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Tag Archives: Homer Simpson
The Simpsons and the Journalistic Battle between a Billionaire and an Eight-Year-Old in “Fraudcast News”
At heart, The Simpsons has always been part media satire. Usually the show would point its satirical lens at television as its medium of choice. The series, simply by existing, took the stuffing out of more typical sitcoms where families were nicer (not to mention richer), and most problems could be solved in an easy and heart-warming fashion. But as I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, the show reserved just as much comic ire for the tired antics of Krusty the Clown, the ultraviolence of Itchy & Scratchy and, of course, the sensationalizing dispatches from Channel 6 news anchor, Kent Brockman.
So it’s natural that The Simpsons would eventually take aim at the broader media landscape, questioning who might take the reins of our sources of information and decide what kind of self-serving spin to add. It’s just as natural for the show to explore the counterreaction to that — the lone voices in the wilderness forging a real connection and trying to be heard above the din. And it’s the peak of both approaches to personify the former in the guise of Mr. Burns and the latter as li’l Lisa Simpson.
The Simpsons Plays the Old Favorites with Sideshow Bob and a Former Foe in “The Great Louse Detective”
The Simpsons has certain traditions that are never going away. As long as the series stays on the air (and in the good graces of the Disney corporation), there will always be Treehouse of Horror episodes. There will always be “the Simpsons are going to ____!” episodes. And, of course, there will always be Sideshow Bob episodes. The show may have changed a great deal over the past thirty years, but some things are too ingrained in The Simpsons’s DNA for the show to move on.
Thankfully, one of those indelible elements is Kelsey Grammer, whose mellifluous baritone has graced episodes both great and god-awful over his three-decade tour of duty. Fortunately, “The Great Louse Detective” leans more toward the former than the latter, if only just barely. As I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, this episode manages to inch its way toward quality, due in no small part to the presence of Springfield’s favorite attempted murderer. (But we like you too, Fat Tony!)
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Al Jean, Episode Reviews, Homer Simpson, Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons Season 14
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Why “The Frying Game” Is a Dark Horse Contender for The Simpsons’s Worst Episode Ever
Spare me your jockey elves. Forget your spring break alligators. Cast aside your amorous pandas and bar rags and even your Gagas. My poor lost souls, I beseech you to look upon thy screamapillar and weep — weep for us all.
Because “The Frying Game” may very well be The Simpsons’s worst episode ever.
As I discussed on The Simpsons Show podcast, I don’t make that pronouncement lightly. It’s hard to call “The Frying Game” overrated exactly — forgotten is probably more accurate — but it’s rarely brought up in discussions of the series’s nadir. And yet it deserves to be ground into the dirt like the fetid excuse for televised refuse that it is. What the episode lacks in the casual cruelty of other contemporary Simpsons outings, or the aimless racism of the show’s more regrettable international jaunts, it makes up for in being emblematic of everything wrong with the series at this point in its run. It is a nonsensical, irritating, embarrassing blight upon the face of what was once the greatest show on television.
“Simpsons Safari” Represents the Supreme Laziness of The Simpsons’s Decline
The greatest sin of Mike Scully’s time in charge of The Simpsons — that period from season 9 to season 12 when the show fell from grace — isn’t what you might think. As I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, it’s not the show’s humor, which became vastly more hit-or-miss in that four year stretch. It’s not the characters, who grew more and more flat and caricatured under Scully’s reign. It’s not the stories, which became ever more disjointed and rambling. And it’s not even the extra zaniness, which frayed whatever remained of the series’s thin tether to reality.
It’s the laziness, the sloppiness, the sense that the people making what had once been the greatest television show of all time had just kind of stopped caring.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Africa, Episosde Reviews, Homer Simpson, Jerkass Homer, John Swartzwelder, Mike Scully, The Simpsons Season 12
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The Simpsons Botches the Relationship Between Homer and His Daughter in “Make Room for Lisa”
Homer and Lisa have the richest, most complicated relationship on The Simpsons. The series will no doubt continue doing Homer and Marge relationship episodes until the sun burns out, and Marge and Lisa have an undeniably special kinship, and Homer and Bart never fail to make a stellar comic duo. But Homer and Lisa are complete opposites who, nevertheless, love each other dearly. That means there’s always fertile ground to cover about how a father and daughter learn to relate to one another and, gradually, understand each other a little better.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Homer Simpson, Lisa Simpson, Mike Scully, The Simpsons S10E16, The Simpsons Season 10
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Ranking: Every Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Episode from Worst to Best
After nearly thirty years’ worth of installments, Andrew joins Zack Ruskin and Tyler Clark to rank every Treehouse of Horror episode from The Simpsons.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Episode Reviews, Halloween, Homer Simpson, Treehouse of Horror
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What The Simpsons Taught Us About Standing Up to Billionaires
In the opening of “Last Exit to Springfield”, one of The Simpsons’ most celebrated episodes, Homer and Bart watch a scene from the latest McBain shoot-em-up. It ends with McBain’s dastardly antagonist Mendoza laughing maniacally, having felled his adversary with a poisoned salmon puff. Bart is aghast at such villainy, but Homer reassures his son that “there’s nobody that evil in real life.” Then, in one of the show’s trademark subversions, the episode immediately cuts to Mr. Burns, who is laughing exactly as maniacally at an imperiled window washer who’s dangling just outside his office.
