King of the Hill: seasons 7&8

This show began to lose its way a little by taking a show with the central premise of being believable and down-to-earth and introducing whacky and far-fetched scenarios, and that really showed in season 7.

The season had too much that was too far-fetched. Bobby got fooled into making drugs. Dale leads the gang in hunting Chuck Mangione through a megastore at night. A pork magnate tries to transform Luanne into a woman from an advertising illustration, and himself into a pig. Instead of small-town foibles and recognisable characters, the show starts dealing with people who think they’re wizards, sexy female pest exterminators, stereotyped bikers and vision quests. I guess dancing with dogs just about passes as familiar ground for middle-class America, but it’s a weird story.

There’s one great episode, though, finally filling in a pretty big gap in a show about Texas, which sees Hank embarrassed when his dog Ladybird appears to be racist. It raises some pretty important questions about this setting, previously left at ‘Are you Chinese or are you Japanese?’, so it was good to see development at last.

That aside, Season 7 mostly left me with the feeling that the show was in decline, I have to say. However, King of the Hill got back on track somewhat in the eighth season. 

Yes, there are still some parts that go a little over-the-top, like Luanne protesting from the mouth of a giant mechanical mascot, a TV star coming to stay or Hank finding himself having to decide whether or not to let part of the town flood in a downpour of rain, but the vast majority of these episodes are believable scenarios about everyday problems – like Bobby wanting to get out of showering after sports or Hank getting a bad back.

The character of Peggy is going a little too strange at this point. She was originally a very subtle character, a little too full of herself yet very slow to read between the lines, but in episodes about her getting a chance to be an artist or taking pictures of a Flat Stanley doll, she crosses the line to being outright delusional and probably psychotic. She provided the highlights of several past seasons, but now she’s just a little too much. I suppose it’s an example of Flanderisation.

There are extremely big-name guest stars in this season. Brad Pitt has a lot of fun as Boomhauer’s brother in a performance that may as well have just been Mike Judge speaking in a slightly different register. Lindsey Lohan, early in her career, plays a love interest for Bobby. And then there’s Johnny Depp hamming it up as a conceited yoga instructor. None of them get in the way of the episode or draw undue attention, and it’s pretty likely only very big fans would recognise any of them before the credits. Ben Stiller also has a role as an annoying guy who thinks he’s far funnier than he is…meta humour, there, perhaps?

Some very memorable episodes worked out well here, like Hank hiring a big rig to play at being truckers for a while, or Bill managing to be popular by pretending to be gay – which sounds like it would be offensive but of course only highlights the ridiculousness of exaggerated perceptions of minorities.

At this stage there is a slight feeling of the show being played out. I’m not sure what the remaining 5 seasons will bring to the premise. But I’m still willing to find out, and the show remains a fun, now comfortingly familiar, piece of TV.  

King of the Hill: season 6

While it continues to be strong, season 6 shows Kingof the Hill just starting to run out of ideas. Some held in reserve are at last dealt with, like a Boomhauer episode fleshing him out to finally give him another dimension, and Dale deciding Joseph isn’t his biological son – though of course assumes he’s half-alien.

Strong new characters include Dale’s father, who forces the gang to contemplate homosexuality – which they do in typically childish but thankfully non-vicious fashion – and a silly turn for Alan Rickman as a king at a renaissance faire. The Rickman episode is about as absurd as King of the Hill should ever get, still being in the realms of the feasible, where going to Japan to discover Hank has a half-brother, Luanne being suckered into joining a cult, Bill stealing an army tank for a drunken rampage and Hank being honoured as the token white guy in an Asian golfing country club all go a bit too far. Peggy, previously the believably self-centred yet insecure centre of the funniest episodes, has some episodes where her self-regard goes a bit ridiculous. I can accept her accidentally taking home a Mexican child, but pretending to be a nun or taking Hank to a nudist colony was just bizarre.

Some episodes stretched too far at the end, like Hank extinguishing the Olympic torch in front of news cameras but them accepting it being relit by a cigarette on Bobby’s testimony, or Peggy falling for a scam but putting together a double-bluff at the end that goes perfectly.

Bobby and Connie are probably the most believable and relatable part of the series at this stage. I still want to watch more, but the show is losing its natural edge. I hope the next season is a bit more down-to-earth, but it will need some fresh ideas. 

King of the Hill season 5

Most of my reviews of King of the Hill seasons point out that while the show was designed to be played in any order, there were a lot of continuous storylines and character arcs that transcend the purely episodic.

Season 5 seems to cement that, with lasting developments in the subplot of Nancy Gribble’s affair with John Redcorn, and their son very abruptly and very noticeably growing up and hitting the awkward stage of puberty – while quirky Bobby Hill is left behind.

While this season has some of the highlights of the run, with great episodes centred on Hank’s feelings for his dog (and his truck), interesting examinations of attitudes to sexuality in conservative America and Cotton actually showing some humanity by working demeaning jobs to support his new child, there are also some of the biggest misses so far. Cotton’s scheme to assassinate Castro reminded me of when The Simpsons changed Mr. Burns from a cruel, rich boss to a monster who would gleefully murder a child, and was a step or two beyond what King of the Hill ought to be. An episode centred on a prostitute had some very fun moments but was a bit too far-fetched for the tone of the show. The same could be said of when Bobby becomes a ventriloquist. There’s also a bit too much foregrounding of guest voice actors, which gets jarring.

