[yasr_overall_rating]
The satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.
It’s been a very long time since I watched “The Simpsons.” I used to watch them regularly but then my filmmaking schedule got hectic and then I set up this site and began to review movies and TV shows so suffice it to say, watching regular TV took a back seat. But that’s okay because it allowed me to do some catching up with Springfield’s favorite family in “The Simpsons: The Eighteenth Season.” I still remember when I used to watch “The Tracey Ullman Show” back in the ’80s (am I showing my age or what?) and The Simpsons would make a brief appearance every week until eventually, they got their own show. Once it aired in 1989, it was a ratings juggernaut and with 2017 marking their 29th season, and it having been renewed through 2019, it shows no signs of slowing down.
Season Eighteen surprisingly, made me laugh a lot. It’s very rare for a TV show to reach its eighteenth season and still be funny, when “Friends” reached their tenth and final season, although I was a fan of the show, it felt like it was slowly running out of steam and when it ended, it was for the best. As I sat down to watch the eighteenth season, I felt that it was going to echo my less-than-stellar recent review of “Family Guy: Season 15,” itself a parody of “The Simpsons” but thankfully, Matt Groening and James L. Brooks managed to infuse the season with enough laughs and heartfelt moments to kept it funny and interesting.
Everyone has their favorite Simpson character and mine has always been Homer. He is the kind of father that is hilarious onscreen but in real life, would probably be doing time in San Quentin for child endangerment, amongst many other things. “The Simpsons” works best when dealing with normal, everyday situations. While I was a big fan of “Family Guy” early on, Seth MacFarlane would, at times, get too political and the show as a whole stopped being funny. One of my favorite episodes from Season Eighteen, titled “G.I. (Annoyed Grunt),” revolves around the U.S. Military trying to recruit Bart and his fellow schoolmates into the army. Even though they are underage, they all sign waivers which state once they turn 18, they will join. Outraged, Marge sends Homer to the recruitment office to cancel the signed agreement but instead, he winds up joining himself, with disastrous results. One segment of “Treehouse of Horror XVII,” titled “The Day the Earth Looked Stupid,” sets the timeframe back in 1938 when Orson Welles’ adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel, ‘The War of the Worlds,’ aired on the radio and scared the nation to death and the show utilizes this to great effect, including a very clever nod to Welles’ Rosebud from his forthcoming “Citizen Kane.”
In having gotten back into “The Simpsons,” I think it’s time to get caught up on some older seasons and start watching some newer ones. I just hope with the most recent airings, that the show will still be funny and make me laugh and if its renewal thru 2019 is anything to by, it might just be.
Now available on DVD
