The Golden Age Was Actually A Vibrant Yellow (The Simpsons) [Seasons 8-9]

 (All screencaps courtesy of Frinkiac. Any accompanying texts are direct quotes from the episode.) 

(Continued from Part 3)

If there's any era of The Simpsons which has become analyzed to death from a forensic perspective, it's this stretch right here. Countless Simpsons fans have tried to perform the critical equivalent of an autopsy, struggling to confirm the exact moment that the so-called Golden Age ended and the show slid into supposed mediocrity. It's fragile ground and we must tread carefully in our own analysis. Hell, I'm not even sure if this is where things go from bad to worse! Maybe it happens in Season 10, or 11, or maybe the consensus is wrong and those have their own charms. Perhaps someday I'll revisit them and find out, but like I said last time: I want to write about other shit, so let's put a capstone on seven months of Simpsons coverage and talk about these last few seasons. Despite their oversignificance, there's some fascinating things going on here.

I previously spoke of Season 3 being a transitional limbo season between the more grounded first two seasons and the absurdist comedy that Season 4 would shift into by around the time of "Marge Vs. The Monorail". In a similar fashion, Seasons 8 and 9 are fluid in the same way. Simply put, there is a beloved episode near the end of Season 8, and an infamous one near the start of Season 9. It feels for all the world like the culture has chosen that as the dividing line, the last good Simpsons episode vs. the first bad Simpsons episode. That is simply not true. Not only does Season 9 have some standout episodes I really enjoyed, but Season 8 has its share of episodes that I had jack shit to say about in my notes. Furthermore, they are episodes that I swore were from further in the show, well into the post-Golden Age. This is not as cut and dry as it appears to be. Master narratives, as they so often are, are full of shit. Let's craft our own. Let's talk about Season 8 a bit.

There's something reflexive and wistful about Season 8. This is a show that has run for almost a decade (and, if you count the Ullman shorts, has been around for that long) and knows it. The simple fact is thus: the world that The Simpsons was created to lampoon no longer exists, and that world was in part itself destroyed by The Simpsons. The saccharine sitcoms The Simpsons originally was born to mock are all dead and gone, outlived by The Simpsons. The Cosby Show and Full House and all those other feel-good hug it out sitcoms went off the air years ago. Even something like Married With Children, the contemporary to The Simpsons which also pushed against that sanitized sitcom energy, bows out here in 1997. The Simpsons has survived them all, but it has done much more than that. It did not just lampoon the culture: it became the culture. The gravity of The Simpsons cannot be understated on the cultural landscape, and this is the moment its immortality became solidified. It has seen eras and empires of the televisual landscape rise from the ashes, thrive, and turn to dust. It will continue to do so. Here, in 1997, the first time that happens, The Simpsons looks back one last time before it walks in eternity.

You've got sublime episodes like "You Only Live Twice", which not only has the bonkers premise of Homer working for a Bond villain but brings Albert Brooks back for one last time in this era to voice Hank Scorpio. "Bart After Dark", with Bart working for a burlesque house and the moral outrage Springfield has over it, calls to mind "Homer's Night Out" from all the way back in Season 1. Even an episode like "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", which exists as an elaborate musical riffing on Mary Poppins, is all about just how completely dysfunctional the Simpson family is: not even a miracle worker like Sherry Bobbins can set these broken yellow weirdos right. The show knows its age, and is peeking back at what it has become one last time. That reflexive look at what it once was will lead to perhaps The Simpsons' finest hour, but to get there you have to understand the other driving ethos of Season 8: stretching the show as it currently exists to its absolute limits.

The first way it does this is the way the show will operate going forward: tilting the scale even more towards absurdity. "The Homer They Fall", the episode where Homer becomes a boxer, is one such example. You have a little of that Raging Bull/Rocky influence here, but were this in Seasons 3 to 5 it would be lousy with such references. Instead we get a climax where Moe rescues Homer from being killed in the ring with a fan on his back. Season 8 is full of ridiculous set piece climaxes like this. "The Twisted World Of Marge Simpson" ends with a fight on the Simpsons' front lawn between the mafia and the yakuza. "In Marge We Trust" has Ned Flanders be saved from ravenous baboons by Rev. Lovejoy riding a train in a zoo. "The Springfield Files", which up to that point had been an X-Files pastiche where Homer sees an alien in the woods (with Mulder and Scully from that show just showing up in Act 2) ends with the reveal that the alien is just an irradiated and doped-up Mr. Burns. And it goes on like this. The show is looking back at its more grounded days, but look how far we've come.