But the show remains consistently funny, clever and smart, with Peggy and Luanne increasingly becoming the funniest characters. Dale and Bill get some highlight episodes and the show continues to have fun skewering both leftist and rightist thought.

Well worth continuing with. 

King of the Hill season 4

Though there are episodic elements to King of the Hill and just about any episode can be watched in any order (though even in order, Luanne’s hair regrowth was a bit random), this season made it clear that there are larger, overarching story arcs to be followed. In particular, the final episodes set up a change in the relationship between the Gribbles and John Redcorn. Dale will probably always be oblivious to the affair going on, but it’s taking its toll on Nancy and John. John Redcorn. They never just say ‘John’, haha.

There are also big development moments for Bobby in his relationship with Connie from next door. Watching the show in any order would see some strange jumps in their feelings for one another, and it’s a well-judged puppy love relationship.

But the most interesting thing about this season is that it seems like there’s a shift similar to The Simpsons' change in focus from Bart to Homer. They play out most of their good ideas for their main character early, and some secondary characters seem to take over for the best episodes. In this case, it’s Peggy, whose self-regard, low abilities and perfectionism make for a very amusing character to deflate.

All in all, King of the Hill remains a very clever and enjoyable show at this stage, and well worth continuing with. 

King of the Hill: season 3

Shows often hit their stride around season 3, and I’d say the same applies to King ofthe Hill, though it was extraordinarily well-shaped from the very first episodes. While a syndicated show, King of the Hill actually does interesting things with its continuity – Luanne in particular has a lot of interesting moments of development, with her boyfriend dying in the cliffhanger from the previous season and a subsequent period of soul-searching as her hair grows back. The season also introduces the potential for Hank to get a step-brother even in his middle age, the birth being part of the finale here.

Largely, though, where King of the Hill succeeds is in its complexity and dark undertones. Hank’s father Cotton is pretty central to this, being an abusive and misogynist embodiment of all the left hates about small-town right-wing America. He is central to several season highlights, including a moment of lightness when he takes the fall for Bobby in an embarrassing predicament and one good moment for Hank where he finally stands up to him to defend his mother – and his mower. The way others act around Cotton is often very funny, but for a comedy show there’s a lot that’s chilling and unpleasant about what he embodies.

This is a show with a fantastic ensemble cast, though. All Hank’s friends and family have their brilliant moments. The main gang are consistently amusing, Luanne has the show’s best one-liners, Peggy is by turns an unstoppable force of nature and incredibly naïve, especially when it comes to matters of adultery (her realisation of it making for one of the highlights of the show so far) and the way Bobby mystifies his family is by turns funny and affectionate.

Not every episode is a hit. Bill losing it and starting to impersonate his ex-wife is too far for what was previously a subtle character quirk. The dolphin episode stretches credulity and Hank’s character too far. The Rashomon episode (which I just noted was a family trope in my thoughts on My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic season 6) was a little slow and exaggerated.

But these were certainly the minority, and the vast majority of the episodes were very funny and often quite touching. It’s the episodes that are centred on small problems dealing with the modern world that shine, like Peggy playing in a softball team or the problems with taking Bobby hunting. I also liked episodes centred on Kahn, who is a remarkably subtle and multifaceted character for what would in many ways have been a token outsider role. Probably the best element on the show’s more complex side is Peggy’s deep-seated sadness about not being able to have another child. It becomes less and less subtle but was at its best with her reactions to Hank trying to get his dog to breed.

The show is certainly strong at this stage, and a pleasure to watch. But will it continue that way? I’m not sure just now, but I’m happy to keep watching.

King of the Hill: season 2

After a successful first season, King of the Hill continues with more of the same, but it’s the kind of development that really works for this kind of show. There are some episodes that take advantage of the animated medium, including the unlikely events of a huge twister and an unexpected explosion for a season cliffhanger, but generally this show’s strength is that it deals with the everyday clash between traditional conservative America and the modern world.

What I like about King of the Hill is that Hank and Peggy are no more angels than they are clowns. They are in many ways stereotypical and absurd, but they’re also good-hearted without being heroic. They do their best even if they have a lot of daft values and are prudish to the point of silliness, and equally they’re often in the right without being role models. Their small-minded conservative values are lampooned, but the left-wing hippies and bureaucrats they encounter are more ridiculous still.

There are interesting questions raised here about tolerance and progression, as when Connie wants to join the boys’ wrestling team and Peggy has to begin to question if girls and boys ought to be able to do the same things, when Hank has to accept his mother’s Jewish boyfriend and poor Bobby gets entirely the wrong idea about a black comedian’s race-based jokes.

While the more exaggerated episodes are interesting, like when Hank takes a video store to court, the Hills and Khans go to Mexico or Peggy finds out the truth about an old romantic story and hunts down a random woman who once kissed her husband, the best episodes revolve around small-scale family issues. The kids get lost in some local caves, an uppity academic organises a dig in the Hill’s back yard and Peggy’s loyalties are divided, and poor Luanne has to deal with her alcoholic, manipulative mother.

My favourite episode was a little on the exaggerated side, though. Hank has a mix-up over where to buy fish bait and gets in a whole lot of trouble. It’s just credulous enough to work while being a very silly, funny situation.

The season finale heralds a bit of a shake-up, and I think that’s needed. While I really enjoy King of the Hill, already at season 2 it runs the risk of getting stale, so the key now is a bit of variety. We’ll see in season 3!

