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Printer-Friendly ModeSimpson family: please realize it is time to move on
January 23, 2006 —
An open letter to the Simpson family:
It is with deep regret that I must inform you I will no longer be watching your once hilarious antics every week. I've seen every creative mishap you've ever been embroiled in, quite possibly heard the ubiquitous "D'oh" more times than any other statement in my life, and have essentially slaved myself to your presence as far back as I can remember - in fact, I can't remember when you weren't on. In fact, I've often said that the day you stop making new episodes is the day the world will end - you're currently on Season 17, and you are scheduled through Season 20, so I'm still not convinced you will ever end.
Watching you every Thursday (and eventually every Sunday) was the highlight of my week. From the first grade on, you were the one show my friends and I could always relate to, regardless of what else was going on in our lives. Outside of my parents, I can honestly say that watching a different story of yours each week cemented my personality more than anything else. When you started to play in syndication around the clock, it only furthered my adherence to the secular religion that is The Simpsons.
Unfortunately, your shtick is getting old fast. Homer and Marge, you've nearly lost your marriage so many times that I'm praying you get a divorce and give Maggie a decent life, since apparently Bart and Lisa are already screwed up. I used to like learning about your past - finding out that Homer's mother was a fugitive hippy is among my favorite memories of you. But over the past few years, what I'm learning just isn't that funny anymore - Homer witnessed Mr. Smithers' dad's skeleton as a teenager and it caused him nightmares? Fascinating. And what made Bart so uninteresting the past few years?
I should have seen the writing on the wall. Homer kept drawing all the attention in the worst possible ways, like a manatee being chopped to pieces by boat propellers. You let other Springfield denizens steal the limelight - how the hell did the Comic Book Guy get his own episode? I watched Lisa morph from the fish-out-of-water intellectual I could empathize with to a Buddhist, vegetarian eco-radical that just irritated me every time she opened her mouth. Ned Flanders made the transition from annoying good-guy neighbor to preaching Christian fundamentalist so quickly that it was striking.
But yet I kept coming back. Maybe I pined for the days when Homer gained 61 pounds to qualify for medical disability. Maybe I hoped that you would break into nonsensical songs that parodied our culture so well - after all, I learned the Armour hot dog song from you. Yet you had to let Family Guy come and steal your thunder. Of course it became popular, but only because it was blatantly ripping off your best stories and passing them of as its own. No one, including myself, would have any desire to watch the antics of Peter Griffin if Homer Simpson was still chugging along at maximum efficiency.
I've come to accept that the good days are long gone. In fact, the average days are long gone. The bad days are long gone - I started to question the long-term legacy of your show a few seasons back when Homer was raped by a panda bear. The only thing that has gotten me through the past few seasons is an unyielding faith that you will still be able to produce a classic episode, even though every exhaustible storyline has been used. I think I lost the faith when you somehow encountered Sideshow Bob - yet again - in an Italian city, in an episode that made me lose all hope in your show.
From now on, our relationship will be like those awkward encounters with people you went to high school with - a few laughs, some reminiscing about the past, and then we go our own ways. I'll try to swing by every so often to catch you on syndication - I mean, you are on twice a night, five times a week. I can relive all of our old memories at my discretion. But I can't take any new memories, it's just too painful. Ralph Wiggum once said that when he grows up, he's going to Bovine University. Consider me a graduate.
Sincerely, Paul White