Transcription
brought to you by keeps. Stay tuned till the end for more information. Hey, meme sauce MP here. Why are the Simpsons green?
The green Simpsons effect is a running gag on this channel where I take footage of The Simpsons and hue-shift it upwards approximately 44 degrees, transforming their familiar yellow into a somewhat alien green. The joke began in a video from February 2016, in which I remixed a clip from the episode "Homer's Enemy." At the time, The Simpsons had just aired their 588th episode. 588 nanometers is the approximate wavelength of yellow light as seen by the human eye.
MDB is the internet's most popular film and television database, and the place where people from all around the world unite to rate everything. A seven out of ten. The Simpsons, as a series, has managed to earn an 8.7, and a handful of its very best episodes have reached the fabled 9 category. But out of nearly 700 total episodes and counting, just one sits definitively above all the rest. The name of this episode is "Homer's Enemy."
The Simpsons is the longest-running prime-time television series in the U.S., and across three decades of programming, no other episode is more provocative, polarizing, and profound. It is the resounding conclusion to one of the greatest runs of any show ever. After this episode, The Simpsons was never the same, and come to think of it, neither were we.
"I've had to work hard every day of my life, and what do I have to show for it?" "And what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance?" "Stay the hell away from me, because from now on, we're enemies."
It's impossible to appreciate the significance of "Homer's Enemy" without first understanding the series that preceded it. The Simpsons is a show about many things: family, politics, religion. But most importantly, The Simpsons is a show about America.
There's a running gag in the series over the specific location of The Simpsons' home town. Springfield is one of the most common place names in the U.S. You can find a town called Springfield in more than 30 states. So, which of these Springfields is home to TV's most iconic yellow family? The truth is, it doesn't really matter what part of the country The Simpsons call home. The series has intentionally kept clues about Springfield's location inconsistent and contradictory. Springfield isn't in America as much as it is America. The town represents an amalgamation of American culture, attitudes, and institutions. It's a malleable template for the show to comment on society in the United States. The true location of The Simpsons' home may forever remain an enigma, but in a way, all of us live in Springfield.
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Two hours away from Springfield, Oregon, a young Matt Groening is developing a passion for cartoons. In 1972, he leaves his parents, Homer and Marge, to attend the progressive capital of the Pacific Northwest, Evergreen State College. There, he would embark on the first steps in his journey towards creating one of the most influential cultural contributions of the 20th century. But before he could do that, Matt Groening had to enter hell.
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Like many aspiring artists of the modern age, Matt Groening would spend much of his twenties languishing away in California while bouncing around between what he described as a series of lousy jobs. Groening would document his frustrations in a self-titled comic book called "Life in Hell." The comic carried much of Groening's youthful cynicism and irreverence, and what started as a set of photocopy drawings shared among friends quickly picked up steam throughout L.A.'s underground art scene. One day, "Life in Hell" would end up in the hands of television producer James L. Brooks. Matt Groening may have started off California dreaming, but his doodling was about to pay off big time.
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1987 would change the face of American television through the grand opening of the Fox Network. For nearly three decades, the big three networks had reigned supreme over the airwaves. American television in the '80s was much like the culture that surrounded it: conservative, sanitized, and family-oriented. Primetime programming consisted mainly of sugary sitcoms with responsible and virtuous role models. The big three networks at this time had one simple strategy: mass appeal. They strayed away from programming that would risk alienating general audiences. Typically, this group included children, parents, and the elderly. The Fox Network had a different strategy in mind. Their plan was to appeal to the other guys.
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Generation X represented a group of Americans unlike any that came before them. It was a generation who found themselves born into a very different America than the one afforded to their parents. They grew up in a time when the president, America's most prestigious role model, was forced to resign in shame after getting exposed as a corrupt scoundrel. They witnessed the mighty and unbeatable U.S. military get humiliated through a fiasco in some part of the world most of them couldn't even find on a map. By the time they reached adulthood, they were met with the worst economy since the Great Depression, unthinkable environmental crises, and the continued existential dread of nuclear annihilation. With all that said, it's not hard to understand why many in Gen X had no choice but to view the world with ambivalence and apathy. Television in the early '80s tried to maintain the illusion of America continuing to be the shining city on a hill, but for those occupying lower ground, the realities of the country's flaws were far too much to ignore.
