As has been well documented, and exploited by Sky1, The Simpsons has recently turned 20. But at this presumably late stage in its life (I imagine that television shows age like dogs, or in the case of Gavin & Stacey, like hamsters) why do so many people end up criticising The Simpsons instead of venerating? I'm aware that a lot of people in the media have "celebrated" The Simpsons because of it's 20th year, but these are frequently the same people who condemn it on a regular basis for not being funny anymore and these nostalgic reviews of 'Televisions First Family' always contain something along the lines of "The Simpsons peaked many years ago".
I'm certainly not going to argue that the most recent series is as funny as series eight, that is, the series where Homer becomes the Beer Baron and where he has to deal with Frank Grimes - no, I am not going to suggest that the episodes of 2009/10 are as classic as that. But given the sheer brilliance of those old episodes, what I will demand from literally everyone is a little faith in The Simpsons.
Surely Matt Groening and co have earnt that haven't they? There is literally no television show in history that is as quotable or as memorable as The Simpsons. If you asked a room of twenty people what their favourtie episode was, ninteen of them would come up with a different one each. The twentieth one would be somebodies Mum, who never liked the Simpsons because they used the word 'butt' too much when you were an impressionable eight year old.
The Simpsons has frequently hit every single level of humour, it can be both high brow and low brow and also middle brow and mono-brow. Many people see Family Guy as its successor, but come on, well into its eighth season, it is obvious that Family Guy is already running out of steam. Why? Because it is far less dynamic than The Simpsons. Family Guy has one brand of comedy, it grows only one crop in its humour field, whilst The Simpsons ensures its longevity with the intelligence and variety in its scripts. Family Guy is clearly very easy to write, whereas The Simpsons is multi-layered, a forest gateaux to Family Guys pancake.
Comedy moves in trends, and Family Guy has very much surfed upon that trend (btw, I am a big Family Guy fan, and I am using it only as a singular example). The Simpsons has fallen by the wayside a little in modern times because it does not entirely follow the in-fashion comedy at the moment, that is, the surreal and the nonsensical. Comedy today is much more Adult Swim than...the...well, The Simpsons. Where The Simpsons slips down in modern times is when it tries to adhere to what people want, and you get odd random moments that just don't suit the show. You can see the same mistakes much more obviously in the new series of Futurama, which, if I may say so, was fucking terrible.
What I'm saying is, if you hear ANYONE saying that The Simpsons isn't funny, slap them in the face. Really hard. Because The Simpsons is the greatest television show ever made. Its cast of characters is huge and each one is brilliant, like your favourite episode, everyone has their own favourite character (one of mine is Moe, obviously - and you can't go wrong with a bit of Lenny).
The Simpsons is the most quotable show ever made and I given how much pure goodness they have dispensed our way for the past 20 years, I think a show of faith that they can go on recapturing what people believe to be the best work, is very little to ask. If you can find me any other show that will be able to traverse the dangerous waters of two decades-worth of television, then I will call you a liar, because you can't. Don't just celebrate 20 years of The Simpsons nostalgically, believe in it delivering quality comedy for years to come.
p.s. The Simpsons Movie WAS funny, those who say it wasn't ought to be thrown into a briefcase and drowned.
Sunday 17 January 2010
Monday 4 January 2010
Shutting the Fuck up About How Good Your iPhone is; is there an app for that too?
This was written some time ago, but is still relevant today:
Honestly. What sickens me most is how fucking DOWN with the kids iPhone thinks it is. "Boy" thought Apples hideously slimey marketing department one day "Aren't these kids the darnedest things" and all the suits nod so it continues "I mean just the other day I hear this one young fella, AFLUENT AS HELL, using a youthful colloquialism - I'm talking words that aren't real here. But he was the toast of the party, with his compatriots nodding in agreement and such" and then the marketing department guy walks up to the window and looks outside "And I think to myself - why can't we whore out that kind of lyrical genius huh? I mean, why not make up words like 'funnest' to describe our products - hell, they can relate to it!"
