Welcome to a brand new segment I call “The Screen”. Whilst my other segment, called “Current Gen” focuses on the games of the current generation of gamers, ‘The Screen’ is all about everything you see on a screen, which includes movies, television and gaming (gaming will be kept to a minimal because of Current Gen obviously); the thoughts and opinions on some of the television shows/channels, films and film companies out there. Unlike Current Gen, which is a weekly segment, The Screen will be at least once a week any time throughout the week.
I’m going to admit something I’m hoping many of you will agree with: the original few series of The Simpsons were as dull as hell to watch. Why? Probably because when The Simpsons began, I wasn’t even born and the comedy probably wasn’t of my time when I came to watch the show in the late 90′s/early 2000′s. The show has been around for almost 23 years and it’s because of it’s comedy that I feel that the show needs to end.
Now I’m not saying I hate the show. I absolutely loved the movie, and the later seasons (probably from around seasons 5 to 15) were a joy to watch on and off. Throughout these 23 years, Maggie is still a baby, Bart and Lisa are still in school, Marge and Homer aren’t in an old folks home and Grandpa Abe isn’t dead yet… or should I be saying that about Mr Burns? In recent series set after the movies, viewing figures have dropped dramatically and the comedy has either slacked or repeated itself. Perhaps you could just say it’s due to it’s PG-13 audience it tries to attain, or perhaps it’s just hard to get new ideas. Both of those are true. But the real reason is that it’s gone on too long.
There have been over 500 episodes of the show, and if you look at the charts (or Wikipedia for that matter), the show has not once had a year break away from the Fox network. Breaks should be considered a good thing, because too much of something can drive you crazy. Sure, the episodes are written by multiple people, but I feel like when somebody is trying to develop a television show, there’s always this rush to get something written and developed. Between series 4 and 5 of the BBC show “Doctor Who”, the show took a year off, leaving us 5 special episodes being played throughout the year. These specials garnished some brilliant viewing figures, probably because of the time of the year it was (they normally aired on special occasions like Christmas and Easter) and that it was just a chilled episode of a much loved franchise. And do you know what? The special episodes were better than some of the actual episodes you saw in the main series, purely because more time went into them.
That’s why “The Simpsons Movie” was a big hit. It was a one off-movie of a much loved franchise and had lots of time and care and was released in the summer; the perfect time of year. And guess what? It went on to earn over $527 million. On average, that’s over 40,000,000 tickets around the world. And because it was a movie, it allowed people to watch it when it was convenient for them; here in the UK, The Simpsons is shown at around 7PM on Sky1, with either a new episode or an old one. Around about this time, people may have either just come home from work or perhaps have other things to do with no time to watch it. With a movie, there are multiple times throughout a week that someone can try to watch it at, so of course people are going to watch it when it’s convenient for them.
So personally, because I just know the developers of The Simpsons won’t change their ways and take a break, which would not only give more time for writers to come up with proper ideas but would also give the animators time to breathe, perhaps it’s time for the creators to move on and let the more funnier shows take the spotlight, like Family Guy, Futurama and American Dad, because in this day and age, even kids are trying to be too adult, so they’re not really going to watch something that’s actually for their age group; they’re going to watch something that’s too old for them. Who knows? If the developers of The Simpsons put time and care into a new show, then perhaps they can make something that will reach the newer audiences of the world. That’s what happened with Doctor Who. It ended in 1989, came back in 1996 with a TV movie worthy of it’s place, and came back in 2005 with a new style that fit with the way this generation of people worked.
And anyway, isn’t Disney’s Phineas and Ferb a show from the creators of the Simpsons? Because that show is fucking awesome!
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2 Comments
I’ve been a fan of The Simpsons since the beginning, at least close to the beginning. I actually stopped watching it around the early 00s because of other entertainments I was into at the time, but I still tried to keep up with it every now and then. The movie was fantastic mostly because it included the various writers from previous eras of the show. It’s definitely not the show it was previously, but shows grow, I think this season is starting to be much more relevant than it has been in the 00s. The graffiti episode and the cruise ship for example. It’s cultural references and satire is still pretty damn sharp. The novelty of Family Guy is starting to wear thin IMO (funny, but sort of more formulaic than anything the The Simpsons did, at least with the Simpsons you have the various hundreds of characters of the town of Springfield to expand on). South Park is better than Family Guy. The Simpsons is actually pretty grown up, sure kids can sort of follow it to a degree, but its references and subtext is there. It’s not always as consistent. To some degree I follow you, but as new writers come in (the writing staff does change over time). The heyday of the show was when Conan O’Brien was writing for it in the early 90s. As long as the show gets viewers it’ll still be on. Not until some of the main character voice actors leave the show will it be gone. Also, Futurama is also by Matt Groening (you referenced a different show by the creators of the Simpsons and didn’t say anything about Futurama being the same people, but you might have already known that).
Futurama isn’t that old yet, so it’s still alright