The lesson is clear. As much as we may wish our most fearsome of foes were confined to celluloid and pixels, sometimes the art that holds a mirror up to nature can reflect our reality with a disquieting accuracy. More to the point, given that long ago The Simpsons itself had already depicted a wealthy businessman running for office against an experienced civil servant while railing against the establishment; since it had already shown a former TV star and political outsider (with awful, awful hair) defeating an incumbent through his use of media-friendly bombast; and considering the show even went so far as to posit a future where a newly elected Lisa Simpson would inherit a budget crunch from President Trump, perhaps we should start paying closer attention to its predictions.
But The Simpsons doesn’t just provide, as Kent Brockman puts it, “a chilling vision of things to come.” It also offers guidance. While no one should aim to look, think, or act like Homer Simpson, episodes like “Last Exit to Springfield” shine a light on the way regular people can find themselves emboldened by circumstance and demonstrates how we unwashed masses can stand up to the plutocratic figureheads who might threaten to take away the things we need and hold dear.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Homer Simpson, Mr. Burns, Politics, The Simpsons Season 4
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The Simpsons: “Duffless” – Homer’s Temporary Sobriety and How to Show Growth on a Sitcom
The Simpsons has never addressed Homer’s alcoholism more directly than it did in “Duffless”, and for good reason. As I discussed with the fine folks at the The Simpsons Show podcast this week, Homer’s love for beer is such an essential part of who he is to the general public, that it’s almost as synonymous with him as his dim-wittedness or his love of donuts. That essentially means the show can never truly change this facet of Homer’s personality, which, in turn, makes it pretty unlikely that The Simpsons will ever explore the issue in any greater depth than it did here. It’s a serious topic to tackle in the first place, and it’s a tough one to get right when you have to leave an iconic character the way you found him, to the point that he’s basically not allowed to make any sort of change for the better. Thus the series, as a general rule, tends to sidestep the issue.
Don’t get me wrong, The Simpsons frequently makes references to Homer’s vigorous beer consumption, but it’s generally played for laughs and never taken terribly seriously. I don’t have a problem with that either. Sure, at a big picture level there may be something mildly pernicious about depicting someone who drinks as much as Homer does never suffering any lasting consequences from it, but (1) The Simpsons is a comedy show, not an after school special and (2) Homer is, entirely independently of his drinking, already a terrible role model who rarely, if ever, suffers consequences for anything. Heck, the show centered an entire episode around that idea. If Homer Simpson is the example by which people live their lives, then they have bigger problems than one-too-many Duffs.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Beer, Episode Reviews, Homer Simpson, Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons Season 4, TV Reviews
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The Simpsons: “Homer’s Enemy” – Where Do We Go From Here?
I was just a kid when I began watching The Simpsons religiously. That meant that, at the time, a good portion of the show went completely over my head: homages to classic movies, references to snuggling, jokes about Richard Nixon. It also made revisiting the show as an adult a wonderfully enriching experience. While the exquisite construction and sheer hilarity of the series enraptured me as a kid, I discovered deeper layers of storytelling, humor, and commentary in the show as an adult that I could never have fathomed in all my young fanaticism. But that naivete also meant that I completely missed how unremittingly dark the series could be in an episode like “Homer’s Enemy”.
Now The Simpsons is no stranger to dark comedy. It’s often employed in the tragicomic stylings of characters like Moe Szyslak or Hans Moleman, who suffer repeatedly for our amusement and turn up again no worse for wear. But there are few moments in the show’s canon that can match the pure black comedy of Frank Grimes’s descent into madness, or the conclusion of his debut episode, where the denizens of Springfield are laughing at Homer’s antics, while Grimes is lowered into his grave after an untimely death.
“The Simpsons Guy” | The Andrew Review
I dreaded the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover. Even setting aside the inherent pitfalls of crossovers generally, it’s been a long time since either show was pitching its fastball. Despite the two series’ basic similarities, their comedic sensibilities differ pretty dramatically. The idea of one show’s staff writing the other show’s characters did not inspire confidence in either side of the writers’ room. And the tense, if playful, rivalry between The Simpsons and Family Guy did not suggest an easy fit behind the scenes.
But against all odds, Richard Appel, who served as a writer and producer for both shows, oversaw the episode, and put together a surprisingly cohesive, funny, and above all else, worthwhile crossover.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Crossovers, Family Guy, Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, The Simpsons Season 26
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