The Simpsons
Season 28 M-Net Family (*162) 19:30 & 20:00 Animation
“Marge, cartoons don’t have any deep meaning. They’re just stupid drawings that give cheap laughs” – only Homer Simpson could be this wrong. Twentysix years later and The Simpsons (1989current) is still entertaining audiences around the world for one simple reason, says TV critic Matt Roush: “The slapstick works for the kids and the satire works for the adults”.
Creator Matt Groening adds that his show, which started as an animated filler on The Tracey Ullman Show (19871990), is all about the characters that he’s created: “I think that even Homer – as bad as he is to this family and to himself… and to the world at large – is a likeable guy.” He’s done everything from burning down half the town to almost starting a nuclear meltdown at his work. And yet somehow everything all works out. There’s comedy, there’s drama and there’s a real-world link that makes the yellow inhabitants of Springfield (the location is a running gag and Matt jokes that even he doesn’t know which state it’s in) so relatable. “We take real-life situations, like nuclear power and voting and changes around the world, and use those in our storylines to make them real,” explains Matt.
The show itself has become a popculture phenomenon and they’ve even been referenced by US presidents. In 1992, President George Bush Sr said in his re-election campaign that “I want to make families a lot more like The Waltons (1971-1981) and a lot less like The Simpsons”. They may terrorise their town, but Homer and his family [wife Marge, son Bart and daughters Lisa and Maggie] are TV royalty and their success is easily measured: they’ve won over 140 awards and have had a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame since 2000.