Anastasia

Don Bluth’s career reached its apex here. He’d left Disney after The Fox and the Hound, and scored a hit with my personal favourite of his movies, The Secret of NiMH. He’d also teamed up with Spielberg for the highly successful The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven and An American Tail. Then came Anastasia, which was a big hit and is fondly remembered by numerous people only casually interested in animation as one of their favourite Disney films. While this could have been Fox’s big entry into the world of serious, epic animation, however, Bluth blew it with bloated follow-up Titan AE. It wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely a flop and Fox didn’t make another animated feature film until sure-fire cash-in The Simpsons Movie.

So in many ways Anastasia is Bluth’s masterpiece – though we shouldn’t write him off yet, as the crowd-funded Dragon’s Lair animation may yet be a big hit. It’s certainly a good animated film – grand in scale, beautiful to look at with strong narrative-driven music. It has its faults but it’s definitely up there with the best and may have the most beautiful backgrounds of any animation I’ve ever seen.

Anastasia deals with a familiar story, a kind of modern fairy tale. After the Russian revolution, Grand Duchess Anastasia is still alive, living with amnesia in a Russian orphanage. She is taken to her grandmother by men who want to defraud her, though eventually the truth shines through. Made in 1997, this film came before the remains of Alexei and either Anastasia or Maria (the other having been in the main grave) were discovered – though in no way claimed to be historically accurate, or demanded to be taken seriously. The plot is lifted in simplified form from an earlier live-action movie, so the film is not the source for the fanciful interpretation of history.

In visual terms, the film has much to recommend it, but is in places uneven. Bluth’s debt to Disney has never been so apparent, especially with squirrels that look straight out of Sword in the Stone and the cute little dog Pooka who looks a lot like Gurgi in true dog form. The facial designs are very Disney and Rasputin here owes a lot to Jafar (who of course owes a lot to Zigzag), unfortunately being just a little too comedic rather than formidable for my liking. He is a little too distant, sending minions to sabotage trains or putting visions into Anastasia’s head when she’s asleep, only appearing for a showdown at the very end and then being rather ineffectual. There’s an echo of Scar in his musical number, too, which is particularly appropriate given JimCummings provides the singing performance.

But the speaking voice comes from Christopher Lloyd, one of several actors clearly having a wonderful time here. Meg Ryan and John Cusack turn in uninteresting leading character performances, but there’s far more fun to be had with Angela Lansbury putting in a bit of class, Hank Azaria mixing a cod-Russian accent with his Chief Wiggum voice for adorable comedy sidekick Bartok the Bat, and Kelsey Grammar hamming it up as affable fat man Vlad.

The romance doesn’t sizzle, the bad guy doesn’t give any shivers down the spine and the songs don’t worm their way into the brain quite enough. The visuals are also undercut a bit by rather strange facial designs (especially Dimitri’s nose) and an overreliance on rotoscoping every time there’s a full-body shot, but these don’t drag the film down far. It’s satisfying, grandiose and rather beautiful, even if it’s not perfect and doesn’t quite have the emotional resonance to make me want to re-watch. After all, last night was the first time I sat through it again since first watching in 1998!

The Simpsons season 11

‘Behind the Laughter’ sums up the state of The Simpsons by season 11. It was a pretty poor episode, lacking in laughs but with the occasional bright moment, and at least not just a clip show. But by this stage the jokes were about terrible episodes like ‘The Principal and the Pauper’ and some of the more stupid celebrity cameos.

There are still some good episodes, of course. This isn’t quite the nadir yet. Episodes where Bart is put on Focusyn and where the family have to live in Mr. Burns’ mansion and Homer gets carried away are good ones. But there’s just too much nonsense and the grip on reality is long gone. In this season alone, Bart becomes a faith healer, has a mystical vision of his future and adopts another horse. Homer, meanwhile, becomes a Hell’s Angel, a professional duellist, a food critic, a Hollywood writer, a missionary and almost entirely responsible for Maud Flanders’ death in what would otherwise have been a clever and interesting piece of continuity development and was otherwise a strong episode.

Oh, and for some reason Maggie is a bowling savant.

Some parts just about work, like when Lisa gets Bart and Homer sent to a leper colony, or evil corporate sponsors turn Apu’s kids into a zoo exhibit. Other ideas are fairly normal but ruined by bizarre twists, like when Lisa takes up tap dancing and ends up assisted by science-magic dancing shoes.

But by far the worst part of this season is that it’s now very clear Homer has made the change from likeable idiot who loves his family to outright psychopath. Say what you will about Flanderisation, the devolution of Homer’s character is by far the worst thing to happen to the Simpsons. But at least at this stage, the show is generally enjoyable. 

King of the Hill – season 1

It’s one of those shows everybody watched but few call a big hit. It’s not as iconic or easy to merchandise as The Simpsons, South Park or even the show that (sadly) replaced it, Family Guy. It didn’t have the same mass appeal as its creator Mike Judge’s previous hit, Beavis and Butthead. Some might say it may as well have been live-action. But in many ways, King of the Hill is the best of the bunch.

Traditional right-wing American values are under fire just now, especially if you spend a lot of time on the Internet. Many observers, including centrists like me, are concerned by the growing authoritarianism, bullying tactics and outright cruelty on display from the far left, who at some point have to realise they’re not the good guys when they behave just like those they detest. I can’t imagine how that kind of person would perceive King of the Hill. But the whole point of the show is that it’s not a celebration of conservative small-town America. It’s an affectionate lampooning of it. It portrays a traditional Texan community full of xenophobes, homophobes and extremely fragile masculinity, but rather than eviscerating them, it gently exposes the follies and foibles of ignorance while accepting that these kind of people can also be likeable, good-hearted and ready to learn. In a world of safe spaces, echo chambers and thought policing, a show like King of the Hill would be extremely healthy viewing, poking fun at the right and left of the American political spectrum without viciousness.

