LINE OF THE DAY, part XXXVI

      I've been reading the comments section of this article for quite some time. Yes, I am a long-term Simpsons fan but unfortunately I lack the articulateness with which to defend my love for a show I've been watching since before they were a show. Remember, The Simpsons used to be a series of shorts between sketches on the Tracey Ullman Show back in 1987-1989 before getting their own 30 minute show which debuted in December 1989.

      As far as events go, the debut of the Simpsons has stuck with me to this day. I still remember where I was and how excited I was to see it. I remember staying up late on school nights to watch their shorts on Tracey Ullman while not even caring about the comedy sketches in-between. I have been with the show since I was Bart's age and from I've heard, the show will be ending next year when I will be Homer's age (he's 37, in case you don't know).

      My commitment to The Simpsons perhaps reflects my commitment in other areas of life. So if there's some girl out there who worries about her potential man's commitment to a relationship, let my undying love for the Simpsons be a reflection of how I handle the ups and downs of any interaction we have in life. When I care about something/someone, I never stop caring.

      Anyways, lapsed fans and other types of haters love to spew venom on their once beloved show whose golden years have long since passed. I wish I could remember which episode I heard the commentary in, but I remember vaguely Matt Groening talking about the way we view a show depends on when we first started watching it. The Simpsons, running for as long as it has, cannot remain the same show forever. Yes, the early seasons have a lot more heart to them. I know this. I've been watching them with my Best Friend again recently.

      But the show could not have remained that way. And for those who loved the Simpsons when it had heart, of course they will be disappointed by the increasing cartoonishness of later years. But that increasing cartoonishness was inevitable as the series progressed past its 200th, 300th, and now past its 500th episode. The show may have close to 600 episodes by the time it is capped.

      For me, personally, the Simpsons is divided into two, maybe three, eras. There's the rerun years and the saw-it-only-once years. When the show was new, repeats of older episodes were common. To this day when watching older episodes I can anticipate gags, I remember which gags were used for commercials, etc. But as time went on (probably starting in 1998), episodes repeated less because Fox had a greater pool from which to select, and then, starting in the early 2000s, TV came up with this idea of not airing repeats anymore and the weekday hour of Simpsons repeats on Fox went away so I would only see new episodes once and not become familiar with them later. I can't anticipate their gags. I kind of even forget I have seen them.
     The early episodes were ground into my memory via repetition. The newer ones are largely ephemeral.

      I'd give the Simpsons a third era. Starting around 2010, I noticed the quality of the episodes suddenly changed for the better. I've very much enjoyed the last five years of the Simpsons and wished they would be repeated as frequently as the first ten years so I could enjoy them as thoroughly.

      Anyways (again), it's always nice to have someone defend what appears to be a universally derided episode of the Simpsons. The Principal and the Pauper was an episode that fans consider a fuck-you to them. Principal Skinner was made out to be an impersonator, the "real" Principal Skinner is installed, and at the end of the episode everything goes back to normal. The show was funny and I personally enjoyed the ridiculousness of the episode's ending because, let's face it, the show is a cartoon. I think what pissed people off is that there were reminded they were watching a cartoon. But I like Artemis Strong's defense better:

Geez, [The Principal and the Pauper]'s like one of my all-time favorites. It finds so much joy in creating a point-of-no-return scenario, then rigidly enforces the cartoon/sitcom rule that things always return to stasis.

It wasn't the first time they did that same joke, nor the last. It's sort of the mirror of the recurring gag where they remind you of how full and outlandish the Simpsons' lives are if you consider them in terms of the combined plots of all the episodes.

After I posted this, I gave it more thought and I realized another reason this episode appeals to me is that on the surface it seems to be trashing fans' investment in a character they've come to know. But underneath it, I think it is an affirmation of this love the fans have for even a supporting character like Skinner.

What the episode says is that it isn't important what Skinner's (or any of the characters') backstory is per se, but who that character has been in the time the audience has known them. We grow to love their personalities, not the ins-and-outs of their biography.

We return to these people week after week because of their deeper character, not their characterizations. It's irrelevant whether his given name is Armin or Seymour; what makes Skinner Skinner is his unrelenting stuffy rule-following in the face of Springfield's general chaos.

What this episode confronts is the sort of paradox of having a weekly show like this. There is a desire to have the characters be involved in adventures and conflict that reveals new things about their character, but an aversion to having said development contradict characterization too much. This episode crosses that line, revealing the deepest--and in my opinion most touching--aspects of Skinner's character, but also scuttling the characterization of Skinner as the Mamma's Boy.

So the show has its cake and eats it too, responding just how a fan would, wanting to erase what it had just seen and never speak of it again.

It's a nod to the artifice of continuity and canon, as well as their import.