Fox became the first major network to specifically appeal to the Gen X attitude of cynicism and irreverence, the very same themes featured in the works of Matt Groening. In 1986, Groening got a call from James L. Brooks offering the opportunity of a lifetime. The Fox Network was looking for a cartoon segment to air on the debuting Tracy Ullman Show. Unwilling to give up the rights to "Life in Hell," Groening conceived of a different premise: a family based on himself, his parents, and his two younger sisters. The Simpsons entered the fray among a long lineage of American television families, and soon people would come to realize that they were not at all like their predecessors. The Simpsons represented an honest portrayal of dysfunction in the American household. Viewers were immediately drawn to the yellow family's relatable drama, and the segment quickly became one of the most popular on Tracy Ullman. By 1989, The Simpsons had become so popular that they were upgraded from segment to series, and so began one of the most influential television programs in the history of American entertainment.
It's remarkable just how different The Simpsons was than anything else on television at the time. It was edgy, subversive, counterculture from an underground artist. The show was experimental, avant-garde, and even postmodern at times. It was the first mainstream show to repeatedly reference and parody other media, relying on the audience's own knowledge of movies and TV for much of its humor. The show was free to determine its own creative direction without network interference, a liberty that was virtually unheard of in 1989. Not to mention that the series was animated, a genre that for the past two decades was exclusively associated with children, toys, and breakfast cereal. The Simpsons broke so many molds that it's almost preposterous to consider a show this brazen airing on network television in prime time. The series essentially rebelled against all of mainstream television and ended up taking much of America with it.
Season 1 debuted to an audience of 30 million people, immediately cementing itself as Fox's flagship series. The mischievous Bart Simpson became a cultural icon, one of the first characters to truly appeal to the slacker mentality of the '90s. The character embodied the overall spirit of the show: defiant, unapologetic, and anti-authority. The series was simultaneously beloved and controversial. It was unafraid to challenge America's most revered institutions.
"To make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like The Simpsons." "Huh?" "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an edge of the depression, too."
It's easy to imagine a TV show mocking the president now. It's all about cliché at this point, but in 1992, it was almost unthinkable. Much to the chagrin of President Bush, American TV families became much more like The Simpsons. By the end of the decade, "These talking dinosaurs are more real than most real families on TV." Eventually, audiences ended up resonating more with the yellow cartoon family than many of the others portrayed by real-life actors. The Simpsons didn't just challenge the status quo; it redefined the status quo in its own image. And while it began its run as the anti-sitcom, the show would eventually transform into something entirely different.
Hello, I'm the real Gems, some guy who talks about The Simpsons on YouTube, and this is the history of The Simpsons showrunners: seasons one through seven. The first two seasons were run by a combination of Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon. Obviously, these early years were very developmental, so all three of them brought a skill set that would build the foundation of the show. Season one is well known for its rather rough animation, although things improved significantly halfway through. The early years were considerably more down-to-earth and character-driven in terms of their plot and joke writing. They loved doing fantasy sequences, but weren't about those fast-paced cutaway jokes or anything yet. They kept things small, kept the focus on the family. However, Bart was the breakout star and got a lot of the attention in these early years.
Season 2 was more about the world-building, introducing tons of new characters and giving people like Skinner, Mr. Burns, and Grandpa spotlights. These stories became slightly more topical and satirical, and the characters watched more TV. You can see moments where things are getting a lot more wacky, but by and large, these first two seasons were about telling these classy, focused, character-driven stories with few gimmicks.
For seasons 3 and 4, Al Jean and Mike Reese took over as showrunners. This was where the show became significantly more referential and bouncy, so to speak. They weren't afraid to cut away to something else to do a quick joke or suddenly do these extremely elaborate homages, maybe cut to the TV for some movie parodies. We get more B-plots and converging storylines. There was a stronger Hollywood vibe to this era. You get these big guest star extravaganzas like "Homer at the Bat" and "Krusty Gets Busted." Season 3 tried to keep one toe in the season 2 pond, take a more balanced approach, whereas season 4 pushed the show in a more surreal direction, although that might be a symptom of more Homer-focused episodes. By season 4, the balance between Homer and Bart tilted much farther in Captain Wacky's direction. That being said, it never reached the point of just being a meta-comedy. These punchy pop culture references were balanced by actual character drama. It's not just a silly romp through Duff Gardens; it's also about Selma wanting to have a baby or "Lisa Needs Braces." Seasons 3 and 4 took these extremely down-to-earth character storylines and told them in the most cuckoo bananas way possible.