And so, a year later, I feel infuriated in an arm chair when I see that the new iSomething-or-other is being described as the "funnest" iPod ever. Brilliant.
Has anyone, EVER, thought to themselves while they were using their iPhone, "This is great and all, what with the device performing its function and all, but what I'd really like to do is move this glorified mP3 player and steer a rollercoaster, at the same time...*sigh* but I know that's just a pipe-dream, a crazy, crazy pipe-dream". WELL WISH NO MORE GUY, BECAUSE IF YOU CAN COUGH UP THE EXPLETIVE WORTHY SIMOLIANS TO BUY SUCH A FANCIFUL ITEM THEN YOU REALLY CAN STEER A ROLLERCOASTER! I'd buy one myself but I purchased a coca-cola last week and I'm a little strapped for cash.
What I hate about Apple is how bloody convenient they are trying to be. Life isn't convenient (ok?) and so the result is the advert equivalent of one of those waiters that keeps coming up to you to ask if everything is ok; everything ok sir, everything ok sir, everything o-fucking-k sir? NO!? Well no worries baby! Trousers on fire? Cleft palet? Lost the will to live? There's an app for that too! If it was me I'd tell him to fuck off and let me finish my soup in peace. BUT WHY EAT SOUP WHEN I CAN HAVE ALL THE NUTRIENTS FROM SOUP TELEPORTED DIRECTLY IN MY BLOODSTREAM, he'd say, IT'LL LEAVE YOU TIME TO DO ALL THOSE AFLUENT LEISURE ACTIVITIES YOU NEVER HAVE TIME FOR! *que me, snowboarding*
As ever Apples most recent advertising campaign features a song picked out by NME specialists so that it all sounds cool enough and unthreatening enough to convey a real easy-going, hip piece of technology, sorry, not technology, I mean, this hip-piece of life-support. I want my technology shiney and laden with golden buttons thankyou very much, not moseying up to my place at about half 2 in some low slung jeans and with a general shrug of it's casual shoulders "hey man, wanna latte, I know a place" - no, piss off, I'm throwing balls of paper into a bin in just my pants.
I mean for goodness sake, I am a human-being! I'm supposed to demand things of technology, not the other way round! Why am I suddenly "bumping fists" with somebody to exchange a phone address with someone, explain that to me! It's the equivalent of a cowboy-iPhone with a gun making me dance by shooting bullets at my feet, "weeeell, looky here fellas, he's a dancing, he's aaaa daaancing - now bump fists bitch".
I mean seriously you are going to look like a right prick with an iPhone clenched in your clamby mits, BUMPING FISTS with some other equally impressionable iPhone owner, every, single, time you want to exchange information. Call me old fashioned, but I still have:
(a) the use of my voice, and
(b) the use of my brain.
If I utilise both these items, a rare thing occurs. For you see, I can send the details incredibly easily to a person that has an iPhone or that doesn't AND, they can be anywhere in the world; they don't have to be sitting across from me in Starbucks, or in an unoffensive white limbo, where everyone where's one colour and dances to trendy remixes.
People don't know what the hell they're doing on an iPhone, they're fingers zip around on invisible roller blades not knowing where the fuck they are going until eventually they've ordered 600 copies of Ghostbusters II on DVD and have booked themselves in for a haircut at 8, 9 and 10pm for the following day. "DO YOUR SHOPPING ON THE BUS!" NO, I say again, I DEFY YOU iPHONE! People, do it yourself! Feel your wrist, find your pulse? You're alive aren't you? Perhaps try putting your iPhone away for once and embrace that, stupid.
