that blunder.

Clancy wasn’t a fuck-up like Abe or most of the parents in The Simpsons. I’d like to think the writers are happy keeping him forever enshrined as a well meaning, gruff, Archie Bunker-esque father / airline host and know that delving too far into the back-stories has diminishing returns for the audience at a story level and only really panders to the needs of writers and obsessive fans to explain away every conceivable plot hole or mystery surrounding the life of a main character.

Clancy was an army veteran, a good dad to Marge, Patty and Selma, he voted Republican throughout his life, he grew older, saw the first few years of his grandchildren’s lives and then snuffed it, leaving Jacqueline a widow, the end.

Abe on the other hand was a piece of shit to his wife and son.

[Author]

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