Seasons 5 and 6, helmed by new showrunner David Mirkin, took the show in a bigger and more high-concept direction. I think "big" is the best descriptor of this era. You'd get Homer going into space, Bart becoming famous, Springfield legalizing gambling, Lisa taking on the toy industry, and that's just season 5. Whereas season 6 concluded with "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" and filled the rest of the season with mysteries, conspiracies, and life-or-death situations. These seasons loved the big Springfield stories, loved finding excuses for the residents to devolve into an angry mob. Their homage and parody game was still strong, sometimes evolving into full-length episode parodies. This was also the rise of "screw the audience" jokes, in which they explicitly set up a fake punchline and then do the exact opposite. The jokes became considerably more subversive and sarcastic, constantly playing games with the audience. There's a higher sense of self-awareness here. The audience has seen a lot of their tricks already, so they gotta keep us guessing.
Veteran writers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein took over the show in seasons 7 and 8. Season 7 took the subversiveness and meta-humor of the previous year and applied it to the types of stories from the early years. There was more of an emphasis to bring things back to the family, tell these emotional character stories like "Mother Simpson" and "Home Sweet Home-Diddly-Diddly-Doo," but it wasn't just the throwback. They took a more experimental approach. "Let's do an extremely mundane and observational simulation of George Bush." "Now let's do a bunch of short sketches and Pulp Fiction homages." Season 7 loved experimenting with its characters, putting them in these strange, high-concept situations and deconstructing who they actually are. By now, it should be clear that the show had evolved into something far beyond a simple riff on the '80s sitcom, but this isn't even close to its final form. In season 8, they pushed things even further.
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Season 8 of The Simpsons would mark the final run of the Oakley and Weinstein era. Many consider it the last hurrah of The Simpsons' golden age, but before their departure, the showrunners were about to take the series to strange new places. Season 8 features the most ambitious and experimental episodes that The Simpsons has ever produced. It pushed the concepts and characters within the show to their absolute limit. The episodes were perhaps the most self-aware and meta in the history of the series. They didn't stop at just breaking the fourth wall; at times, they deconstructed the television industry at large, and on one occasion, The Simpsons went so far as to deconstruct itself. It is the most ambitious and high-concept episode of The Simpsons, most ambitious and high-concept season.
At long last, we have arrived at "Homer's Enemy." It's an episode that presents The Simpsons in their natural habitat, but with a single addition: Frank Grimes. He was created not just as a foil for Homer, but as a foil to the series itself. In many other settings, he would be a hero, but in Springfield, U.S.A., there is no greater antagonist. Grimes is a prime example of a sympathetic villain. His work ethic is admirable, and his struggle is relatable. With Frank Grimes, The Simpsons succeeded in making an antagonist so compelling that he made the audience start to resent the protagonist. Grimes presents a scathing critique of Homer Simpson, the flagship character of the series.
"What are you saying?" "I'm saying you're what's wrong with America, Simpson."
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"Homer's Enemy" confronts the most confounding issue of our time: inequity. The character of Frank Grimes was conceived to resemble actor William H. Macy, who often portrayed downtrodden, working-class roles. Grimes would end up being voiced by longtime Simpsons cast member Hank Azaria, who delivered what is in all likelihood his greatest performance of the series. Azaria described the performance as the most emotional and meticulous he had ever attempted. His goal was to portray Grimes with a seething passion underneath a totally calm exterior, such as the temperament of many working-class people today. Everyone knows what it's like to be treated unfairly; it's one of the most frustrating experiences imaginable. When we contribute to society, we do so under the expectation that our effort will be rewarded. This doctrine is the essence of the American Dream.
What does it mean to be American? It's a question that will remain forever contested, depending on who you ask. But in my humble opinion, the spirit of the United States is rooted in ambition and discontent. Ambition creates discontent. The desire to change the status quo drives people to demand something greater. It's what drives people to give up everything they ever knew and cross an ocean. It's what drives people to overthrow the most powerful monarchy in the world. It's what drives people to venture into parts unknown in search of gold, oil, and whatever else that might make tomorrow a better day. The American frontier saw people risk everything for the opportunity of prosperity and individual liberty. They operated under the simple ideal of a man controlling his destiny through only his own passion and self-reliance. Frank Grimes represents the classical American hero. The only problem being that he exists in modern America, where the idyllic frontier has been all but replaced with catatonically tapping away at a computer for 40 hours a week. In most aspects, the U.S. is no longer the land of opportunity as it was once regarded. Many Americans now experience disillusionment with the American Dream, believing that we are now subject to the same kind of tyrannical oligarchy from which our forefathers originally fled. The only difference now is that we have run out of oceans to cross.
