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Sep. 29th, 2018 11:06 amEmo Phillips has a bit about recognizing an old friend from grade school. He runs up to him, shakes his hand, pats him on the back, asks him what he's been up to, and then realizes that if that were really his old friend, he would have grown up too.
There are at least five long-running animated shows about families that never age, but The Simpsons is the longest-running. Bart Simpson was my age when he was on the Tracy Ullman show. He was generation X, like me, and his father was a Boomer, like my father, but in order to stay ten years old, both of them had to change generations. All the stuff Bart liked in season 1 is either lame or mysterious to him in season 30, except for weird in-universe anachronisms like the Itchy & Scratchy Show, and the locally-produced clown-hosted children's show that airs it. Even Bozo the Clown went off the air in 2001. Are we still pretending his grandfather served in World War II?
If only it were a daily comic or a short-form cartoon, or if the series never opened the Pandora's box that continuity or a detailed backstory brings. When Nancy in all her 1920s-designed glory whips out a cell phone and drops dank memes it's no big deal, the only thing that stands out is her fashion sense. Same with any short-form cartoon; if you need to bring back Goofy in 2007 to make a cartoon about buying a home theater to watch a football game from a 1953 cartoon, it totally works. Nobody ever complained or even remarked that Huey, Louie and Dewey never grew up, because DuckTales didn't run that long. And in the reboot, it's OK that they don't know what a tube television is. Sure, Bugs Bunny can live in a hole one week and a house the next week. Most of those Mickey cartoons I've been posting didn't even have plots.
Homestar Runner is a weird in-between. The continuity itself is the target of jokes. The only event with consequences that ever happens is the destruction of each of Strong Bad's computers. It suffers from a different problem: it's buried in a pile of its own inside jokes and references. I seriously can't bring newcomers to it.
But I can't get into the head of someone who's been a Simpsons fan, like a proper fan, someone who was a fan in season 3 and is still stoked about the season premiere. Someone who still pauses the VCR and looks for – dammit, it's not a VCR anymore is it? That's how long ago this shit got old. I stopped watching two TiVos ago, myself. But it's a show that asks you to care about the characters as if they're in a continuity, but mostly treats them like they're actors in stand-alone stories. If there's a flashback to 10-year-old Homer playing a Nintendo 64 what the hell am I supposed to do?
There are at least five long-running animated shows about families that never age, but The Simpsons is the longest-running. Bart Simpson was my age when he was on the Tracy Ullman show. He was generation X, like me, and his father was a Boomer, like my father, but in order to stay ten years old, both of them had to change generations. All the stuff Bart liked in season 1 is either lame or mysterious to him in season 30, except for weird in-universe anachronisms like the Itchy & Scratchy Show, and the locally-produced clown-hosted children's show that airs it. Even Bozo the Clown went off the air in 2001. Are we still pretending his grandfather served in World War II?
If only it were a daily comic or a short-form cartoon, or if the series never opened the Pandora's box that continuity or a detailed backstory brings. When Nancy in all her 1920s-designed glory whips out a cell phone and drops dank memes it's no big deal, the only thing that stands out is her fashion sense. Same with any short-form cartoon; if you need to bring back Goofy in 2007 to make a cartoon about buying a home theater to watch a football game from a 1953 cartoon, it totally works. Nobody ever complained or even remarked that Huey, Louie and Dewey never grew up, because DuckTales didn't run that long. And in the reboot, it's OK that they don't know what a tube television is. Sure, Bugs Bunny can live in a hole one week and a house the next week. Most of those Mickey cartoons I've been posting didn't even have plots.
Homestar Runner is a weird in-between. The continuity itself is the target of jokes. The only event with consequences that ever happens is the destruction of each of Strong Bad's computers. It suffers from a different problem: it's buried in a pile of its own inside jokes and references. I seriously can't bring newcomers to it.
But I can't get into the head of someone who's been a Simpsons fan, like a proper fan, someone who was a fan in season 3 and is still stoked about the season premiere. Someone who still pauses the VCR and looks for – dammit, it's not a VCR anymore is it? That's how long ago this shit got old. I stopped watching two TiVos ago, myself. But it's a show that asks you to care about the characters as if they're in a continuity, but mostly treats them like they're actors in stand-alone stories. If there's a flashback to 10-year-old Homer playing a Nintendo 64 what the hell am I supposed to do?
