The Simpsons: TV’s longest-running comedy

“Dental plan!” If you have watched television in the last twenty years, then chances are your immediate response to reading this was the phrase “Lisa needs braces”, played on a loop inside Homer Simpson's bald yellow head. While not particularly funny out of context, this example goes to show the immense popularity and ubiquity that The Simpsons has achieved. Now, after 21 years on our screens, an award winning movie, 22 computer games and 471 episodes (and counting), America's longest running prime-time show has just been commissioned for a 23rd series, one that will take them past the monumental 500 episode mark. An impressive achievement, but is it really something to admire, or have everyone's favourite yellow family now had their day?

The Simpsons went through something of a golden age in the mid to late nineties. The jokes were hilarious, the characters were engaging and, most importantly of all, the episodes had good storylines in which to carry all this. Shining examples of this age include the episodes ‘You Only Move Twice’, ‘Homer the Great’ and ‘Mr Plow’. (If you don't remember these, look them up and chuckle fondly at your memories of them.) Not only were these episodes crammed full of funniness, the plots were fantastically well written, in a way that made you feel you'd care about the characters' outcomes even if you weren't being bombarded with a joke every few seconds. Lately, however, the writers seem to have run out of ideas. While watching the most recent episode, I must admit I found it very hard to care about what was going on. To begin with, the story centred around a Bart/Santa's Little Helper conflict, a theme The Simpsons has done much better at least twice before. A comment by Bart about how his pet “used to hang around racetracks” felt almost like the writers recognized that they used to do better. Also, the characters are no longer people I feel anything towards. Whereas before the Simpson family complimented and interacted with each other's quirks in a manner conducive to good comedy, the same characters now feel like stand-alone caricatures of themselves. Virtually all of Lisa's dialogue is now that of a clichéd surly teenager-esque character, tame old Marge rarely opens her mouth unless it is to say something characteristically naïve and the Homer-isms, while still as funny as ever, now seem to be all Homer’s lines are comprised of.

It is understandable that over the years the show will have changed in an attempt to stay fresh and the competition from other shows such as Family Guy and American Dad! will no doubt have driven a great deal of this change. The newer episodes feature many more cutaway scenes, lampoons of celebrities and unnecessary wackiness, all traps which it is easy for a comedy writer to fall into and make the show feel like you are watching some weak attempt to copy Seth MacFarlane rather than a show with its own identity.

However, despite all this, in answer to my question as to whether or not The Simpsons has had its day I would still say no. If I see it is on while flipping through channels, I will probably stop and watch, regardless of it being a new or old episode. It has to be said that The Simpsons is still better than most of the other rubbish that inhabits our TV sets. While it may never recapture its golden age again, The Simpsons is a timeless classic, and one that we would be very sad to see leave our screens.

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