Frank Grimes not only witnesses his own efforts fail to improve his standing; he witnesses Homer prosper from a lifetime of sloth and ignorance. Homer's outcome reflects the American Dream, but his actions reflect the antithesis. The episode raises a serious question, one that potentially threatens our entire perception of the series: If we believe in the simple principle that hard work deserves to be rewarded, then shouldn't we resent Homer Simpson?
Well, why do we like Homer Simpson? There's no denying that Homer is a very flawed character. Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder suggested that Homer may embody all seven deadly sins. Many aspects of his character are quite unpleasant, if not downright unflattering at times. He is reckless, ignorant, impulsive, and over-emotional. He is the spitting image of how people from other countries stereotype Americans: an overweight, lazy, dim-witted consumer. You can call Homer many things, but one thing you can't call him is pretentious. Homer Simpson is the real deal. He doesn't hide behind a sanctimonious persona. The truth is that we like Homer because he represents all of us, whether we want to admit it or not.
In complete contrast to ambition and discontent, Homer embodies a totally opposite, but equally American, ideal: laissez-faire. The attitude of letting the world around you run its own course. Such is the essence of freedom and individual liberty. Only by relinquishing control over others can we ensure our own agency to do as we please. Laissez-faire is most commonly mentioned in economics as the key principle of capitalism, which, depending on who you ask, is the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Laissez-faire created Homer, and it also created Mr. Burns. Is true freedom even attainable if its unaltered state inevitably resurrects tyranny? Pretty much every political belief system today exists to answer this question in one way or another. Realizing that perpetual, endless political debate can easily force us into a nihilistic outlook of society at large, but Homer Simpson may offer us a way out.
"Something very zen about this episode, you know? It's Homer's blind happiness, his ignorant bliss, that just gets him through. You know, despite his overwhelming flaws, Homer has managed to reach a state of modern-day enlightenment. His childlike ignorance has liberated him from the rat race and the cult of work. He somehow exists in total harmony with the frustrations of 20th-century life. In a world where everything has become so nauseatingly complex, Homer represents a return to simplicity. He goes to work, clocks in, and gets paid to do nothing. He is essentially stealing from the most evil man in town, and he doesn't even question it."
"Homer, I don't use the word 'hero' very often, but you are the greatest hero in American history."
If Grimes represents the classical American hero, then Homer may very well be the modern American hero. Sometimes the best way to fight the system is not to rebel against the system, but to exploit the system.
"Hey, seems like a great guy, so I'll give you a little tip: if you turn that security camera around, you can sleep, and no one will ever know."
With a character like Homer, there's beauty in imperfection. Unlike an ideal father figure, he doesn't always have all the right answers, but watching his misadventures provides us with solace that for as much as we screw up, things can still wind up okay. And it's a nice lesson, you know?
"If you... Grimes works, so he's so... he works so hard, he's so uptight, and you can't enjoy life if you're like that." "Where his homework is hapless, but you know, thrilled."
Not everyone can be like Homer; not everyone should be like Grimes. Society can only function with a good mix of both. It's easy to feel sympathy for the plight of Frank Grimes, but at the end of the day, Homer is not his enemy. Hating Homer is kind of like hating your dog. Sure, they may inconvenience us, but that's just the price you pay for unconditional affection. With all the cruelty in the modern world, it's about all you can ask for. At the end of the day, Homer has a heart of gold, even if sometimes he has a hard time showing it.
Where Grimes goes wrong is blaming Homer for his own misfortune. "You leech off decent, hard-working people like me." Perhaps the best scene in the episode is Frank Grimes snapping at the side of The Simpsons' home, realizing Homer's material wealth utterly destroys Grimes's outlook on life. The sheer unfairness of the situation transforms his relationship with Homer from mild annoyance to bitter hostility.