I watched King of the Hill as a child and teenager, but didn’t really get it. I wasn’t familiar with the American small-town mentality, conservative values or particularly Texan idiosyncrasies. A lot went over my head, like that Dale was a conspiracy theorist wholly unaware that he’s being very obviously cuckolded and is raising another man’s son – which should resonate with the so-called ‘alt-right’ just now, with their obsession with ‘cucks’ and tin-foil-hat theories.

Rewatching the show now, I’m thoroughly enjoying it. The first season was a short 13 episodes, but it’s quite astonishing how quickly the show not only introduces its core cast, but makes every single one of them both buffoonish and likeable. Hank Hill is such a wonderful character because there’s far more nuance to him than Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. He’s big and tough but deeply insecure because of his overbearing father. He’s lost in a modern world and terrified of liberal values as well as comically prudish. But he loves his family, wants to help others and wants to protect a way of life he adores. Yet he is constantly challenged, looks like an idiot at first (‘So are you Chinese or Japanese?’) but later actually learns and develops. Peggy is hilarious, sometimes a voice of reason and sometimes dangerously competitive or self-centred with a wonderfully gung-ho attitude to Spanish. Bobby pre-empts the popular character type later seen in the youngest boys of Malcolm in the Middle and The Middle but manages to always seem reasonable in his bizarre behaviour. Luanne is more than token overemotional trailer trash, and has some of the season’s best one-liners, with Brittany Murphy’s subsequent stardom an amusing footnote.

Hank’s friends Dale and Bill are classic loser characters, yet each gets moments to shine to lift them from being one-note joke characters. Boomhauer is more one-note but he’s so funny I don’t mind, and mysteriously he also gets the additional character quality of being a womaniser. The Laotian family next door are in many ways stereotypes but are actually very nuanced, fiery characters, each with a lot of distinct personality.

The humour largely comes from small-town characters having to deal with a developing modern world and confronting their prejudices, usually highlighting the arbitrary nature of some signifiers of what is masculine or what is American. It’s a healthy examination of a section of society that is as gentle and subtle as it is cutting. King of the Hill is smart and insightful, and right now, it’s more fun to watch its early seasons than The Simpsons past its glory days. 

The Simpsons: Season 10

I’m not adding anything new to the world of Simpsons criticism – from people far more informed than I am – when I say that where season 9 was the turning point, season 10 is where it’s clear this show isn’t what it used to be. There’s a tendency to claim that while the glory days are now behind The Simpsons, weak Simpsons is still better than most TV. But compared to most other animated sitcoms, whether Futurama or King of the Hill or South Park or even Beavis and Butthead, from here on in The Simpsons is sorely lacking. It’s right on the brink of not-worth-watching at this point, and I found some episodes decidedly tedious.

And yes, the main problem here is Homer. He’s now absolutely the show’s main character, but he’s also a self-centred, borderline psychopathic, narcissistic weirdo. He was once so relatable, and now he’s a proud criminal and unbelievable moron who I find it hard to believe anyone would like if they started watching the show from this point. No longer Fred Flintstone, he’s become more Felix the Cat, and that’s hard to stomach.

There are some decent episodes here, especially toward the beginning of the season, like ‘The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace’, where Homer actually shows some conscience after coming up with a scheme to destroy a piece of American heritage. Bart shows a bit of depth in ‘Bart the Mother’ and the moment where a whole awards ceremony is faked for Lisa is probably the funniest moment of the season, alongside Homer surveying his newly-built barbeque. Homer’s stint as a bodyguard also has its moments.

This is also one of the few example of an episode where there are two plotlines where both are good (Homer gets a pet lobster concurrently with Lisa’s cheating dilemma, and both are amusing stories). Too often, there is a strong strand and a weak one, and sadly it usually falls to Marge and Lisa to pad episodes with some dull time-wasting, like trying to find a missing jigsaw piece or getting a new doorbell.

Some ideas are good and badly-executed, like the kids setting up a pirate radio show, ending with a terrible musical number, or Homer and Ned’s trip to Vegas which jettisons all its interesting moral questions very quickly. Other ideas are just terrible, like Homer becoming friends with a Hollywood couple in a bizarre self-congratulatory celebrity episode. More could have been done with Homer looking into his roots than him being a horrible person to hippies, and the Treehouse of Horror episodes are wearing thin, especially as they are no longer the containment episodes for surrealist sequences. Trips abroad are terrible, the Scotland jaunt being weirdly tacked-on and the journey to Japan being embarrassingly less amusing and insightful than one phone call to Japanese people about Mr. Sparkle. The Steven Hawking cameo also isn’t nearly as funny as I remember it being.

This is a disappointing series where the saving graces are few and far between, and I don’t predict any improvement from here. It’s also a little sad to note this is the end of Phil Hartman’s characters Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz after his murder. He would have made a great Zapp Brannigan. 

The Simpsons: Season 9

If problems had begun to appear in the last couple of seasons, this season is the one where it no longer felt like the next episode was likely to be good, with a small chance of being a stinker. This is where the Simpson family stops being relatable and start being outright scary. It’s also where the show completely disconnects from reality, where things that were previously Treehouse of Horror material enter regular episodes. Witness, for example, Kirk Van Houten’s arm being sliced off, never to be mentioned again. Or the launching of a submarine captain as a torpedo when Homer randomly gets put in charge. It just doesn’t seem like The Simpsons in its prime any more. Family histories can be altered whenever it’s convenient to the plot, like when Grandpa shows Lisa that Homer and Bart were very smart as young children, and perhaps most irritatingly and controversially, Principal Skinner’s character is totally assassinated when he is revealed to be an imposter, which for many – such as Chris Turner in Planet Simpson – is the show’s ‘Jumping the shark’ moment. It’s not just the abrupt change in continuity that sits uneasily – it’s the sheer implausibility of the town’s reaction. That said, it’s not up there in implausibility with things like moving the whole town five miles on wheels.

None of these are the nadir of the season, however. That honour goes to ‘All Singing, All Dancing’, which may be my least favourite episode of The Simpsons ever. I’m just glad these episodes weren’t among the first I saw.

But there are certainly strong episodes here, too. Nelson as a star peewee footballer, Lisa falling victim to an elaborate advertising gimmick, and Bart actually facing some consequences when he gets caught in a string of lies all work well for the show. Moe finds love and actually gets some proper character development, and Mr. Burns – despite it coming over as a bit strange so soon after an episode where he was broke – has one of the season’s funniest episodes in possession of a trillion-dollar bill. The season finale, with Homer and Marge trying to reignite their sex lives, is also full of strong moments and still manages to feel like envelope-pushing, almost two decades later.

But the real problem with this show at this stage is how quickly the characters can be remoulded to fit an idea or concept. We’re already getting to the stage where Homer is a psychopath who doesn’t care if he kills. It’s a struggle for Marge to be interesting. Bart is badly in need of more depth and Lisa seems to be losing her strength of character and cleverness.

Sadly, it’s downhill from here. 

The Simpsons: season 8

With season 7, I felt The Simpsons had turned a corner, but season 8 felt like more of the same. It’s still mid-turn, with some very good

 episodes, and my all-time favourite Simpsons moment (‘There’s your answer, fishbulb’). There are two of the best parody episodes in the series (X-Files and Frasier), another moment that really affects continuity

 in an otherwise episodic show (The Van Houtens’ divorce), some good episodes for Ned and Reverend Lovejoy. There's also the best of Seymour Skinner’s many dabbles in romance.

The Frank Grimes episode is also a clever bit of meta-humour examining the premise of the show, and homer’s chili-based hallucinations are wonderfully 90s. ‘Bart After Dark’ showcases some slightly more complex issues than typical for a cartoon, Marge gets some fantastic moments, and ‘Homer’s Phobia’ is a bit ham-fisted but brave in what it attempts.

On the other hand, this season has some real duds. The spin-off showcase is a bad idea done badly, the Poochie episode falls flat and the parody of Mary Poppins is too obvious, too lazy and definitely not funny enough to work. A James Bond villain fighting with machine guns and grenades while Homer doesn’t notice and an Italian mafia-Yakuza showdown in Evergreen Terrace just take this show too far from its relateable origins and simply don’t feel very Simpsons. Firing people from human catapults just about passes.

But at this stage, I miss the days of a normal, dysfunctional American family, but they already seem distant. The Simpsons is still kept afloat with some classic moments and clever writing, but it’s right on the edge of sinking, and that’s a shame. 

The Simpsons: Season 7

I had a few problems with Season 6 of The Simpsons, feeling that in many ways, the early hints of the rot that would later infamously make the series less and less entertaining, but I have to say that other than a few episodes and that continuing feeling that it’s hard to really accept that the Simpsons are your average American family when the number of reasons they ought to be world-famous keeps mounting (Homer on tour with Hullabalooza without mentioning his successes with the B-Sharps, Bart vying for the Radioactive Boy role but nobody remembering that time he got famous on the Krusty the Clown Show), but some extremely strong episodes are in this season.

In many ways, this marks the season where the core of Simpsons characters who carried the early shows and actually developed much faster than I had expected before rewatching the whole show in order begin to seem played-out and get gradually less interesting. Bart in particular begins to be more an accessory to other stories than carrying things on his own, and the last episode of the series nicely establishes that (a) most teenagers see him as trying too hard rather than being cool and (b) sometimes his selfishness makes him look like such a jerk that it’s important that he makes amends with kinder gestures. Similarly, Homer is getting progressively more simple-minded, though he’s still a way off being a psychotic idiot. Getting morbidly obese for a more comfortable life is about as far as his crazy schemes should be able to go.

Perhaps the character to come off worst from season 7 is Mr. Burns. After the cliffhanger at the end of the previous series turned him into, as the show itself states, a cartoonish cackling villain rather than a mean but feeble old man, he begins his descent into caricature. The episode where Homer fills in for Mr. Smithers may be the last hoorah of an interesting and nuanced Mr. Burns, the one who surprised me with his complexity in the first three seasons, but when he is literally trying to kill Bart by kicking him into a safe hard enough to knock both overboard while stealing artworks, it’s easy to feel The Simpsons has moved a long way from its origins or any chance of the show portraying identifiable problems for average people.

On the other hand, this is also where the rich cast of minor characters truly begin to shine, with episodes specifically focusing on that. There is also another very strong Apu episode which is very timely even now, decades later, with illegal immigration still a hot topic. With Bart and Homer becoming less central, Lisa and Marge are also given the chance to shine and become interesting characters, Lisa’s making friends on the beach trip, newfound vegetarianism and decision to keep her town’s history a secret for the sake of others all very strong moments of development for her. It’s also nice to see the show keep attempts at continuity going here, with Lisa committing to her vegetarianism, Selma keeping Jubjub and at least Mr. Smithers remembering how central the Simpsons seem to be to his and Mr. Burns’ lives.

