What went wrong with The Simpsons

Homer is in the airport with the family, and there is a loud speaker announcement that “boarding has commenced for women, children and fat men.”

Homer replies “That’s me!”

Then the joke is over and they move on to another point.

We are half expecting a studio round of applause and for Homer to turn round and bow to the camera.

This is a joke from a recent Simpsons episode. If it was from an earlier Simpsons episode it would have played out differently.

When the announcement came over the loud speaker “boarding has commenced for women, children and fat men”, I believe the Homer character would have ignored it and carried on in blissful ignorance, possibly whilst eating a donut. Shortly afterwards a member of airport staff would inform him that as a fat man he should in fact be boarding, before the camera pans round to see a line of very fat men wheezing in the queue followed by a disappointed “doh” from Homer.

That is unless boarding with the fat men clearly made his life easier in some way, in which case he might well be pleased about it.

In my opinion The Simpsons stopped being funny somewhere around seasons 10 – 12. Changes to the writing team may well be the primary reason behind this.

Unfortunately in recent seasons the characters have lost their subtle traits, with Homer in particular becoming increasingly “wacky” at the expense of his laziness.

The fact that a change of writers makes such a big difference to a show that had very well established characters already in place shows that an idea for comedy needs good execution to make it work.

Good execution means keeping a character’s personality traits consistent. Even a relatively subtle change to the rules and boundaries set for comedy characters can make a big difference.

I still get a buzz when I notice a “classic” Simpsons episode on TV. The animation may not be as sharp, but the comedy writing was perfect.

Update June 2017 – Since writing this article an independent study has been conducted by Alan Siegel with hardcore Simpsons fans and creators on the show to determine the 100 best ever episodes.

There wasn’t a single episode in the top 10 from after season 7.

And all but 1 were from season 4 or earlier.

You can read the list here

As Siegel says of Homer in number 2 on the list “Even the stupidest, ugliest, smelliest ape of them all can be a good father.” This is a great round up of Homer’s early character and why the subtle shift to wacky / crazy man came at the expense of some of his humour.

I recommend reading the list as a reminder of how brilliant the comedy was at its best.

Something else you might like – The Comedy Crowd are developing a new channel dedicated to daring, original comedy shows like early Simpsons. Not like later Simpsons.