"Homer's Enemy" draws many parallels to Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," one of the first high-profile works to truly question the ideals of the American Dream. "Death of a Salesman's" Willy Loman is a misfortunate, exhausted worker who measures his life's worth through popularity and material wealth. He becomes so paralyzed by this idea of success that he loses his grip on reality. Likewise, is the story and fate of Frank Grimes, who comes to resent Homer's popularity and material wealth. However, this perceived injustice is ultimately an illusion stemming from Grimes's incongruent concept of success. Homer was never wealthy because of his success, nor was he successful because of his wealth. Homer is where he is because of the intrinsic value he places in the people and world around him.
This theme is accented by the B-plot of the episode, where Bart buys an abandoned factory that everyone else thinks is worthless. If most of us bought a factory at auction, we would immediately become consumed by thoughts of profit, value, maintenance, and renovation. When Bart buys a factory, the only thing he thinks about is how he can use it as an extended playground. This premise is a microcosm of how Homer is successful and Grimes is miserable. It is specifically referenced in the dinner scene to punctuate this distinction.
"Beautiful wife, a son who owns a factory." During his rant, Grimes doesn't care about who Bart is as a person; he only bemoans the unfairness of his material possessions. Contrast this response with Homer reacting to Grimes's life story: "I... I live in a single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley." "Wow." While Grimes complains about living between two bowling alleys, Homer is impressed. I believe that referencing a bowling alley with this line was a deliberate choice by the writers to remind the viewer of Homer's lost dream of working in a bowling alley, a dream he chose to sacrifice for the good of his family.
Ultimately, status and material possessions do not determine our character. Our value as individuals is dictated by how we act in our most challenging moments. When push comes to shove, Homer chooses to be kind and forgiving, while Grimes chooses to be spiteful and vindictive.
"I would die a happy man if I could prove to you that Homer Simpson has the intelligence of a six-year-old."
Frank Grimes's fatal flaw is spawned through his obsession with fairness. Unlike the principle of freedom, fairness is not something that can be explicitly given or taken away. It will always be fundamentally tied to randomness and chance. The sad reality is that life is inherently unfair. There will always be someone more fortunate than you, but by that same token, there will always be someone less fortunate than you. Tomorrow, you could win the lottery and then die from a lightning strike. Would that be fair? It's impossible to answer because both of those events are entirely out of our control; they exist beyond the scope of our influence. Even in our most systematic attempts to practice fairness, inequality always manages to slip through the cracks. There is no such thing as an absolutely fair system; someone will always be getting the short end of the stick. By trying to sabotage and humiliate Homer according to what he thinks his co-worker deserves, Frank Grimes is entering himself into an unwinnable battle. In the end, his obsession with fairness ultimately drives him mad. The idea of rewarding a man as incompetent as Homer Simpson is simply too much for him to bear.
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Homer's job as a safety inspector at the nuclear power plant is one of the most iconic gags in the entire show. The premise of a buffoon being responsible for preventing a reactor meltdown is as hilarious as it is dark. If you ask me, however, the whole setup is a perfect metaphor for Homer's outlook towards the universe he exists in. One of the most stressful environments possible, yet his only concerns rest within his narrow slice of the world. Homer is destined to remain forever content, even if the world melts down around him.
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There will never be an elegant, harmonious solution to all of America's problems. A part of America will always be fighting, and another part will just sit back and watch the fireworks. The engine of America is powered by turmoil. No matter how tough things get, it just keeps on chugging ahead. Frank Grimes, or Grimy as he liked to be called, taught us that a man can triumph over adversity.
The end of "Homer's Enemy" is one of the darkest moments of the entire series. The audience is intended to laugh at Frank Grimes's epic meltdown, but at the time, not everyone found it funny. When this came out, I really recall it made half the audience very mad. The more recent generation loves this episode, but when it first came out, a lot of people got very angry about it. Upon release, the episode stirred controversy among The Simpsons faithful. The grisly ending polarized viewers who had actually grown attached to Homer's enemy. Frank Grimes was so persuasive that he successfully turned a part of the audience against the face of the show. In just a single episode, The Simpsons introduced the most compelling antagonist in the history of the series and then utterly dismantled him. They took the classical American hero and lowered him in a casket among gregarious laughter. Looking back, one has to wonder if the series was burying more than just Grimes at the end of this episode.
