series description: the simpsons is a satirical animated sitcom about the average American life within the average American family. its one of the longest running television programs of all time and has delighted stoners, sociologists, and families alike for 36 seasons and 700+ episodes now. if you're unfamiliar with the simpsons outside of knowing that its a show that exists I'll summarize: the show follows Homer, a self-proclaimed "ordinary, blue collar slob", and his family (I'll get into their personalities in a different section) and how their different personalities navigate life in their middle American society. its like an animated version of any other 80s/90's family sitcom but specifically made for satire/comedy purposes and not necessarily maintaining established social norms. the show has a 'floating timeline' so the characters and settings don't age or change because the show is always set in 'present day' (relative to the year when it aired). thats how some of the jokes on celebrities and culture made within the episodes can stick the landing decades later and some of them make you go '? Who or what are they referencing?' because its no longer relevant to today. the show is set in the town of Springfield, USA and the state location is kept intentionally vague so that "everyone will think of it as their Springfield"-Matt Groening, 2012 (show creator). for context, Springfield is an extremely common town name in the United States and theres a city/town/providence/village/some kind of municipality named Springfield in every state. (put in road trip map of every Springfield, USA) you can see from this map that there are Springfields across the country. within the show, Springfield is both a specific town in the continental United States and its own complete, self-contained universe. they also travel to different states and countries within the show, depending on whats happening in the episode. theres even an episode with a joke about my hometown (link to clip) which feels soooo random but makes me smile all the same the show satire is typically socio-political highlighting corruption and incompetence in US education, coroporate power and influence, mass media, police, and religion but it also tackles interpersonal relationships and issues that arise within them as well. (will add links to fave scenes). there are 36, 20 to 24 episode long seasons as of 2024 as I type this up. brief history: the show has been on for so long that we would be here allll day if I went into the history of the show from the 1980's to the now (2020's as I write this), so I'll keep it brief and just touch on the early beginnings and how the controversies at the start helped establish its pop culture legacy (and pioneered the adult sitcom on TV genre). the show started out as a series of short cartoons on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987. can we pause and appreciate how many sketch comedy show skits produced really great and memorable shows? The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone, and My Life as a Teenage Robot also started as a series of shorts on Oh Yeah! Cartoons in the 90's, isn't that neat? and after gaining popularity with various shorts for a few seasons, the Simpsons officially debuted as a stand-alone primetime program on Fox with a (incredibly charming) Christmas special on December 17, 1989. season 1 hit the ground sprinting and started airing shortly after in 1990 (I do mean sprinting seriously.. its never not been popular). Its funny to think of FOX being a small network but back then FOX was a small network that was really happy to find a hit and they capitalized on this specfically with Bart in the early years of the show. The Simpsons owes much of its popularity to 90s "Bartmania" as media dubbed it back then. Every character has their own fans and resonance (or dissonance) with certain audiences but kids, teens, and young adults all were just enamoured by Bart Simpson and FOX was more than happy to pump out more episodes and more merchandise to meet that demand. Barts popularity is a really big factor in the growth of the show and the original boom of interest in it. Barts name is actually an anagram for Brat; Bartholomew being his full name is an afterthought (although the creator though of Bart as himself when he was creating the show and wanted to name him Matt originally). Bart is the lil bastard (said with affection) that he is because Groening thought Dennis the Mennis was lame and wanted to show America a truly mischevious boy. Barts love of mischief and underachievement is a core part of who he is; he is not the perfect son or the perfect child and never really tries to be. and his family hates this, but love him anyway in spite of his rebellious nature. this was extremely controversial at the time when the show came out, because Bart is the antithesis of the typical 'sitcom son' tropes that we see on tv. I'm going to speak more in depth on this in the 'why I like the show' section but sitcom tropes are just reinforced social norms, breaking them can make people angry and uncomfortable. parents banned children from watching the show, schools banned Simpsons clothes and quotes (ex: 'eat my shorts'), and the writers of the show actually had back-and-forth with the (then) President and First Lady of the United States (George HW Bush) about the debate of whether the Simpson family is a direct reflection of the United States of America and its values or a mockery of it. I'm not exaggerating for the sake of the shrine either, it was literally that serious lol. Barbara Bush called The Simpsons the "dumbest thing she had ever seen" and the writers responded with a letter written from Marges POV . they actually shifted the direction of the show to focus more on Homer and his role in the family after the first two seasons so in a way you can say FOX bowed to the external political pressure, but Bart has never changed who he was and Homer also subverts typical sitcom parent tropes so you could also argue that they kinda pushed the envelope further in response, too. while we think of Barts behavior and the humor of the Simpsons being toothless and easily digestable by todays standards, in the early 90s when it was on air it was extremely radical, shocking, and pushed the envelope for what could be joked about on primetime TV. there wouldn't be other animated adult sitcoms with bite to them if The Simpsons never went to battle with The White House in 1990. why I like it personally: This is probably going to go in alotttt of different directions but I'm going to try and herd myself into two points, one big and one smaller that builds off the big one: the big 1) The Simpsons is a masterclass in the subversion of tropes and social norms for comedic effect and the smaller 2) I love American political satire because living here is troll as fuck Point 1: Former President Reagan (may he burn in hell) was a Hollywood star before he ever had any political aspirations. Movies, TV, media, Hollywood in and of itself has a political function whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. this is why sitcoms can sometimes feel like propaganda films for conservative family values - thats literally why they exist. I wrote a paper on this back in high school but the government did have a hand in making TV sitcoms what they were (this is why sitcoms always have episodes that touch on the same themes ex: the anti-drug episodes, the 'stealing is bad' episodes, the 'teen pregnancy/premarital sex is bad' episodes). every show has tropes and norms that it relies on to both establish and affirm the social expectations and convey that message to a greater audience. The Simpsons is really unique in that on one hand you can feel the nuclear family propaganda in some episodes, storylines/plot resolutions, and just their family and town structure in general but on the other, The Simpsons humor comes from subverting these established social expectations. all of the funniest jokes on the show are (imo) because they set up something that you think should happen and turn it on its head. The Simpsons are the kind of American family that conservatives dream of (blue collar father, stay at home mother, 3 children in a large home that they own in a nice neighborhood... They even attend church). But because the family members human in the way they are written to interact with each other and their environments, conservatives typically don't like it and decry it as.. well nowadays they've stolen the term "woke" from Black people but I'll re-quote Barbara Bush and say "the dumbest thing" they've "ever seen." this is why the President specifically attacked them out of all shows. They have the kind of family that should be (and by all accounts is on paper) the American ideal, but they embrace their flaws and aren't constantly hiding or obscuring their imperfections. This makes people not only uncomfortable but at times, even angry. Yes they go to church on Sunday in their dress clothes... but they also bitch about how they don't like going to church or wearing those lame clothes. Homer is the sole provider for his family... but he also is a lazy parent who would rather drink on the couch than engage with his children, Marge is the normalizing "tough cop" force in the family that keeps everyone in line... but she somehow is overly permissive at the same time, Bart is the first born son... but doesn't have any sense of responsiblity or respect for authority, and Lisa is a preteen girl... but has extremely political interests with a strong sense of ethics and justice. hell, even Maggie has a robust personality that subverts what 'typical tv babies' do or care about (she literally enjoys violence/murder/general mayhem). they lean on their "nuclear family" image to mock every single trope associated with the typical American family.. and in portraying the imperfections of American families, they are one of the real true examples of how American families actually act in real life. I really love this about the show! it turns this propaganda you would expect to be seeing on its head and makes fun of the every aspect of American (and sometimes Western in general) society. Its really clever and funny to me. Being autistic (and learning that I've been autistic for my whole life in my 20s) I realize I've learned so much of... how to be a person in society from TV and sitcoms. I think enjoying The Simpsons as a child made me not only get social stuff, but also how to subvert those unspoken rules to be funny in a way other people understood.
Point 2: I LOVE POLITICAL SATIRE. I LOVE AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES. the American experiment in which we live fascinates me and it has been a lifelong fascination of mine... perhaps its because I am a living decendent of slavery, perhaps its because I'm poor and grew up poor (which, goes back to the descendent of chattel slavery survivors thing), but I've always found it funny how satirical our own actual real lives in this country are in a 'you gotta laugh to keep from killing yourself' sort of way. its really beyond parody how we live in the US. I think this show is actually some of the best American political and cultural satire thats ever been made like its actually soooo harrowingly accurate while still being humourous enough to make you laugh. episodes from 30 years ago still have value in their criticisms on American society to this day and will probably never lose value. the finger thing means the taxes!! favorite characters: marge (lovveeee loooove love Marge so much. shes one of those characters that you love more as you watch the show as an adult - one of the funniest characters in a subtle way. she is also extremely darling to me and her life makes me a little bit sad until I remind myself shes not real but an amalgamated idea of Traditional American Motherhood and then that makes me sad because its millions of women like her..), lisa (another character very dear to my heart, I've always idolized the way she speaks her mind even if its what nobody wants to hear or asked for and I've tried to integrate that part of her personality into my own for literally my entire life. My family actually calls me Lisa in a joking manner because I am always that person who didn't find that joke funny and will tell you why), lionel hutz (hes just funny as hell to me, you don't need a background of education in law to enjoy his jokes but it makes them like 40 times funnier if you do (no, money down! makes me crack up everytime I see it). losing ), *Homer voice* and the rest! favorite episodes: funnily enough, although I love the political satire in the Simpsons thats not really a deciding factor in me liking an episode or not. this list is really just my own personal taste and what I like, theres not a specific reason why its these episodes versus other ones other than 'I liked it' blog posts about it: to come! scrollable pic section: current season I'm watching: season 16!