Honestly. What sickens me most is how fucking DOWN with the kids iPhone thinks it is. "Boy" thought Apples hideously slimey marketing department one day "Aren't these kids the darnedest things" and all the suits nod so it continues "I mean just the other day I hear this one young fella, AFLUENT AS HELL, using a youthful colloquialism - I'm talking words that aren't real here. But he was the toast of the party, with his compatriots nodding in agreement and such" and then the marketing department guy walks up to the window and looks outside "And I think to myself - why can't we whore out that kind of lyrical genius huh? I mean, why not make up words like 'funnest' to describe our products - hell, they can relate to it!"
And so, a year later, I feel infuriated in an arm chair when I see that the new iSomething-or-other is being described as the "funnest" iPod ever. Brilliant.
Has anyone, EVER, thought to themselves while they were using their iPhone, "This is great and all, what with the device performing its function and all, but what I'd really like to do is move this glorified mP3 player and steer a rollercoaster, at the same time...*sigh* but I know that's just a pipe-dream, a crazy, crazy pipe-dream". WELL WISH NO MORE GUY, BECAUSE IF YOU CAN COUGH UP THE EXPLETIVE WORTHY SIMOLIANS TO BUY SUCH A FANCIFUL ITEM THEN YOU REALLY CAN STEER A ROLLERCOASTER! I'd buy one myself but I purchased a coca-cola last week and I'm a little strapped for cash.
What I hate about Apple is how bloody convenient they are trying to be. Life isn't convenient (ok?) and so the result is the advert equivalent of one of those waiters that keeps coming up to you to ask if everything is ok; everything ok sir, everything ok sir, everything o-fucking-k sir? NO!? Well no worries baby! Trousers on fire? Cleft palet? Lost the will to live? There's an app for that too! If it was me I'd tell him to fuck off and let me finish my soup in peace. BUT WHY EAT SOUP WHEN I CAN HAVE ALL THE NUTRIENTS FROM SOUP TELEPORTED DIRECTLY IN MY BLOODSTREAM, he'd say, IT'LL LEAVE YOU TIME TO DO ALL THOSE AFLUENT LEISURE ACTIVITIES YOU NEVER HAVE TIME FOR! *que me, snowboarding*
As ever Apples most recent advertising campaign features a song picked out by NME specialists so that it all sounds cool enough and unthreatening enough to convey a real easy-going, hip piece of technology, sorry, not technology, I mean, this hip-piece of life-support. I want my technology shiney and laden with golden buttons thankyou very much, not moseying up to my place at about half 2 in some low slung jeans and with a general shrug of it's casual shoulders "hey man, wanna latte, I know a place" - no, piss off, I'm throwing balls of paper into a bin in just my pants.
I mean for goodness sake, I am a human-being! I'm supposed to demand things of technology, not the other way round! Why am I suddenly "bumping fists" with somebody to exchange a phone address with someone, explain that to me! It's the equivalent of a cowboy-iPhone with a gun making me dance by shooting bullets at my feet, "weeeell, looky here fellas, he's a dancing, he's aaaa daaancing - now bump fists bitch".
I mean seriously you are going to look like a right prick with an iPhone clenched in your clamby mits, BUMPING FISTS with some other equally impressionable iPhone owner, every, single, time you want to exchange information. Call me old fashioned, but I still have:
(a) the use of my voice, and
(b) the use of my brain.
If I utilise both these items, a rare thing occurs. For you see, I can send the details incredibly easily to a person that has an iPhone or that doesn't AND, they can be anywhere in the world; they don't have to be sitting across from me in Starbucks, or in an unoffensive white limbo, where everyone where's one colour and dances to trendy remixes.
People don't know what the hell they're doing on an iPhone, they're fingers zip around on invisible roller blades not knowing where the fuck they are going until eventually they've ordered 600 copies of Ghostbusters II on DVD and have booked themselves in for a haircut at 8, 9 and 10pm for the following day. "DO YOUR SHOPPING ON THE BUS!" NO, I say again, I DEFY YOU iPHONE! People, do it yourself! Feel your wrist, find your pulse? You're alive aren't you? Perhaps try putting your iPhone away for once and embrace that, stupid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)