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By Andreas Trolf
Wired.com guest blogger
What keeps The Simpsons humming after 20 years of animated antics? A "brilliant concept," hard work, characters that never age and a cavalcade of high-octane guest stars, according to the show's longtime producer Al Jean.
Working with brainy guests like Stephen Hawking and Thomas Pynchon — just two of the hundreds of actors, musicians and other celebrities who have made cameo appearances on the show over the past two decades — is truly priceless, he said.
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"You treasure those moments," Jean said during a Wednesday conference call with reporters. "It's a dream life."
The conference call was just part of the media blitz accompanying the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons, a show that has become synonymous with satire and a sort of meta-textual, self-referential loop over the years. Expect more of the same: Next week, the show invades Fox airwaves with an on-air scavenger hunt, and an upcoming episode has Marge posing for a racy photo shoot even as she appears in the November issue of Playboy magazine.
Always hyper-aware of its own simultaneous existence as a world unto itself (the "world" of Springfield), a world within an existing world (Springfield as a fictional place, existing only as a tableau on our televisions) and even in the tertiary form (a world twice-removed from reality; i.e. the show's own universe of fictional characters, such as McBain, Knight Boat and the Happy Little Elves), The Simpsons has accomplished something most fictional works could never hope to: the complete and wholesale infiltration of our consciousness.
Upcoming Simpsons:Scavenger Hunt, Nov. 9 to 13
Fox is "paying homarge" to the show with a weeklong on-air scavenger hunt. Spot Simpsons tributes and clues in Fox's prime-time programming and on-air promos, then log in to Fox.com for an opportunity to win daily prizes and to enter to win an ultimate grand prize. "The Devil Wears Nada," Nov. 15
In an effort to raise money for charity, Marge and the Philanthro-Chicks pose for a calendar. At the photo studio, Marge is a bit reluctant to reveal any skin, but the photographer loosens her up with wine. Before long, Marge and her pin-up poses are the talk of Springfield.
"Pranks and Greens," Nov. 22
Fed up with Bart's constant pranks, Principal Skinner tells him there is a former Springfield Elementary student who is hailed as the best prankster ever, even better than Bart. When Bart finally tracks down Andy Hamilton (voiced by Jonah Hill), a 19-year-old who hasn't grown out of his pranking days, they become fast friends.
If that sounds a bit Orwellian, that's because it is. But not really in a sinister way. Over the course of the past two decades, not only have these fictional characters become real to us — more real, in fact, than real people (ask yourself, who do you relate to more, Homer Simpson or Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk?) — their own fictional characters have become real.
Springfield has actually sprung into existence; there's even a replica of the Simpsons homestead at 742 Evergreen Terrace out there somewhere in the Nevada desert.
History, as it were, has been wholly co-opted by a television show. Can you actually imagine a time before The Simpsons anymore? I can't.
So entwined are these characters with our own lives that we have adopted their shorthand ("D'oh!" "Eeexcellent!"), their appearance (haven't we, as a country, begun to look more and more Homer-like with each passing year?) and even what they find titillating (Marge in the real-world edition of Playboy — but would she dare take it all off for Playdude?).
During the Wednesday call, Jean walked us through upcoming Simpsons episodes (Spoiler alert! Bart plays a prank. Homer gets an unexpected new job. Hilarity ensues.), briefed us on the particulars of the on-air scavenger hunt (one lucky winner will receive the ultimate Simpsons prize package!), and waxed philo-sexfully on Marge's upcoming disrobing. (Jean coyly admitted that it won't actually be Marge in the Playboy photos; a body double was used. The part of Marge will be played by Wilma Flintstone.)
Following several questions about of the Playboy spread, Jean finally got to the heart of the heart of the matter: Why does The Simpsons still matter? (Does it? The answer: probably.)
Jean praised fellow Simpsons writers and producers, in particular Sam Simon, James L. Brooks and Matt Groening (much maligned by die-hard fans), and he claims that "working for Jim Brooks has been the most wonderful experience."
When asked about the accusations of acrimony among the show's higher-ups, as recounted in John Ortved's recent oral history of the show (The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History), Jean responded tersely that his time with the show had been happy.
How much was true sentiment and how much was company line? Does it even matter? Probably not. The moment something, anything (an episode of a TV show, a painting, a song, etc.), is released into the world by its creator(s), it ceases to be a referendum on the person. Are not awful people capable of creating something true and beautiful? Can wonderful, giving people not produce something of no real value? Or, what about good, solid, funny people — can they not make something bland and uninspired while still being capable of something wonderful, transcendent and utterly game-changing? Or vice versa all of that.
Jean then dodged an interesting question regarding Seth MacFarlane's seeming domination of Fox's Sunday night prime time lineup by quoting The Simpsons' advertising rates. By mentioning revenue rather than creative gusto, Jean seemed for a moment to go on the defensive.
He never spoke MacFarlane's name, choosing instead to highlight The Simpsons' enviable position as the sixth-highest ad earner on television. "We're still vital," he said, which sounded more like a plea than an emphatic statement.
This was, perhaps, the moment that the veneer of PR wore thinnest. The zenith of The Simpsons has passed; who could not be aware of this? But even if the show is not as good as it once used to be, some of the show's former glory can yet be relived.
And then there's the show's crowning glory: After 20 years, The Simpsons defines and is defined by the typical American family.
Jean said The Simpsons are more representative of the American family now than ever, and that it's not only the United States that's watching. The Simpsons has been translated and rebroadcast all over the world and, it seems, the show has been universally accepted.
"Their strength," he said, "is that they're a family."
So there it is. Don't we all feel the same way about our own families? We love them, sure, but frequently they're maddeningly unfunny, often sad, ugly and irrelevant. But at the end of the day they are still there and we treasure them for that reason.
We all have issues with our parents, our siblings, our spouses and kids, even those that only come into our homes by digital transmission. Are not the emotions engendered by them just as real and vital as our flesh-and-blood families?
Who cares if Uncle Walt tells the same joke every Thanksgiving? Even Reverend Lovejoy has expounded upon the virtues of constancy! So yeah, good luck with that scavenger hunt. I wonder if that issue of Playboy will get me excited in my pants.
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Andreas Trolf lives in San Francisco. Buy him a beer sometime.
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