The second, and more interesting, way the show tests its limits is by just breaking shit. Look to "Hurricane Neddy", which fights against the Flanderization of... well, Ned Flanders, by revealing that his perfect nature and howdily-doodily persona was actually suppressing his more aggressive tendencies. We stretch Ned to his absolute limit, and he snaps like a taut rubber band with a DIDDLY DING-DONG CRAP YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK. "A Milhouse Divided" rears continuity again as Milhouse's parents get a divorce, and this sticks. It leads to a very Simpsons moment where Homer gives Marge the dream wedding she deserves instead of the shitty one they had back in like Season 2... by first getting them divorced so they have to get married again. One of the finer moments of this, and the look at what the show had become, is "The Itchy And Scratchy And Poochie Show". Like, holy shit. Itchy and Scratchy is just standing in for The Simpsons here. A long-running show that some feel has lost its way and needs a shot in the arm for a new era. That new era, of course, being 1997 and dated corporate opinion of what is "cool" in 1997. Which leads to the titular Poochie, and his frosty reception. It's not just poking fun at the corporate executives or the need to freshen up a long-running show, but of fandom itself. This is the first time the show has really dug into the fan entitlement complex, and it's only gotten more true as time has gone on. The declaration from the show that Poochie canonically died and will never come back, to thunderous applause, says more than I ever could with words alone.

Enough fucking around. We've gone on for long enough. We have to talk about the transition between Seasons 8 and 9, where some absolutely wild fucking alchemy occurs. Within five episodes and a season break we go from the most well-regarded Simpsons episode ever to one of the worst. Let's talk about the kingmaker. Let's talk about "Homer's Enemy". It is absolute genius. It's impeccably written, completely hilarious, wistfully nostalgic for how far it's come, and stretches The Simpsons so far that it's still not clear if the show broke under its implications. The conception of Homer's titular enemy, Frank Grimes, was an ordinary dude from the real world being plopped into the absurdist cartoon fantasy of The Simpsons. The result is 22 minutes of Lovecraftian horror wherein Frank Grimes gazes at the abyss The Simpsons has become, goes mad from it, and takes his own life in his mental breakdown. What the fuck is happening here? The answer is Homer Simpson. We at home watching have had 8 seasons to cozy up to the transition from Season 1 Homer, the slobby middle-class everyman trying and failing to be decent, to Season 8 Homer, the man who has worked for a Bond villain, become a boxer, come up with a wacky scheme to get Mr. Burns to accept his estranged son, had a metaphysical freakout on Mexican insanity peppers, saw an alien in the woods, and voiced a cartoon dog. And all of that is just this season. We have tipped the scale to the absurd, and the everyman that Homer once was is gone. Now we have an incompetent raging lunatic who is in charge of safety at the plant, a prospect which appalls Frank Grimes. How can this world just be okay with a rampaging manchild like Homer Simpson? You want a reflexive look back? Compare and contrast Frank's reaction to learning Homer is safety inspector, to Homer's when first offered that role waaaaay the fuck back in the third episode of the show.

