Postby C.A.P. » Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:47 pm
I'm not sure where to put this, but I recently wrote all of this in the Skype chat we have, and I must as well dump it all here, so it won't go to waste.
So Xard wanted to know "what happened" to the show. I told him it was complicated, saying it was "a case that the circumstances that made the show in the first place was gone by the 9th season". Here's what I mean...
It all started when they wanted bumpers for The Tracey Ullman Show. Although it initially was competing with another bumper, The Simpsons was the winner, after a meeting Matt Groening had with James L Brooks and the bumpers aired as the show went on. They became so popular, it got to the point where, at one point, when an episode of the show was gearing up, a tape full of Simpsons bumpers aired to the audience, and it got bigger laughs that the show itself.That, along with the favorable circumstances the animators worked under (one of them, David Silverman, at a Christmas party, drunk), influenced Brooks and others to make the show--For the upcoming FOX network. Things got heated, but in the end, they got a contract to make 13 episodes.There were problems...the first episode in production had animation problems ("this is shit"), and after the second episode fared better, the show was a go.
Now, the reason I said all this is because of what Groening, Brooks, and eventually, Sam Simon, wanted to do with the show: They wanted to make an animation sitcom that was, well, a sitcom that was animated. Groening, in particular, DID NOT want the rubbery WB animation or the smooth Disney animation--at the same time, he didn't want low budget HB animation. And it was that philosophy, along with being written by sitcom writers who got tired of sitcom traditions at the time, that fueled the first two seasons.
In the 3rd season, a decision was made where two of the writers, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, took over the showrunner position from Sam Simon. By then, while the stories were still solid, it started to get more and more gag oriented. It got to the point where, by season 4, all they focused on were the gags.Why that happened were a few reasons:
1. Some of the writers left (which is how future showrunners Oakley and Weinstein got the job), so new writers like Conan got on
2. They were starting to get much more comfortable working with one another, so things started to slip into sillier territory much more frequently.
3. Al and Mike focused more, as writers, pop culture references than, say, Sam Simon would of used.
At least, whenever they showrun a show.
So for two seasons, the show was starting to become sillier, but never lost focus on what the show was all about. The only difference being that, really, the writers started to become much more comfortable, despite the politics going on behind the scenes with the animation studios and Groening and Simon. Eventually, it got to a point where the contracts for the old writers were starting to run out, so there was a "what are you going to do, fire us" thing in the later season 4/early season 5 episodes. So with a episode like "Cape Feare", they pretty much no longer gave a shit and went nuts.
Once the contract expired, the decision was made to hire an outside writer to take over...e.g. David Mirkin. From there, he pretty much had to rebuilt the show from scratch; hiring writers that were either close to him, or trusting newcomers. For David, he was MUCH more interested in satire and absurd, dark material than the family. But, yeah again, he and his writers never lost focus that the family was the emotional core to the show. Like, as Conan once joked, they're not a family where the father can sell his son for cannibalism or anything. And eventually, it came to a point where the new writers, along with a few that stuck around, were coming up with jokes and stories just as wonderful as the old ones. One team in particular was O&W. They were true blue fans of the show, and Mirkin gave them clot in their episodes than the other writers. In fact, one of them said Mirkin told them on how he showran the show, and how he took care of the nitty gritty aspects of creating the show.
So, once (I think), Mirkin's contract expired, he, Brooks, and others wanted them to take over. When they took over, they were determined to do two sorts of episodes:
1. Create experimental episodes that would polarize the fans
2. Focus it back to the characters, and maybe come up with aspects of them never explored in previous episodes.
And keep in mind, they had the writers that were from the Mirkin era, with barely a few reminding pre-Mirkin.
So throughout their seasons, they create very character based, very polarizing episodes that reflected on how much of fans they were of the show. But after two seasons, they just got too tired:
Thinking they were running out of stories to say. So when their contract expired (I think), a Mirkin writer, Mike Scully, took over. And when he took over, he didn't want to continue what they were doing (i.e. staying up late at night coming up with jokes no general audience will notice). So not only did Mike sorta organize writing sessions (he did keep the idea of two writer rooms from the O&W era), but he was much more relaxed about jokes than the last few showrunners were. So, naturally, the writing started to reflect that...with plotlines and jokes writers all those years ago would never accept outside of the writer's room.
Meanwhile, Al Jean, who by then, was working on shows that were suddenly cancelled, desperately wanted to come back to The Simpsons as a full time writer. He showran and wrote some episodes in the Mirkin era (as he and Mike worked on another show called The Critic), then some after in a period I can't nail down (that later aired during the O&W and Scully era)...but never as a full time writer. So, during the 10th season, he was hired back on a full time basis, and slowly became one of the supervising producers around the 11th season or so. After 4 seasons (instead of the usual two), Mike stepped out of his contract (I think) to go work on some other shows, and it was decided Al would come back as a solo showrunner...With Mike Reiss, meanwhile, being a consultant.
Writers came and go with Al, but generally, once Al came back, he started to take his episodes more seriously than Scully. But eventually, there came a point where he and the writers were starting to get really comfortable working with one another. Once they worked under a groove (once again, using two different writer's rooms), they just kept going, not seeing any reason why they should stop. Unlike the gang from the first season, where they had a summer job that wanted to say F.U. to sitcoms around them, they, in returned, became a sitcom that was comfortable with the position they were under: writers who really don't want to search around for other jobs, maturing in some way.
So what's there to say about the writing of The Simpsons? Simple: They all just grew up.
In the beginning, while the individuals who showrun the show have the final say of the show, the content reflects what they, and the writers, wanted out of the show, and the showrunner would just control their shows to reveal what kind of humor, characterization, etc. they prefer to work under. The writers would work on the show now prefer to be comfortable with the notion of throwing jokes on the wall to see what works, instead of telling a story that'll stick with viewers. Once in a while, they'll get ambitious with the plotline, but generally, it's not the same show as it was two decades ago.
And if you ask me, it was bound to happen. It happened to the old cartoons I grew up on (Daffy evolved as a character for a reason) It happened to the sitcoms/animated show we loved or the books we read, it was going to happen with The Simpsosn sooner or later.
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