Twenty Years of Simpson-mania: The Hidden Language

This Sunday’s “Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes” marks the 20^th season for The Simpsons, long Fox Network’s favourite animated family and certified cash cow. Since the inaugural Christmas episode in 1989, the exploits of Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa (along with a cast of hundreds) have eerily paralleled the decline and resurgence of American culture in ways never before thought possible of an animated show. Written by a team of Ivy Leaguers who cast aside the usual professions bestowed upon them, the show has been a cornerstone of social connectedness for a generation of youth.

Over the past two decades, Matt Groening’s brainchild has been castigated by President George H.W. Bush while also ushered in as mandatory family viewing, all the while a renewing faith in adult-themed animation and elevating Fox’s bank account with a billion dollar Simpson’s industry. Truly, without The Simpsons, and its peers of the early 1990s, The Ren & Stimpy Show and Beavis & Butthead, the prosperity of the Cartoon Network and fellow network shows Family Guy might never be certain. In the past twenty-years, the show has gone head-to-head with Frasier (when positioned on Tuesday nights) and Friends (counter-programmed to ‘Must See TV’) before finally finding a home on Sunday nights, where its lead-in was, for a brief time, the now-defunct Futurama. And despite the fluctuation of its weekly timeslot, The Simpsons gained an impossibly tight-knit cult following, with its adorers and its critics, with each episode rated against the last. Interestingly, the most devout have nearly always had a home on the internet, the first ‘alt.net’ groups discussing the show’s decline as early as season seven. Since then, though, the impact of the show has been much bigger than ever thought possible. There is, in short, a hidden language which binds us.

Human males may be the only animals to survive their surroundings by mimicry of pop culture, and so when it became possible to quote from a highly credible and clever source, an entire generation was elevated. Suddenly, lines such as “To alcohol: the cause of and solution to, all of life’s problems,” or “Look, the thing about my family is there's five of us. Marge, Bart, Girl Bart, the one who doesn't talk, and the fat guy. How I loathe him” became the bartering chips of friendly conversation. At the same time, it became acceptable to be a nerd, at least in the confines of mainstream television.

This is part one in a two-part feature. Until next time, see the video below.

The Simpsons has always been expert in reflecting the culture around us, as seen in this video clip from "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind"