The Simpsons Is Still Able To Connect With An Audience

It’s nice to see that The Simpsons still has an ability to connect with their audience in a sweet and down to Earth manner.

For the past few episodes, The Simpsons seem to have been focused on reeducating society about culture and a new aged society as they threw together episodes about modern publishing, marketing, hiring an agent, the food network, food blogs, and even the idea of blogging altogether. Almost every episode this season has brought in a different celebrity voice. Actors such as Joan Rivers, Mad Men’s John Slattery, Jane Lynch, and a lengthy line of food network stars such as Gordon Ramsey, Mario Batali, and Anthony Bordain offered up their voices. Even the voice of the literary celebrity, Neil Gaiman, guest starred on The Simpsons. Neil Gaiman! If anyone didn’t notice, Neil Gaiman’s a writer. His books don’t speak, probably because their written in font. How does it make sense for a writer to provide their voices when almost no one’s even heard him talk. With all these celebrity voices and all these ways that The Simpsons seem to be implementing all of this modern culture, it’s almost like The Simpsons are just trying a little too hard to fit in and seem hip and cool. It’s almost as if they’re trying desperately to connect with people.

I just finished watching last week’s Christmas Special, Season 23 Episode 9: Holidays of Future Passed, and I got to say it’s really nice to see that The Simpsons can come back down from their struggle to pull things out of the newspapers and new media and just be nonsensical and sensible. Nonsensical in a way that’s not like Family Guy where they’re throwing a meteor shower of cut aways in a thirty minute span, but nonsensical in a way where comedy doesn’t have to be clever, but just fun. The sensibility comes back when the writers of this episode decided that the theme wouldn’t be about food blogs or Facebook, although there was a tangent that mentioned the likes of Facebook. It, their sensibility, came back when the writers decided that the theme would be the almost repeatedly overkilled and revamped re-run theme that has gone through almost every television sitcom ever made: It’s hard to be a parent.

That’s what people want to see. People want to connect. They don’t want to challenge their brains to inform them about the new wave of society. They just want something to remind them of who they are.

People who watch cartoons don’t like newspapers.