Back in the mid 1990s, my younger bother, then the head of a newly-minted blended family, playing loving step-father to a boy and a girl (he just entering his teens, she still a sub-teen) assured me with some vehemence that The Simpsons was subject to a ban in his household. A ukase, even. He was wary lest the badly behaved Bart should become an imitable item for his step-children. In so doing, he fell victim to a common misconception: that the long-running series about America's favorite dysfunctional family was somehow about Bart Simpson. But, even as he was making his fatuous remarks, indicative of an inability to understand just how relevant and mordant was the satire of the series, Bart had been well and truly relegated to a support role and Homer J had taken charge. Now in its umpteenth series, and even being subject to endless re-runs by the local 10 network (which realises from ratings and sponsorships, if not from any intuitive or intellectual leap of understanding, that this is a television series non pareil), The Simpsons is not only an outstanding commentary on contemporary American society, it is without peer among television sitcoms of the last 25 years. Perhaps of all time. And it owes it all to Homer J Simpson. And some good writers.
I laugh when some smartie asserts that Friends or Seinfeld or some equally lame-arse nominee is the all-time greatest televisual sitcom. I collapse in a hopeless bundle when Sex and the City is suggested. Leaving aside that such assertions never seem to consider that the British produced more than their fair share of sitcoms (although usually not with the fecundity of episodes that mark the American genus), such nominations are usually the product of a lack of depth in the appreciation of the sitcom art. Such suggestions usually arise because the asserter has no historical knowledge of the precursors of the 1990s examples, or because they are dedicated followers of modern fashion, or because they do not give an animated series the same respect that live action comedy is afforded.
So it may come as a shock when, given my vast knowledge of television sitcoms dating back to the days of Sid Caesar and Milton Berle, that my nominee for the best of all time is a product largely of the 1990s - and an animated one at that.
The Jack R Herman theory of television sitcoms argues that there are two great schools of sitcom programming (named for their progenitor series): the I Love Lucy (ILL) and the Mary Tyler Moore (MTM). The former deals with a family, sometimes barely functional, usually with a housewife female and a working male. The child or children are an optional extra. (In modern versions the husband is also an optional extra.) There is usually a next-door neighbor, frequently a married couple, although occasionally a single parent. The MTM deals with a pack of single twenty/thirty-somethings, frequently in the media, all seeking the holy grail: Mr/Ms Right. In either case, in the American genus, it is de rigeur for there to be at least one character who is a dumb as dogshit; sometimes more than one. Lucy was endearingly dumb and MTM's own Ted Baxter set the benchmark for the next generation, populated by Joeys and Al Bundys and (in a particularly novel Australian entry) Nudge. Most, if not all, sitcoms are either ILL or MTM. MASH may be the one truly successful exception - and it may not be accurate to call it a sitcom.
The successful modern live-action sitcoms have mainly been in the MTM mode. There is nothing remotely remarkable about Seinfeld or Friends. They are just modern derivatives of MTM, with characters that aren't half as interesting. For all that everyone raved about Seinfeld being 'the show about nothing', it was just a run-of-the-mill sitcom with people whom you would cross the street (hell, you'd cross town) to avoid. Given the lack of sympathy you can extend to the characters, you might expect that, at the least, the situations would elicit interest. But nothing really does happen. Especially anything funny on any consistent basis. Unless you're turned on by Kramer's mugging or George's from-hunger attitude, it really was a nothing show, the hardest thing to accept being Jerry's alleged success as a comedian. Whatever its early promise, Seinfeld jumped its shark when George went to work for the NY Yankees. Friends is similarly populated by unlovable singles who endlessly repeat the same tropes and re-arrange themselves in the various pairings available to (heterosexual) singles. The first two series were reasonably crisply written but familiarity bred contempt. I could never stand Ross, largely because David Schwimmer was such an off-putting actor, and Chandler was created as a real nebbish. Considering that Monica was a fussbudget that only a mother could like, that left only 50 per cent of the characters worth worrying about. As Joey was stupid and Phoebe a kook, it's no wonder Jennifer Aniston and Rachel attracted so much attention. But the inventiveness of the script soon ran out and Friends had jumped its shark by the time Chandler and Monica wed.
There have been two other contemporary live action sitcoms that have been mentioned in dispatches whenever the best ever (US) sitcom is discussed: a brace of 1990s "gay" series, Frasier and Sex and the City. While one is ostensibly about a pair of straight brothers and the other about a gaggle of single NY women, both are essentially about gay men, written by gay men and pitched at the gay market, although some straights can see the joke as well, particularly in Frasier, which I would nominate as the best of the live action comedies of the 1990s. Sex and the City I claim particular ignorance of. I tried it once or twice, found it so off-putting, especially in the person of the central character, Carrie, that I couldn't stay, despite the presence of the lovely Kim Cattrall. The use of Scary Jessica Parker in the lead was a self-imposed ab initio shark-jumping and the series has not had the longevity of the others.
