Simpsons, Meet The Simpsons

It's poorly edited with some sloppy writing and research, but John Ortved's The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History is probably the best book available on the subject.  Most of it is an oral history, with Ortved interjecting here and there to fill in the gaps, but it really gets into the subject, answering all the questions a Simpsonphile could ask.

The book was published in 2009, when The Simpsons was twenty years old, but most of it deals with the first five or six years.  This is as it should be.  The development of the show and its early burst as a revolution, followed by a few years of evolution, are when it mattered most. By the late 90s, after a couple hundred episodes, while it was still entertaining, it was rarely surprising, and sometimes seemed to slip into routine.

The three men responsible for making it what it was are in the opening credits of every episode--Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon.  Groening is the name most tied to the show but may actually be the least important.  He did create the Simpsons for The Tracey Ullman Show (he created them since he didn't want to give up the rights and merchandising to his own Life In Hell comic strip characters), and was there to help develop the show as a sitcom.  But without James L. Brooks' clout--he was a huge name in TV and movies in the late 80s--it's doubtful Fox would have been willing to take a chance on a prime time cartoon about a weird family.  Brooks also protected the show from too much network interference.  And Sam Simon, who'd previously worked on shows like Taxi and Cheers, might be the most important of all.  He ran the show in its early years, hiring the writers, bringing in the scripts (Groening helped but he wasn't always around, and certainly had no experience in writing sitcoms), filling in the community of Springfield and setting the tone for what the show could be.  Groening, however, was a good front man for the show--the story of an alternative comics guy who lucked out was irresistible to the media, and it can be understood, based on the early publicity, if the public thought he wrote all the shows, and drew them, too.  Eventually Simon had a falling out with the other two, and was off the show. (Later Brooks and Groening had a falling out, too.) But all of them made many millions of dollars on the show.

In fact, the book talks a lot about how much money the show made, and how some got a lot, others not so much.  It also has in-depth profiles of names like Richard Sakai, Conan O'Brien, George Meyer and John Swartzwelder, not to mention various showrunners and their different styles, such as David Mirkin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss and Mike Scully (a friend of mine). In general, the book concentrates on the writers (many of whom seemed to be social misfits) which makes sense. There's the animation, there's the voice talent and a number of other aspects, but what set the show apart from the beginning was the smart writing. 

The show was an immediate phenomenon, headed by break-out character Bart Simpson.  After a few years, the emphasis shifted to Homer, who got dumber and dumber and has held center stage ever since.  The style also changed in the early years. It started with fairly realistic stories but got wilder as it went along.  There were fights over this, but it was probably necessary to prevent the show from becoming stale.  Also, it took advantage of the medium, since animation lets you go anywhere you want and have as many characters as you desire.  I think, in fact, by the fourth season, the show had reached its peak, with great (and wild) episodes like "Homer The Heretic," "Mr. Plow," "Marge vs. The Monorail" and "Last Exit To Springfield." In some later seasons, the joke density (already high) increased, but it's not just the number of jokes--the sense of discovery was gone.

So here we are, 500+ episodes down the road, and no end in sight. (When Bill Cosby's show ended, Bart and Homer watched and Bart said if he ever got a show he'd make sure to run it into the ground.) The ratings aren't so great any more, but the demos are pretty good and its a worldwide phenomenon.  I still watch, but it's no longer the viewing highlight of the week.  This isn't so shocking. Almost any show gets tired after five or six years. That it's still entertaining at this point is impressive.  Maybe some day it will go off the air, but it seems to have a momentum of its own, and as long as money can be made, Bart, Homer, Lisa, Marge and the rest will go on.