Marge, too, gets some strong episodes and depth. Part of the joke of her character is that she’s simple and boring in many ways, but she has her neuroses and passions too. It may seem hard to imagine her going to the work picnic and getting blind drunk on the punch by this stage, but the episode where she becomes a social climber gives her some real flaws, which go hand-in-hand with increased depth.

While the cracks are indeed showing and The Simpsons’ glory days will end soon enough, season 7 was stronger than season 6 and there are still a number of truly brilliant episodes to come before the sharp decline. And hey, even now, The Simpsons can produce good episodes. The one with Marge and Lisa competing to go to space was strong.

The Simpsons: Season 6

While season 6 of The Simpsons is still in its golden period, long before just about any estimate of shark-jumping I’ve ever read, I consider it a bit of a dip in the show’s consistent quality. This seasons has some duds and feels short on ideas, especially since season 7 feels a fair bit stronger. Crossovers have never tended to elevate The Simpsons in any way, and this season’s jarring insertion of the main character from The Critic for one episode is perhaps the most egregious example.

On the other hand, there are some very strong, classic episodes here. Season opener ‘Bart of Darkness’ is a classic well-written episode with a silly final reveal. Sideshow Bob gets another memorable episode running for mayor in an ever-more-relevant episode about populism. Lisa proves to have hidden skills in ice hockey and Bart gets his heart broken again, apparently forgetting the last time.

This is also the period where I begin to clearly remember episodes from my childhood. ‘Homer Badman’ was certainly amongst the episodes I saw first (being in the UK, I can’t claim to have been an early fan), and I remember when the mystery of who shot Mr. Burns was a genuine unsolved cliffhanger. Patty and Selma continue to have surprising depth, but Mr. Burns becomes a bit more cardboard at this stage. Flanderisation is in progress, but he still has the capacity to surprise, and the last act of ‘Bart’s Comet’ is one of my favourite Simpsons moments.

Another Simpsons staple that I don’t really like begins here, with Bart going to Australia and wreaking havoc. Over the next several seasons the Simpson family will visit a variety of countries and the writers will fall back on lazy stereotypes. The only episode in this vein I actually like is the visit to Japan, and even that only for the final reveal of the parts that make up the Mr. Sparkle mascot – probably my favourite joke in the show’s history. But that aside, whenever the family heads to another country, the humour takes a hit, no matter how quotable lines about ‘Knifey-Spoony’ may be.

Even back then, people loved to question whether The Simpsons had outstayed its welcome, whether it was growing stale. It would have a very long way to go before it could be called past its sell-by date. But that day was coming and some early indications were even then becoming visible.

The Simpsons: season 5

Most fans will put the turning point a fair bit later, but in my opinion Season 5 was the beginning of the end for The Simpsons. Decades later, of course it had far further to fall, but in my opinion, this was where things started to get lazy, repetitive and far less adventurous. The characters are by now very well-established, with only the likes of one-note Cletus and the mute monobrow baby introduced into the cast at this stage.

The series begins strongly, but that seems to me largely because of holdovers and creative continuances from Season 4. ‘Cape Feare’ in particular is a favourite episode, and while it begins the annoying trend of ‘Don’t you remember this time that ought to have made Homer incredibly famous?’, there are great moments in ‘Homer’s Barbershop Quartet.’ ‘Rosebud’ also reminds the viewer that by this stage, Mr. Burns is actually one of the most developed of the show’s characters, ‘Homer and Apu’ fleshes out a character who could so easily have been an embarrassment for the writers and this is in fact probably a golden era for Bart, what with insisting on an elephant, getting briefly famous, becoming a billionaire’s heir and getting Skinner fired and having a dilemma over testifying in court or keeping his truancy secret.

Some set-ups seem repetitive. There’s been enough wooing of Marge and her sisters, so it’s time for her mother to get an episode. Homer’s gossiping estranges Marge yet again in a rushed and very superficial season finale – oh, and is also tempted by another woman once again, only to remember that his marriage is much more important.

I’m not saying this isn’t a strong season. It has a lot of classic episodes and was a show really hitting its stride. But for me, the signs of the well-known later decline are in place. This is also the stage where it feels extremely hard to continue to look at The Simpsons as the average American dysfunctional family, which was after all the show’s hook – honest pessimism with a heart of gold underneath it, as opposed to idealisation. They are in many ways average, sure, but at this stage, both father and son have been household names, even if only briefly, Lisa has released a toy line and Homer has gone to space. Yes, at every stage the idea is that it’s the loveable everyday family getting into these strange situations, but at a certain point, they’re just no longer going to be credible as loveable and everyday.

There’s still a long way to go before The Simpsons stops being fun to watch, and there are plenty of great episodes still to come. But the show has lost its fresh feeling. Luckily, by this stage it is very well-established as a true classic and an American institution. But in some ways I wish they’d taken the Fawlty Towers route rather than pushing it until inevitably the shark is jumped. 

The Simpsons season 4

By the fourth season, The Simpsons had really hit its stride. It was regularly honoured in awards shows, so much so that when the showrunners entered episodes for the Emmys in categories that until that year were only open to live-action shows, yet got no nominations for them, it was considered a snub.

