Once upon a time, The Simpsons was a new show; I know it’s hard to believe, but if you search way, way back in your memories, it was just a fledgling show on a fledgling network, born of some filler shorts that Matt Groening made for the Tracy Ullman Show. Back then, there was much hand-wringing about how uncouth and ill-behaved the Simpson family was; compared to the aggressively wholesome Cosbys — or even the brashly realistic Connors — child-choking Homer and back-talking Bart were an outsized menace to the Moral Majority. To hear people talk, you’d think they were a gang of sociopathic pied pipers, leading our society down an amoral road to ruin.
You know what? Maybe the Moral Majority was onto something, because nowadays, The Simpsons is considered a comedy emeritus — a respectable, even gentle show when compared to its coarse neighbors. Among the four shows in Fox’s Sunday night lineup (The Simpsons, The War at Home, Family Guy, and American Dad), The Simpsons is the only one that doesn’t proudly wave a “viewer discretion advised” warning at its audience. Where “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?” once scandalized the PTA, network censors now have to work overtime to bleep out all the stuff coming out of comedians’ mouths. There’s nothing wrong with cussing, of course, but some of these shows seem to think that being shockingly semi-obscene is equivalent to being funny, which of course it’s not.
The Formula:
The War at Home = Yes, Dear + (All in the Family - self awareness) + (Chappelle’s Show ÷ race)
Take for instance Michael Rappaport, the star of The War at Home. The show is basically just another one of those “schlumpy guy with a wife that’s out of his league and kids that are varying degrees of annoying” sitcoms that have multiplied to fill the few corners of prime time that aren’t already full of procedural crime dramas. What sets Rappaport apart from the Jim Belushis and Kevin Jameses of the world is his political incorrectness, a philosophy that goes something like, “the best way to assert your individuality in an increasingly conformist society is to be a colossal asshole to everyone around you.” So Rappaport stomps around his house, baiting gays, blacks, women, etc., and tries to make it seem like his problems are all someone else’s fault. It’s like he’s trying to be the next Archie Bunker, but doesn’t realize that All in the Family was a satire.
Seth McFarlane’s series, the miraculously resurrected Family Guy and the hastily concocted American Dad, are pretty clearly descended from The Simpsons, but I can never get into them the way that I could with the older show. I like an unending barrage of non-sequiturs and digressions as much as the next person, but beyond that, there’s little to keep me watching. In a lot of ways, the problem is similar to that in The War at Home: the characters aren’t just flawed, they’re actively unpleasant. The best comedies make you love their characters in spite of — or even because of — their flaws, and The Simpsons is a prime example of this. Family Guy and American Dad, though, are so busy trying to get you to laugh at their characters that they never manage to get you to laugh with them, and eventually, you find yourself not laughing at all.
My dad (a school psych) once was once at a lecture where the speaker use The Simpsons as a token example of vacuous, child-corrupting TV. He asked them if they'd ever actually watched it, and they admitted they hadn't. A predictable taking-to-task ensued.
I think the "PTA member scandalized by Simpsons" pretty much died out as soon as a quorum of PTA members had actually watched the show.
Screw you...Family Guy and American Dad rules....