Frasier I have a lot of time for. Spun off from Cheers, which itself was, for a couple of years, as good as any sitcom of the1980s (it jumped its shark with the death of Coach and the arrival of Woody, and when Diane left), Frasier even survived the death of its creator in the 11/9 attacks. Ironically, he cast two straight actors in the semi-gay roles of Niles and Frasier and an openly gay actor, John Mahoney, in the only continuing 'straight' role, Martin, their father. Kelsey Grammar provided a steady influence at the centre but the series was largely successful because of the other characters, particularly David Hyde Pierce's Niles, Jane Leeves' Daphne Moon and Peri Gilpin's Roz. Here was a series without the usually requisite dumb character: they were largely sharp, sophisticated and intelligent. The scripts were of a consistently high standard through seven or eight seasons, with only the very rare dud. They asked the viewer to think and made consistent allusions to popular culture, and to high culture. Fancy sympathetic leads of a sitcom who enjoy the opera, fine wines and good dining! Its late shark-jumping, however, was a classic, defying the Moonlighting rule: never resolve the long-running romantic frustration of the lead characters. In this case it was Niles' previously unresolved longing for Daphne. Even allowing for that lapse of judgment, the series continues to amuse and entertain, in a way that the other 1990 live action series don't.
But the best of the 1990 sitcoms is definitely The Simpsons. Not only has it maintained a high standard of wit and satire over an extended time - far longer than any of the other potential nominees - but it has changed the landscape of television comedy. Admittedly there had been a small number of successful animated series earlier, The Flintstones and The Jetsons being prime examples, and some animated series, particularly those from Jay Ward, including Rocky and Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle, which had been strongly satirical of contemporary mores, but the combination of the two in a regular, long-running, animated series is unique. The Simpsons is in the ILL tradition. Like a number of post-modern remakings of the American family sitcom, The Simpsons re-invents the American family as a dysfunctional unit. Gone is the calm, successful pater familias of Father Knows Best and My Three Sons; enter the father-as-slob, but a much more palatable version than Al Bundy. Nor is Marge the ditzy mother that Lucy patented. She is the rock on which the family rests - a housewife/home maker admittedly but often shown as much more than that. The kids are also more extreme than any earlier version. The Beaver was a naughty boy but Bart is positively evil. But he is more than that. He is the modern Huck Finn, except he never learns and never matures. Lisa is the smart one in the family but is also the one with empathy. But she, like Bart, loves the ultra-violent Itchy and Scratchy. Maggie is the Simpson changeling, the perennial baby, always just pre-speech.
The thing that an animated series has been able to do, and where it wins over the other series mentioned, is that it can have a cast of characters which background the family and re-appear from time to time. And what a panorama of types, individuals and groups they are. Grandpa (Abraham) Simpson and his fellow-travellers at the Springfield Retirement Castle allow for the elderly to have a number of voices. Marge's sisters, Selma and Pattie, provide a different focus. At Springfield Elementary there are teachers and students, Seymour Skinner and Edna Krabopple at one end; Groundskeeper Willie in the middle; Ralph, Milhouse, and Nelson and the other bullies; not to mention Otto-man. Homer's place of work, the nuclear plant, has both bosses and peons; his place of recreation, Moe's, has another group. That's not to mention the Flanderses, Apu, Comic Book Guy, Cletus, Rev. Lovejoy, Chief Wiggins and the other police and all those nice people at the TV station, on Krusty's program, Kent Brockman and Troy McClure. And that barely scratches the surface of scientists, doctors, criminals and jazz musicians that inhabit Springfield. And a reasonably small group of actors have voiced most of them.
The writing has been brilliant over the run of the series. And continues so to be. One of its great advantages over other sitcoms is its variety. While most sitcoms quickly settle into a pattern, with few sets and a normal story arc for each episode - the worse the series the less it varies from its patterns, so, for example, Married with Children followed a pattern so rigid that it could have been classic Noh theatre, The Simpsons' crowning achievement has been its ability to switch up. The blackboard message and the family entrance to the lounge room change in the pre-show sequence and are interesting enough, but the ability of animation to take us anywhere, with a wide number of 'sets' around the town, rather than the limited tableaux of live-action series, helps the show. But, even more, the writers are likely to switch-up within a show, taking the story in a radical direction after the opening five minutes. Such switches can be breath-taking at times and help create an air of unpredictability, diametrically opposite to the usual sitcom fare. When this is added to the tendency for the show to pastiche established entertainment modes, or particular films and series, you get a completely original, anarchic and outrageous take-off of popular culture in all its facets. This self-referential dissing from within is a hallmark of the best humor of any age. Into which category I'd slot The Simpsons.
The central character, Homer J, is remarkable enough, a low mimetic everyman who somehow manages to overcome the vagaries of ill-fortune, stupidity and inimical family members to survive and prosper. He is model to us all and his program remains a beacon of brightness in an otherwise dull and repetitive television landscape. Satire is rare. American satire even more so. Good, long-running and biting American satire - for that The Simpsons is unique. As television continues its decline into the pits of second-rate meta-reality, as their contemporaries jump their respective sharks and fall into oblivion, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and co continue to amuse and instruct us. And parents now recognise that there are greater dangers to their children than the idea that an animated Peck's Bad Boy might lead them astray.
First written: April 2004
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