In article <1992Nov3.212444.4
...@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> fl
...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>Wow, what an intense episode. ... I didn't know it was
>going to be so cool so I didn't take notes. Anyway......
Intense? I thought this was easily the
worst episode ever. Simply not
funny. "Where did he put the firecracker?" I can't imagine child abuse
being funny. Now, somebody being eaten by a gorilla, somebody being hit
by lightning, that's funny. Child abuse is not. The way I interpreted it,
this was a reference to a standard technique of using dolls to get physically/
sexually abused children to talk about the abuse incidents.
Bart dropping his pants. How many times is this funny? Well, it was
funny when we saw it in a previous episode. But I don't think that
Bart's butt is inherintly funny. Also, we have never actually seen
Homer spank Bart, have we? So why does Bart expect it so readily?
Bart as a stripper. Really more repulsive than funny. The bad thing about
things like this is that I used to disagree with parents who didn't let
their children watch the Simpsons - I no longer disagre with them. I
would not have wanted my children (if I had any) to watch that scene.
Star Trek. In Living Color has done it. Saturday Night Live has done it.
Mad magazine has done it. Local high school talent shows have done it.
Now, the Simpsons have done it, and they didn't do it any better than anyone
else. Should have left it alone, and come up with something original.
Homer being very familiar with Chief Justices. (BTW, the title is 'Chief
Justice of the United States', not 'Chief Justice of the Supreme Court' -
don't know if this error was intentional or not, it's not really important.)
Once in a while, when Homer throws out something like that, it is funny.
Yes, it is out of character for Homer to say anything too intellectual, but
I admit one of my favorite Simpson's moment is when Homer is intervening
in an argument between Lisa and the Albanian kid (Adil?) and he says
something about 'the blood of the workers oiling the machinery of
capitalism'. But that was just a one time thing. maybe it was something
that Homer heard once, and it got stuck somewhere in his brain. But
we know that this is an aberration, Homer is simply not a bright guy.
I can't believe he is that familiar with the names of the Supreme
court justices. (However, I did laugh at 'Warren Burger...Mmmmm....Burger...')
It would have been more in character if Lisa had recited the names...
And I didn't like the bit about 40 years from now, although I don't really
have an argument against it. I just didn't like it.
This episode was an appeal to the lowest common denominator. It exploited
cliches instead of exposing them. It twisted character traits in order to
go after laughs. It relied on gimmicks that got a laugh in the past. It
became a parody of itself. I repeat, this was by far the worst episode ever.
I hope it was an aberration - I don't think I have seen these trends in
other recent episodes, so I am hopeful.
-JD
--
"Good Idea, Boss." - Homer Simpson