All of this comes to a head in the scene at the Simpson house, where Frank is astonished at how opulent and luxurious Homer lives compared to him, who has spent every day of his life working and grinding himself for the American dream. Forget all the think pieces about how the "barely making ends meet" Simpson lifestyle of Season 1 is impossible to reach today, here's the show in 1997 making that same point. Then the continuity and how it beggars belief comes up, as we confront just how cartoonish the show has gotten in 8 seasons. Homer has canonically met dozens of celebrities, multiple presidents, is a Grammy-award winning artist, and went to fucking outer space. All of this culminates in Frank Grimes railing against Homer, against his laziness and how unjust it is that society has rewarded him for his sloth, before declaring that he is what's wrong with America. The Simpsons, the show created to show a more accurate portrayal of the American family beyond those sugar-sweet sitcoms, is now face to face with the personification of its earlier self: Frank Grimes is early Simpsons, the real-life/cartoon hybrid grounded version of a middle-class man struggling to make ends meet, reacting to the ridiculous cartoon world that The Simpsons has become with disgust and horror, proclaiming the new Homer Simpson as his enemy now and forevermore.

This is pure alchemy. Over 8 seasons of comedic genius and experts working at their craft, The Simpsons has completely transformed. It's changed so much that its past self, personified by Frank Grimes, cannot comprehend the implications of its transformation. It cannot comprehend that people laud and celebrate this version of what it has become.  In fact, we can go one step further with this. The rivalry between Homer and Grimes, where one envies the other for his success and curses his own inadequacies while blaming his lot in life is a dynamic familiar to the very era of the show Grimes represents: it's the dynamic that Homer and Ned Flanders had early on. If you'll recall, that dynamic reached its zenith back in Season 3 with "When Flanders Failed", where Homer's desire to see Flanders' comeuppance led to him showing empathy once it happened, and stepping up to do the right thing for the man. At the end of the day, Homer Simpson is a good man with many foibles and flaws. By contrast, Frank Grimes is an embittered man worn down by the grind of the American system, while ironically believing in it so much that the existence of a man like Homer Simpson is anathema to him. Frank will not have the empathetic epiphany that Homer did upon seeing Flanders' failure. Frank's act 3 attempt to humiliate Homer and prove that he's a complete moron who should be mocked and ridiculed instead of championed completely fails. Of course it fails. Compared to going to outer space, what's entering a contest for children and winning first prize as Springfield sees nothing wrong with this? This is when the rubber band snaps. When early Simpsons, Frank Grimes, cannot reconcile what it was with what it has become. When Frank Grimes breaks. Frank Grimes goes insane. Early Simpsons goes insane. It sees the vast cosmic horror of what the show has become, and fucking dies.

Alright, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic and playing into the fan sentiment that the Golden Age of The Simpsons ends by going insane and electrocuting itself, so let's temper this a bit with the reminder that the quality difference here is fluid. There are bad episodes in Season 8 which are worse than the divisive episodes of Season 9 we are about to discuss. Not just middling "I have nothing to say here" episodes, either, but stuff I actively did not like such as "My Sister, My Sitter" in which Bart is an unusually malicious brat and the third act becomes this extended bit of misery which just sorts of wraps up in an anticlimax of not caring because its 22 minutes are up. Which just about brings us nicely to the infamous episode of Season 9, as derided as "Homer's Enemy" is praised. Let's talk about the supposed moment that the Simpsons dashed itself upon the rocks: episode 2 of Season 9, "The Principal And The Pauper".

I don't hate it, but I understand how it could be hated. It is playing with fire by pulling an absolutely absurd gonzo retcon out of nowhere, that Principal Seymour Skinner is an imposter named Armin Tamzarian who assumed the identity of the real Skinner when he was supposedly killed in Vietnam, and has been living a falsehood ever since. The kind of nonsense a long-running show would throw against the wall to see what sticks. I knew this was coming, of course, and I had an idea of what I wanted to say when I got here. Funny enough, actually watching the show changed those thoughts just a bit. You know what actually watching the show with this knowledge didn't ruin, though? Principal Skinner. The fandom in general will act as if this is some character-destroying malarkey that retroactively fucks with all of the prior jokes Skinner has about being either a Vietnam vet with PTSD or a mama's boy. I don't recall a single time rewatching any of those gags in the previous seasons where I went "Well that's not as funny because I know he's really Armin Tamzarian". Indeed, my original point was going to be about how apt it is that this is the straw that breaks the camel's back: that it was fine for The Simpsons to mock anything and everything about popular culture and the American experience in the 1990s, but the moment that it took the piss out of long-running continuity it was a bridge too far which pissed off its most ardent fans.

