In the Commedia, as in The Simpsons, characters have traits that are used and discarded as necessary, with Bart being unncessarily cruel in one episode and having a conscience in another, or Pantalone being lecherous in one performance, but simply miserly in another. It might seem like lazy storytelling and characterization, but it’s all a matter of intent. The characters that people love are archetypes and sketches that’re filled out as they need to be for the purposes of the comedy being told.

In short, I think this article was thought, but not necessarily overthought.

The little breaches of character are something that bother me, too, but when writing for a show with such a long history, it’s easy to get hamstrung if you let those things stop you. I don’t think they can afford to throw away ideas anymore, and if they got too picky the show would never get done.

Essentially, if you’re in the writer’s room trying desperately to crank out another episode of The Simpsons when practically every idea has been used, and then someone says “Bart and Skinner threaten each other with allergies,” and it makes the room laugh, then it’s getting used.

In the room, it’s frowned upon to be the one saying “We can’t use that funny idea because blah blah blah” without offering an alternative, because then you’re just the one stopping the writing from getting done without being constructive. And shooting down ideas before they start can be paralyzing for a writer.

In my opinion, there’s not much anyone could do to make me care about The Simpsons. Yes, recent episodes are lackluster, but I think the biggest problem is that everything about the show, from the characters to the tone, is just too familiar. We’ve seen everything happen to these characters hundreds of times over and just the sheer volume makes nothing seem to matter. Since Al Jean came back, I feel like we’ve seen a revival of the “Homer and Marge have a falling-out and then make up” episodes, which was once one of the show’s strongest formulas, but now nothing could be more meaningless. These stories have gotten so worn out that regardless of continuity, each one has zero stakes. Not only do we know that Homer will get her back (after all, we knew that even in early seasons), we don’t even care how he does it. Besides, these days it’s likely to be a lazy throwaway joke anyway.

I think the throwaway endings of the Scully years (esp. the one where they end up on the island, or when the volcanic eruption is interrupted by a telethon) were pretty funny, and were kind of meta jokes about how TV show endings don’t really matter. However, they might have worked too well, since they also set a bad precedent where it made them matter less, and made it hard to care about a Simpsons ending ever again.

I also have very little problem with the Bart Skinner/baby animal disconnect. You can’t think of instances in the real world where a person would punch another person in the face without thinking twice but would adopt a lost puppy?

You’re a little too unforgiving when it comes to characters making uncharacteristic choices and/or having lapses in ordinarily decent judgment. Personally, I think it makes the characters easier to relate to on a human level. We all have lapses in judgment and all but the most boring of us act uncharacteristically from time to time. If the characters were perfect molds, I think the show would be even worst than it is now.

In the case of Bart, he’s always had a few episodes where his bad boy streak has gone over the top and he’s usually paid the price (I believe he and Skinner both wound up in the hospital for their allergic reactions to shrimp and peanuts, respectively). I don’t think that means he can never go back to the kid who can sometimes show some tenderness and good judgment when it really counts.

On Lisa, if you’ll notice, she very typically acts her age when it comes to dealing with Bart. So, her goading Bart and his new found prankster friend by calling them losers, isn’t so out of character. She’s always looking for ways to get back at her brother who’s always deriding her for her intellect. Also, if you’ll recall, the cemetery episode actually dealt directly with Lisa thinking she was too smart to be afraid of monsters and cemeteries and such. She kept trying to deal with her fear rationally and logically, but was still afraid, until the monsters told her that it was perfectly normal for her to be afraid sometimes as an 8-year-old girl.

Also, the Party Posse was purposed to recruit people into the Navy, not the Army. And they weren’t leprechaun jockeys, they were elf-like (as in Keebler) or troll-like creatures that lived “underground in a fiberglass tree”. ;)

And now, I’m officially overthinking it. :P

Love,
A grammar nazi.

1) The leprechaun jockey episode may have been a hot mess, sure. But it was also, at the time, one of the most effective meta-episodes of television I had ever seen, taking to task both the show itself and the more nitpicky segments of its audience, both of which richly deserved the ribbing.

2) In the context of fish, “bone” and “de-bone” mean the same thing. If that helps.

I understand where your sympathy comes from, and I do also realize that it is probably staggeringly difficult to come up with episode ideas once a show has run for a long period of time, let alone 400+ episodes. However, you will notice that I didn’t really disparage the writers for their storyline choices, except on a few occasions when I found it particularly egregious and lazy (for example the exact double episode).

Often times The Simpsons have a very loose (The Simpsons go to X place) or silly plot, but I let it slide generally because I realize that original plots are hard to come by at this point. However, I cannot abide them blatantly changing character traits and rendering us unable to really relate to the characters. They could have continued to tell stories without giving the characters convoluted and conflicted characteristics I feel.

Anyway, since you wrote for Daria (I both clicked your link on this page and then checked out your IMDB) and you have had a chance to work my dream job, I respect and appreciate your insight.

My main issue, then, with the episode, is that they used a character whose history we were familiar with with flashbacks and such. If, for example, Lenny, had some sort of different history than the characters had been led to believe, Mr. Keeler could have dealt with the same themes. However, he chose Skinner, who had a well established back story, and that is what aggravated people. Of course, Keeler’s contention was that such aggravation at television characters was the very thing he was satirizing, but I don’t know why you would want to mess with the emotions of your loyal fans.

Anyway, my problems with that episode aren’t as egregious as other episodes, so I didn’t really mention it, but there is certainly reason to dislike said episode. I was mostly concerned with when they changed characters emotionally, though I did mention the retcon that was in the similar vein to The Principal and the Pauper.

Also, I do realize I said that in the boy band episode they were subliminally recruiting for the army, when, of course, it was for the navy. Yvan Eht Nioj and all that. Error on my part. I apologize.