Coranon Silaria Ozoo Mahoke!

A fine mahoke to you all.

I was originally going to write something about politics, hence the image, but in watching my Simpsons DVD for the correct spelling of “mahoke” I was reminded of just how brilliant that show used to be. I’m beating a dead horse here for sure, but for me The Simpsons was such a huge influence that I can’t help but be saddened when I think of what it has become. I remember sitting down as a seven year old child to watch the Christmas special in 1989, the rush of merchandise that came with the show’s rise to popularity in 1990, and watching the show with my dad as a 5^th grader on January 14^th 1993: the original airdate of the “Marge vs. The Monorail” episode and the precise moment when the show attained comic perfection. For the next several years it would only get better.

So what happened? After about the 8^th season, the show started to fly downhill. At first it was difficult to notice—it happened so gradually that I was still rushing to watch the show every Sunday night well into college. But at some point every fan of the show had to admit that the gig was up. The characters and situations had become ridiculous, the stories increasingly nonsensical—the characters even looked a little different. What started as a satirical look at America in the early 90s became by slow degrees a slapdash concoction of random jokes and physical comedy—exactly the kind of nonsense the early show mocked.

I’ll avoid going on a long anti-Simpsons rant (if anyone needs proof of the show’s decline, just compare the second season episode “The Way We Was” with “That 90s Show” from January 2008) but let’s just look at the Republican Party HQ joke from where this post gets its title. The great thing about this joke is not that it portrays Republicans as evil rich guys (and vampires) living in a foreboding castle (though that is great), but that it is also a commentary on the way liberals sometimes perceive and portray Republicans. It was this basic thesis—that all members of society are equally ridiculous, that made the show so wonderful. That snarky attitude is gone now.

What makes me saddest is that the show was only at its height for the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th seasons (it was getting good during the first three, but the fourth definitely marks the start of the show’s maturity). I’ll be generous and add the 8^th season to that list: that gives us five good seasons. Since the show has been on for 20 seasons now with no end in sight, then at best the good years represent 25% of the show’s run. Will future generations remember the show for its witty social commentary, or for the new “Angry Homer” and his loveable catchphrases like “Help me Jeebus!”?

Let’s hope that the show’s legacy remains the 90s. This is when the show was at its height, and perhaps it is permanently linked to that time period. Homer and Marge will always have met in the 70s; Bart and Lisa will always be members of "The MTV generation." It is probably too much to ask that something remain relevant forever outside of its era of origin. All of the people that made the show great have gone on to bigger things (Greg Daniels, Conan O’Brien and Brad Bird, just to name a few) and us fans have plenty of other comedy shows to obsess over. But there has never been and probably never will be a show, movie, book, or anything that has had as much influence on me as The Simpsons. I owe so much of my attitude, my world view, and most of all my sense of humor to the show; I can honestly say that if not for The Simpsons I would be a different person today, and not a better one.

For those of us who dream of making people laugh for a living, there’s no better benchmark than The Simpsons in the 90s.