In watching the show, however, continuity matters just a little more than I thought. Bleeding Gums Murphy dying, Lisa becoming a vegetarian, the Van Houtens divorcing... there are moments in which things actually stick in the continuity of the Simpsons. That makes it a little harder to be derisive of the fandom bringing out the pitchforks when it's their turn to be mocked, but only by a little. Hell, even the ending is a twist of the knife in supposedly giving them what they want. It's a blatant press of the reset button, textually stating "Everything is going to go back to how it was before and this will never be mentioned again". This is a total "Screw The Audience" joke, of which The Simpsons has made comedic gold out of dozens of times. In this context, though, it was seen as a thumb in the eye to the longtime fans. Is it conclusively the end of the Golden Age? No. Is it the worst episode ever? Also no. What it represents, though, is the first time that something was so soundly rejected when it comes to this show. The moment where the fandom took offense and said "no thanks". It's almost fitting, then, that it involves Skinner: just as his ridiculous gambit of purchasing fast food and disguising it as his own cooking has lived forever in the cultural memory, so too does his identity as Armin Tamzarian. It's something that Simpsons fandom is still bitching about to this day. Hell, I'm kind of doing it right now, aren't I? I am not outside of this magical circle. I've always been here.

It's worth tracking just what kind of dark alchemy is on play in the season transition. From "Homer's Enemy", there are two episodes remaining in Season 8. The finale is a normal episode about Bart and Lisa going to a military academy and bucks the trend, but the episode before that is "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase", which is just a bunch of made-up pilots for spinoff shows. Frank Grimes going mad and dying broke the show so hard it can't even air a normal episode. Season 9 opens with "The City Of New York Vs. Homer Simpson", which would have gone wild with implications if I were continuing on to 2001 Simpsons, due to the bulk of act 2 involving Homer in New York babysitting his impounded car... at the World Trade Center, four years before it happened. From there you get the Armin Tamzarian episode, and now that continuity is a mockery, along comes "Lisa's Sax" to utterly destroy it. It's not that it's a bad episode: on the contrary, it's a lovely showing of Homer's love for his children by sacrificing his comfort to buy Lisa her first saxophone. No, the issue as far as caring about Simpsons continuity is that this is another flashback episode... but thanks to how long the show has been on the air, the events take place in 1990. With Lisa as a toddler and Bart in kindergarten. Despite the fact that the first season also takes place in 1990. With this episode, The Simpsons officially implodes any sense of true continuity or canon by aligning itself with a sliding timescale. "Lisa's Sax" and the entirety of Season 1 cannot both have happened in 1990. Fittingly, this episode also has a joke in which Homer is befuddled watching Twin Peaks. Much like that show, from now on linear time is merely a suggestion for The Simpsons.

And it goes on like this. Season 9 is, like... fine. I don't know if it's that the episodes dipped in quality or I was just feeling burnout after binging one show for half a year, but I struggle to find a lot of things to say about these. There are still very clever and funny episodes, of course. I loved "Lisa's Sax" and the end of the season has another great Homer/Lisa episode with "Lost Our Lisa", culminating in the two breaking into a museum and discovering an ancient Egyptian artifact's secret via accidental vandalism. It's simultaneously as sweet as the heart of The Simpsons always was, and on brand for this era of the show. "The Last Temptation Of Krust", despite having an appalling joke where Krusty does a racist Chinese impression as a comedy act and bombs on stage, uses Krusty as metacommentary for the state of comedy in the late 90's as well as about the possibility of The Simpsons being outdated and having sold out. On the same note is "Lisa The Simpson", which has Lisa worrying about hitting her creative peak at the tender age of 8. In Season 9. "The Joy Of Sect" is just a funny one all around, parodying cults and Scientology and having some absolute banger jokes, physical comedy, and even some sly references. It really feels like vintage Simpsons! 

