I checked the TV program: They still run where they always went. The first episode at ten past six, the second at twenty to seven. With commercial breaks, as it should be.
I could tune in. Perhaps they are showing an episode that I have often, but always enjoyed watching. Then it's like putting on your favorite record or meeting a good friend after a long time: you rummage in good memories, discover new things and definitely want to do it more often.
On December 17, 1989, the pilot episode of "The Simpsons" went on air in the United States, "It's Christmas Hard." Less than two years later, German television viewers met Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart, Maggie and everyone else from Springfield. In the first episode, I was in eleventh grade; now I'm in my 40s, the Simpsons have always accompanied me.
There were phases when I watched them every day - at home, with friends, with relatives or on vacation. I had season premieres in the USA and sat on the couch every evening in Sweden in the summer, where the old, small tube apparatus only received three local programs. And the Simpsons on one channel, just like anywhere else in the world.
The nineties: On it a flaming moe
Anyone who liked weird humor had a great time in the 1990s. In the third program, "Schmidteinander" ran with Harald Schmidt and Herbert Feuerstein, Al Bundy was on RTL in "A terribly nice family" - the Simpsons, which initially had their home on ZDF, later at ProSieben. I devoured each episode on a screen size of 36 centimeters, even though the television in my booth was far too far from the couch.
I knew that the next day I couldn't show up with my buddies without being able to quote all the sayings. We had a good time about it the third or fourth time.
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30 years of Simpsons: the world in Homer's headIf you want to know which connections a television series can create, you just have to order a "Flaming Moe" in the right company, call the holiday hostel "Kamp Krusty" or say at a Christmas party: "I am Mister Schneepflug!" The aha effect sets in quickly, you tell each other your favorite episodes and subliminally signal: I know what you're talking about! Such a conversation can last all evening, in the days after that you often use the remote control again.
The episode highlight: "Bart On the Road"
The early episodes stuck. Let's not talk about it: seasons three to eight, maybe also nine and ten, are the best and have produced classics. The creators around Matt Groening were at the peak of their work and packed everything in creativity and wit into these episodes. They brought us highlights such as the "Crisis in Kamp Krusty", "Once as Snow King!", "Homer and the Singing Brothers" or "Bart Becomes Famous". The Simpsons even indulged in a double episode in the form of a classic "whodunit" thriller with cliffhanger at the end of season six with "Who shot Mister Burns?"
What I liked most was when, in addition to humor, the madness out there was also targeted in reality, for example in "Homer gets going": Mister Burns has to pay the city of Springfield three million dollars for pollution. But citizens let the windy cheater Lyle Lanley chatter a useless and broken monorail; he collects the coal and burns with it.
At least Homer, as a monorail train driver, can stop the runaway vehicle - destroying much of the city. The book for the episode was written by the later talk show host Conan O'Brien, directed by Rich Moore, who received an Oscar for the animated film "Zoomania" in 2017.
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DISPLAY
Reiss, Mike, Klickstein, Mathew
Springfield Confidential: Everything about the Simpsons ─ Behind the scenes of the world's yellowest series - 30 years of Simpsons ─ The unofficial fan book - From the long-time co-author
Publishing company:
Heyne publishing house
Pages:
384
Price:
€ 15.00
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My favorite episode remains the road movie "Die Reise nach Knoxville", in the original "Bart On the Road", a nice homage to the almost eponymous novel by Jack Kerouac. Bart gets a fake driver's license and drives with Milhouse, Nelson and Martin to Knoxville, where they want to go to the World's Fair - which was 14 years ago.
My favorite gag: Wordy Bart and Milhouse justify their parents' absence with the fact that they have to go to Canada for the "grammar rodeo". Nelson, on the other hand, slams the door behind him and only says: "I'll be gone for a week, until then!" Rarely laughed so much.
The 2000s: hangover from the cartoon
It was only a matter of time before a hangover appeared - for me and for the Simpsons. The series got weaker, my time was shorter, and a new era broke out with new competition on a US channel called HBO. The series DVDs were traded as hot stuff among connoisseurs: "Sopranos", "Six Feet Under" or "The Wire".
Suddenly it was uncool for the late twenties to watch cartoons in the evening. And if so, then rather "Family Guy", the Simpsons copy with even more rough humor.
Arch rivals united (2014): joint episode of "Simpsons" and "Family Guy"
E3 2014
Tony Soprano, the Fishers and Omar Little now ruled in the living room - of course in the original and without subtitles, even if you only understood half. That's why I didn't see many Simpsons episodes from that time in the first broadcast, only in reruns. Maude Flanders died, which somehow didn't fit the series at all.
But now and then the Simpsons rose again to heights. In "Rektor Skinner's feeling for snow", for example, the students are stuck with Rector Skinner in the school because of a snow storm. Homer and Ned set out to save the children. The idea goes back to the author Tim Long; his elementary school was actually the only one in the area that opened during a snow storm.
It wasn't always easy for the authors to write jokes. Former Simpsons showrunner and author Mike Reiss tells in the book "Springfield Confidential" how the team desperately sought a gag for the episode "Lisa, the Beauty Queen".
Homer had registered Lisa for a beauty pageant, and she won, but turned into a controversial activist. And so the organizers looked for a reason in Homer's application to disqualify Lisa. All day and half the night the authors couldn't think of anything funny, they wanted to continue almost without a gag when a certain Frank answered. "Homer wrote 'Ok' in a field that says 'Don't Label!'" It can be that easy with the gags. And so funny.
The third decade: time of reconciliation
I admit that at some point I didn't even know if the Simpsons were still producing new episodes. It was a time of reconciliation after difficult years, as sometimes in a relationship: first the big love, then the argument, and yet both remain good friends - and see everything much more relaxed. I can't remember episode highlights from season 20 onwards. Maybe because I saw at most half.
Instead, I have acquired an age-appropriate homely calmness. The streaming portals spit out new series every day. All are more modern, faster, funnier, and you can watch the seasons in one piece. A new generation of viewers does not even know life without the Simpsons because the series has been going on ever since it was born. Maybe they can't do anything with it because their viewing habits are different.
I like to turn on the TV for an hour in the evening to see some good old friends in yellow. After 30 years, you should not change any habits you have become fond of.