Guest stars were by this point a fixture, for better or worse. Elizabeth Taylor came in to deliver Maggie’s first real word, Leonard Nimoy’s appearance cemented his general comedic persona from then on, and the final episode is a parade of famous faced and Groening-ised voices. There are some great, classic episodes, most of them keeping things simple and not being too ambitious – Mr. Plow, Marge Get a Job, A Streetcar named Marge.

On the other hand, there are some signs of laziness creeping in. There was a clip show, though not the most egregious of its kind, and the plotlines were sometimes not so well-constructed, as when Krusty’s rival ventriloquist in Krusty Gets Cancelled never has his story properly concluded – he’s last seen annoyed by the bigger line Krusty’s show gets.

There are some moments that push a little too far into the surreal, many of them in Marge vs the Monorail, and Homer occasionally goes a bit far into the persona that later ruins many a later season, where he’s less loveable oaf and more outright psychopath – including when he decides to start caring for a little neglected kid called Pepi just to spite Bart.

Marge is probably the star of this season, with her well-meaning ideas on home parenting, frustration with her marriage needing an outlet and even her reaction to being caught accidentally shoplifting being highlights.

The cast is largely established by this point, though the season introduces the one-note Sea Captain and classic authority figure stooge Superintendent (Super Nintendo) Chalmers. Oh, and Jub Jub in yet another episode that surprised me with how much development Patty and Selma get with their relatively limited screen time. I always considered them the butt of ugly women jokes, but in fact there’s a lot of depth to them, and sadness to their stories.

I don’t consider the fourth season as strong as the third or fifth, but it was still a show in very good standing. 

The Simpsons: Season 3

By season 3, The Simpsons had gotten over the wobbles of establishing a new show with a broad cast – which, it should be noted, were remarkably minor wobbles – and settled into the best period of its production history, which it will sustain for long enough to become the critically-lauded definer of a generation’s pop culture that it still is. No matter how far it has fallen.

Season three doesn’t need to establish characters or setting any more, but the ideas it puts forward are still fresh and interesting. It is also still possible for the celebrity cameos to be a surprise. Season opener ‘Stark Raving Dad’, with an inspired bit of meta humour in its casting of Michael Jackson as an asylum internee who only believes he is Michael Jackson, perfectly encapsulates this.

There are plenty more celebrity cameos, including a long list of baseball stars all at once, as well as great little appearances by Aerosmith and Spinal Tap, but it is of course the deepening of the characters’ personalities and relationships that make this season work well. Flanders already begins to really get fleshed out with his venture into left-handed entrepreneurship – also giving Homer some much-needed humanity in the days before he’s simply put forward as some kind of psychopath. Moe has his defining episode in the highlight episode ‘Flaming Moe’s’. Krusty and Sideshow Bob both get episodes that build upon what we’ve already seen of their personalities beyond the surface, and flashback episodes of Homer and Marge show that no matter how dysfunctional they can be and how nightmarish they were at that work party way back at the beginning of season 1, they have a lot in their lives that is in fact enviable and adorable.

There are some episodes that stretch the characters. Bart sometimes goes too far in torturing others, to the extent that he becomes hard to forgive, like when he toys with Mrs. Krabappel. Homer being tempted into another affair in Colonel Homer both seems over-familiar from earlier episodes and shows him being a little too oblivious and insensitive, even if he ends up making the right decisions. 

But this season more than any other makes the Simpson family seem relatable and likeable even to watchers who in all honesty are very little like these people. And that, I guess, is the most impressive thing that The Simpsons manages to pull off. 

The Simpsons: Season 2

The second season of The Simpsons moves it into more golden-era territory, though there’s still plenty of experimenting, plenty of odd choices in character design, writing and animation that wouldn’t fit in the show later on. Yet looking back, those elements seem refreshing, fun and inventive. The show has obviously already exploded in popularity as well, with some of the biggest celebrity guests you can get making an appearance – Danny DeVito, Ringo Starr and Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman used a pseudonym, like Michael Jackson in the next season, but for a show only just finding its feet, those are pretty huge names.

There are more episodes in this season, and things have been polished. The bus stop sequence in the opening has already been scrapped, and characters like Barney, Chief Wiggum, Smithers and Ralph have more firmly-established characters. Without any kind of fanfare, the show also introduces the likes of Groundskeeper Willie and Dr. Hibbert and has fun with the first of many ‘Treehouse of Horror’ episodes – James Earl Jones also lends his distinctive voice to the episode, and it’s interesting that as originally conceived, Kang and Kodos weren’t evil at all. One of the show’s funniest gags was the part with blowing dust off the cookbook.

Bart is made a little more likeable in this season, having to grapple with his own shortcomings, apologising when his selfishness genuinely upsets others and even toiling away for some pocket money – even though he very quickly regrets that. Meanwhile, Lisa’s vulnerabilities are also explored, as well as her often absurd stubbornness, and Marge – as well as stealing many scenes with her funny little vocal reactions – provides some of the show’s biggest moments of defiance when she decides to deal with things in her surprisingly dramatic way. Her appearance in Itchy & Scratchy as a squirrel is also something very special.

A whole lot of the season, though, revolves around the pattern of Homer getting the chance to hit it rich – whether as a successful dancing mascot, as the recipient of money for suing Mr. Burns or as the brother of a very rich man – and messing it up, or realising other things are more important. This pattern isn’t actually often very inventive, but sometimes it does lead to some real insight into the family dynamic and how ultimately, their bonds will prevail despite how often they screw up or act selfishly. It’s interesting that the idea of infidelity in the marriage, which informed a lot of the first season, is now mostly replaced by the fear of things simply falling apart without outside influence, through the characters’ innate flaws.