On the other hand, the Armin Tamzarian style "Eh, wrap the episode up with a joke, screw the audience" of humor is prevalant in many of these episodes. "Das Bus", an episode that plays at being a Simpsons version of Lord Of The Flies, ends with James Earl Jones in voiceover appearing to make up the ending right then and there, just saying that Moe rescued them. "The Trouble With Trillions", an absurdist farce involving Homer and Mr. Burns with a trillion dollar bill, just ends with Burns saying he'll bribe his way back to the normal status quo. The most egregious, perhaps, is "Trash Of The Titans" in which Homer becomes head of sanitation for the city, completely fucks up Springfield with mounds of buried trash erupting from the Earth, and the resolution is Springfield moving a few miles up the road. Again, this is still a good episode, but there is this prevalent sense of "oh, fuck it, end it however" at play in this era. This is also around the time where we lost Phil Hartman. There's a rather fun episode, "Realty Bites", in which he's a realtor and Marge ends up working for him. It's got good jokes, but it also sees a new sort of paradigm at play: one which fandom has dubbed "Jerkass Homer", in which Homer's rampaging manchild tendencies have been dialed up to 11 at the expense of his redeeming qualities. This is not entirely the case, as there are heartfelt episodes with Homer in this season, but there is much buffoonery at play in this and many other episodes. He gets into comedic hijinks, is a loudmouthed lout, and frequently engages in wacky schemes. Again, par for the course for Homer Simpson, but it's how these trends are amplified and the more grounded moments set aside that stands out. How far we've come.

I want to close with one more episode, "Bart Star". It's nothing too groundbreaking, having Bart play for a pee wee American football team and Homer becoming the coach. As far as Simpsons sports episodes go, the hockey one was better. Homer is a jerk to Flanders because he always was, but because Ned snapped in "Hurricane Neddy" he can actually clap back at Homer a little. No, I mention this because randomly for a quick gag, the cast of King Of The Hill show up and Hank gets one line, actually voiced by Mike Judge. I mention this because it shows how far we've come. Before The Simpsons, the biggest prime time animated sitcom was the goddamn Flintstones. Over 9 years The Simpsons has not just affected the cultural landscape, but defined it. Here, in this moment, we see the first stirrings of the next generation it would inspire. You don't get King Of The Hill without The Simpsons, and just two years after this Seth Macfarlane would break out with Family Guy, truly inspired by The Simpsons in many ways. Particularly in the Golden Age, thanks to Family Guy's propensity for cutaways, but Family Guy also pushed the edge for raunchy humor in ways that The Simpsons would never dream of doing. Your mileage may vary on how effective (or good) any of that is, but the point stands: the creators The Simpsons inspired are stirring to life in this era, about to push the cultural landscape beyond what just the funny yellow family can do.

And that's where I'm leaving The Simpsons. It stands the test of time, and is still a thing today. Whether or not the thing that it is now is as good as the thing it once was is a moot point. God, though, the thing that it once was is sublime. It inspired me in every sense of the word, and it still lives rent free in my head to this day. Revisiting it, trying to pin down my thoughts on how and why it stuck with me... It was a lot of fun. Over 9 years this thing was a mercurial piece of comedy that turned lead to gold, and continued making enough comedy gold to fill Fort Knox. It was expertly crafted, it had a beating heart underneath the cynicism and realism, and even as it allowed the cartoonish and absurd into its world it struck just the right balance to actually change the world it was born to mock. In doing this, I definitely gained a greater appreciation for those first two seasons: I've always been a Season 1 admirer, but I couldn't pin down why until this. That half and half approach between dysfunctional realism and cartoon zaniness was pitch perfect, and even up as far as Season 6 when the latter is turned way up you still have peak episodes.

So that's it, then. I'll leave this up in the air as there's so much more Simpsons to watch. The sobering thought is that it took me half a year to get this far, and that's only a quarter of all the Simpsons there is. For now, I leave The Simpsons in my memory, just as I always remembered it: a nostalgic comedic bit of joy I would watch around dinner time in the evenings, burn into my brain, and move on with my day just a little bit brighter because of it. Something to chill out with, to enjoy, to help relax the mind and begin to unwind after a day of school in the past or a day of work and errands in the present.

In short: Don't have a cow, man.