The origin of this episode was, "What if a guy seemingly from the real world had to come deal with Homer?" The original concept for the character of Frank Grimes was taking a normal, hard-working man and placing him in the satirical and often nonsensical cartoon town of Springfield. He was designed to be categorically unlike any other character on the show. It's for this reason why many have since labeled Grimes as one of the most unique characters in Simpsons history. Except, there is one other character in the series lineage who does bear a striking resemblance to Grimes: a character who on many occasions showed great envy, insecurity, and vindictiveness towards one of his peers. The name of this character is Homer Simpson.
"You know, if he gave Ned Flanders a change..." "Oh, here we go again." "Look, I don't care if Ned Flanders is the nicest guy in the world; he's a jerk."
In the beginning, Homer's Enemy lived right next door to The Simpsons. Ned Flanders served the role of Homer's original foil. He represented the idealized role model of traditional family sitcoms. This era of the show featured a much more desperate and frustrated Homer, one who would go through great lengths to try to measure up to the more wealthy and popular Flanders. Early plots of The Simpsons were frequently driven by Homer's jealousy of Flanders' material possessions. Beyond matters of wealth, Flanders highlighted Homer's inadequacies as a father.
"You were right the first time. He's perfect. Perfect in every way."
A major theme in the early seasons is Homer learning to accept the imperfections of his family. The Simpsons may look dysfunctional versus the picturesque and well-behaved Flanders, but that's okay because The Simpsons don't have to be the Flanders. This conflict effectively captured the original spirit of the show, eventually culminating in the season 3 episode "When Flanders Failed." It's an episode that eerily mirrors "Homer's Enemy," but with the rules reversed. Despite Flanders only showing Homer hospitality and kindness, Homer still roots for his demise. For once, Homer actually gets his wish, and only then does he realize that the ultimate triumph over his adversary hasn't made him any happier.
Many fans of the show wonder what could have happened to the character of Frank Grimes if he wasn't killed off after a single appearance. It turns out the answer may have been hiding in plain sight all along.
"Hey, you okay, Grimy?" "I'm better than okay. I'm Homer Simpson."
Only by viewing "Homer's Enemy" through the totality of the series can we truly grasp the brilliance of the episode. "Homer's Enemy" is not just a critique about the regression of the American Dream; it is a testament to the progression of The Simpsons. When Homer encounters Frank Grimes, he is essentially meeting an earlier version of himself. It could be said that the original vision of The Simpsons was to confront the whimsical television landscape with a brutal dose of realism. The sitcoms that I grew up with presented a sort of weird, zombified ideal of the American family, and it didn't relate to anyone I knew in reality. The show began with a series of grounded and unromantic stories designed to challenge the establishment and place around them. What they never envisioned, however, was becoming the establishment.
By the late '90s, The Simpsons were larger than life. They had become an American institution and a worldwide phenomenon. The show had accomplished more than its creators could have possibly imagined. The Simpsons always prided itself on being at the cutting edge of nuanced, subversive comedy. They pioneered an entirely new genre of programming. Pioneers will always get a lot of credit for whatever they discover. They take unthinkable risks at a time when the odds are completely against their favor. However, every pioneer knows deep down that they will inevitably be overtaken by their successors.
After eight seasons and 175 episodes, The Simpsons were running out of stories to tell. "One problem with doing a show as long as we've done is we're fighting the fact that people are familiar with the show, and it's harder and harder to surprise the audience." There comes a time in all of our lives when we want to go out and change the world, to break free from the system. Eventually, though, life always catches back up to us. Being like Frank Grimes is inherently unsustainable. Sometimes the only option left is to be like Homer.
Following the end of the eighth season, showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein departed to work on the ill-fated "Mission Hill." Matt Groening was all but checked out of The Simpsons at this point, focusing much of his attention on developing the concept for his new series, "Futurama." Starting with season 9, The Simpsons began what can only be described as a long, slow march to mediocrity. It's extraordinarily sad to still see The Simpsons producing new episodes today. It's like watching a dominant athlete have all their remarkable abilities stripped away through the march of time until they are no more special than the rest of us. There's a reason why many all-time greats in pop culture also happen to die young; we never get to witness them wither away into a shell of their former glory. The brilliance of those first eight seasons now only amounts to a measly quarter of the show's entire lifespan. The Simpsons has been on the air so long that YouTube videos complaining about the show's decline have themselves become stale and cliché. What was once the epitome of media counterculture is now owned by the epitome of the media establishment.