There’s actually a lot of sentimentality in this season, but it never really oversteps the line into schmaltz. When Grandpa loses Bea, when Lisa has to say goodbye to Mr. Bergstrom, the story of Marge’s unlikely decision to date Homer and especially when Homer thinks he doesn’t have long to live all tug at the heartstrings, of course balanced with the bathos that The Simpsons does so well, and overall it makes the viewer far more invested in these characters.

And, I suppose, keep them invested for many, many years yet. 

The Simpsons: Season 1 (1989)

I always meant to rewatch The Simpsons in order, and when the opportunity came up to watch with someone else, it seemed a good plan. I’ve watched the Tracey Ullman Show shorts before, but we wanted to simply watch the first full season, which kicks off with a Christmas special.

The early episodes of The Simpsons are often referred to with a mixture of reverence and affectionate mockery, but what is usually stressed is how different things were from how the show became, not just now but in its glory days. But what surprised me was how well-established a lot of characterisation and plot structures were. Yes, sometimes Smithers has the wrong skin tone or Barney’s hair is the same colour as his face, but there were bigger gaps I expected. For one, I often hear it said that at the beginning, Bart was the major focus of the series, but it shifted to Homer when everyone realised he was both more complex and more entertaining. But while that may be true of the marketing – which was very much Bart-focused in those early years – the same is not really true of the series. If anything, Homer and Marge are the real focal points.

Then there’s the characterisation. The idea that some Simpsons characters begin multi-faceted and were gradually boiled down to flat caricatures defined by a few exaggerated quirks is called ‘Flanderisation’, and while I haven’t really seen the worst seasons of The Simpsons, it feels like these early episodes are painted with very broad brushstrokes, so to speak. But then, there hasn’t really been that much time to flesh out secondary characters, with Mr. Burns being the most nuanced in this season. Some parts seem a bit off – I never quite felt like Lisa should find Bart’s prank phonecalls to Moe as funny as she does, and Marge leaving Maggie to wander after Bart and Homer in the woods doesn’t ring true to her character later at all, but what I was most surprised by were how well-established some traits were very early on.

I didn’t expect Sideshow Bob to be introduced so soon, let alone be so fully-realised way back in season 1. Apu has yet to be well fleshed-out but appears more than I expected him to, and Reverend Lovejoy and his wife are a bit two-dimensional at this early stage. But Barney and Moe despite odd appearances are pretty much as they will always be, as are Otto and Principal Skinner.

A recent Treehouse of Horror had fun harking back to these days – the episode was weak but it was fun to see the animators mocking the very fluid animation back then, especially the way Bart’s face would often twist (bringing back Marvin Monroe was also a clever touch). That fluidity was actually a lot of fun and rather missed. The eccentricities and unconventional risk-taking in the animation is fun and I would prefer to see more of that over the sleek and smooth animation of today.

It will be interesting to see the show develop, but the thing that I’m most surprised by is that the show had a strong and established identity even this early on, and little has really changed over the high points and low points of the show’s long history. 

Epic

Despite the killer cast, I didn’t catch Epic in the cinemas, and I didn’t regret that. The trailer, mixing FernGully with Honey I Shrunk the Kids while centring the piece on the oh-so-witty dialogue of the most plain-looking female protagonist I think I’ve ever seen in animation and a romantic lead that looked like the offspring of Robert Pattinson and an Easter Island head, did absolutely nothing for me, so I thought it should be one I leave until I see it on a plane. Which worked out quite well, because that’s what I did. On our trip to Japan, it was one of the (vaguely) new films on offer.

It was what I expected it to be – a bit clinical and charmless, but entertaining enough all the way through to be very watchable. Nothing that will have a big impact or take Fox into the truly big leagues of feature animation, but also not an embarrassment. So in-keeping with Chris Wedge’s other films.

A young woman who is feeling an emotional disconnection from her ‘stranger’ of a father because of his utter obsession with catching fairies becomes shrunk down and involved in an apparently epic confrontation between the ‘Leafmen’, who guard the queen of the forest, and the Boggans who wish to see everything rot. The queen has been gravely injured and is passing her power on through a pod, which young M.K., uptight Ronin and wildcard Nod have to protect. If it blooms in the moonlight of the solstice, the forest is saved, but if it blooms in darkness...

It’s predictable stuff, but spiced up by some lively performances – Colin Farrell doing his best noble Irish warrior, Christoph Waltz finally getting to do a full-out hammy bad guy yet still introducing nuance to the role, and Beyonce and Steven Tyler rocking up to steal their scenes. Then there’s a comic relief slug and snail duo, who manage to stay just on the right side of annoying, and also a crazy three-legged pug, which you can’t really go wrong with.

The trouble really was that perhaps excepting Colin Farrell, none of the major characters seemed to care very much what they were doing or believe in their lines. About the only character I rooted for, despite an initial distaste for the cutesy not-far-from-Alice-in-Wonderland personified flowers, was the young flower girl enamoured with the Queen, who despite having an important role in the grand scheme of things barely gets 5 lines – but does them with a real infectious enthusiasm.

It would be more interesting to see the film actually deal with the ideas of fathers wasting their lives and failing to be good parents, and with its multiple strands coming together rather better, but ultimately, it just about satisfied.