Following Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019, The Simpsons featured in a series of uncanny animated bumpers welcoming their new overlords. Considering the prior two decades of openly trashing the evil empire, it's hard to believe that this was even the same show anymore. In all honesty, The Simpsons was never designed to survive until the 21st century. The big media conglomerates just keep it around as a ceremonial token to evoke nostalgia for better times. At this point, Homer Simpson has been relegated to a figurehead, akin to the likes of Mickey Mouse and the Queen of England. Like many other forms of counterculture, The Simpsons ended up becoming the very thing they sought to destroy.
"If I had a TV show, I'd run that supper into the ground. Don't cry for me, I'm already dead."
The Simpsons may have fallen hard, but we only see it that way because its original run set the bar so high. Lots of people today have been amazed by The Simpsons' remarkable ability to prophesy modern-day events in past episodes. The truth is that for as wacky of a place Springfield is, it was entirely modeled off our reality. As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. America is still America, and certain patterns in history tend to repeat themselves. If anything, The Simpsons predicting the future serves more as a testament to how tuned in the series was to American culture at its peak. The satire of The Simpsons held up a mirror to our world. It shouldn't be much of a surprise when some days we start mimicking the reflection.
It's unfortunate to consider how younger generations never had the opportunity to experience The Simpsons at its creative and cultural peak. While the actual show has never been less relevant, the spirit of the show has witnessed a rebirth through the rise of remix culture on the internet. One could say that the fast-paced, irreverent attitude of The Simpsons perfectly foreshadowed interactions on the internet today. Much like a certain young cartoonist from Oregon, a new generation of artists is now using The Simpsons as a springboard to break into the cultural space. The life cycle of the show has now come full circle, going from parody to parodied. So, despite its descent into corporate mediocrity, it's at least comforting to realize that The Simpsons is still contributing to culture in a meaningful way.
One such contribution was made by British underground street artist Banksy, whose brutally unflattering satirization of The Simpsons was aired as part of a 2010 episode. Banksy once famously reflected on the concept of the second death: "when somebody speaks your name for the last time." It suggests that even if we cease to exist in a physical sense, our legacy will continue to influence those who follow us. Frank Grimes may have only lasted a single episode, but what he accomplished in those few minutes of screen time was unforgettable.
There comes a time for every long-running TV series when they jump the shark: a moment when the creators realize that they have exhausted all of their creative juices and have nowhere to go but down, so they release an episode so unabashedly preposterous that it fundamentally undermines any immersion in the story, characters, and world moving forward. With "Homer's Enemy," The Simpsons jumped the shark, but in typical Simpsons fashion, they did so in the most brilliant and subversive way. They welcomed an age of mediocrity with the show's final masterpiece.
"Homer's Enemy" is a monument to a television empire at its absolute peak. It pushes the original artistic vision of the series to its absolute conceptual limit. In just 23 minutes of screen time, The Simpsons created something so intensely profound that we still think about it more than 23 years later after it aired. After this episode, The Simpsons was never the same. It didn't just change the show; it changed the way we looked at the show. "Homer's Enemy" was an episode so high-concept that it elevated the series from a source of entertainment to a source of study. It entices the audience to dig deeper and think harder about the show than they ever have before. Often times, the greatest art doesn't give us all the right answers; it makes us ask the right questions.
The discussion continues. The great lengths we stray in search of our own interpretation of "Homer's Enemy" gives us a wider appreciation of the series as a whole. A majority of Simpsons episodes are not spectacular; many of them are hard to even call entertaining. But we don't remember the series for those episodes. When people think of The Simpsons, they think of an incredible show. They think of a show that redefined comedy and satire. They think of a show that pushed the boundaries of what was possible on television. They think of a show so influential that every other show would eventually copy it in some way. The legacy of The Simpsons has always been defined as a show that stood out from everything else around it.
So, to answer the question, "Why are the Simpsons green?" we may instead want to ask, "Why are the Simpsons yellow?" So yellow skin? Why? Because it looks like there's something wrong with your TV set. Sometimes a small tweak in what we find familiar is all it takes to change our whole perspective. The Simpsons made everyone stop to adjust their TV sets, but the picture within was never broken; everything else around it was. The Simpsons opened our eyes to the yellowness of the whole world. After a while, we no longer questioned why The Simpsons were yellow; they simply were. It was only then, when for just one moment, the creators had nothing else to do but to make them green. "Homer's Enemy" is The Simpsons' magnum opus, and there will never ever be another episode like it.
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