Scullyfied Simpsons: Wrap-Up

“Oh, I’ve wasted my life!“

So said Comic Book Guy during “The Homega Man”, the first segment of “Treehouse of Horror VIII”… the very first Simpsons episode aired during the “Mike Scully Era” of The Simpsons.

In that spirit, there’s a tiny part of me that’s using that quote to reflect on this seven-year, an on-again-off-occasionally-ultimately-finished project that I did to review every episode of the Mike Scully era. The results were not too shocking – I got to see the series decline dramatically in so many ways. Characterization, plotting, comedic timing, all of it went massively downhill in the span of four years. From some of the best television out there, the last few scripts I reviewed were mediocre at best and downright shocking at worst.

My big fear right now is repeating what I’ve said in my Simpsons reviews, though, so this wrap-up is going to be somewhat brief and focused on one thing… why?

(Just a quick PSA: my critique of certain figures with regards to The Simpsons is not an excuse to go out and harass them. Come on, let’s maintain civility.)

To my eyes, the first answer is “greed”. In this case, we have a network not knowing when to give up a good thing.

That’s not to say that other factors were responsible or contributed; I’ll get to those in a bit. But simply put, FOX and Gracie Films had a golden goose in The Simpsons. And why wouldn’t they? This show that was sketched in an office minutes before pitch time is up there with Mark Twain, the Disney Canon, and Looney Tunes as the most recognizable piece of American Pop Culture ever. It crossed demographics, appealed to all ages, people of all intellects could appreciate it. It was satirical, it was tightly-plotted, it was hilarious, it was poignant, comedy combined with stellar character pieces… few shows have been able to combine so many elements into one, and The Simpsons did so for eight seasons.

No other show has captured and endured in the pop-cultural consciousness at such a level for so long, and given the increased fragmentation and specialization of media, it’s hard to envision another show doing so. In a universe where production wrapped up at the end of Season 8, the show still would’ve been bankable, sold in syndication for years to come, probably known as one of the most perfect television series in American history. You have enough episodes to syndicate for years and make billions.

Hell, look no further than Seinfeld for a close counterpart – one of the most-watched TV shows in the 90s, beating out The Simpsons by a mile. Nine seasons, 180 episodes, and it went out with 76.3 million viewers in 1998. (Jerry Seinfeld downright landed the show so it would go out on a high.) It’s still syndicated to this day, and the show banked $4.6 billion in syndication by 2017. It’s almost universally acclaimed as one of America’s best-ever sitcoms, as well.

Now, with thirty seasons under its belt… well, The Simpsons has been syndicated, marketed, everything and the kitchen sink. But at what cost? More frequently than ever, it feels like articles praising the series have that little asterisk. At best, they argue that the show “is good, but at the peak, it was exemplary”. More and more frequently, it feels like opinions have shifted towards “mercy kill this show for the love of God.”

That asterisk is likely going to be there. The Simpsons has a legacy… but for a rather substantial group of people, that legacy will consist of only a decade’s worth of episodes. 33% of episodes that this show produced… out of over 700. 700. On paper, that is not a shining track record.

You got your multi-billion dollar franchise, but at what cost? Even with the overall decline in linear television, the fact that this show is now lucky to hit 2 million viewers – a tenth of what it reached at its height – is astonishing. Even in adults 18-49, Season 31 ranked 49th. Out of 133 shows measured, your flagship show is mid-table. And yet, it stays on, for reasons best described here. How long it will last, I don’t know – the economic fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic is astonishing – but as of the writing of this post, the series continues.

But could the show’s decline have been stopped? Probably not. The story engine isn’t too flexible. In a way, this show was bound to face a dearth of plots to explore sooner or later without compromising something.

Further, by the end of the 90s, animated television began to push other boundaries. South Park stretched vulgar humor to the absolute limits, and once the show found a satirical edge, it managed to harness its ubiquitous production schedule to satirize current events in a timely fashion. Family Guy embraced absurdity and rarely took itself seriously (for good and for ill). And Daria and Futurama tackled character exploration and more dramatic elements with a stronger aura of continuity.

I will always maintain that The Simpsons is among the most influential TV series in American history. But those shows – and surely more – managed to build upon what The Simpsons laid down. And this is still going on today, with even cartoons not expressly made for adults taking heavy influence from The Simpsons. (Two of my favorites – Gravity Falls and Steven Universe – were made by Alex Hirsch and Rebecca Sugar, two creatives who are fans of the show, and you definitely can find elements within those series that are reminiscent of The Simpsons.)

In short, the world was changing around The Simpsons, daring the series to evolve. Yet… maybe it would’ve been sustainable depending on who was in charge. The show might not have been as fresh, but maybe the characters would remain relatable, maybe the plots would’ve retained coherence, maybe the show wouldn’t have garnered this reputation.

Hence, Mike Scully. Or, rather, whether or not he’s responsible for the show’s decline in any major way.

Scully has become a major malign figure in The Simpsons fandom. With that, there have been counterarguments, attempts to rehabilitate his reputation somewhat. And I do agree that Scully had quite a task ahead of him. The old guard of writers slowly left during his era, the story engine was reaching limits, even voice actors were starting to depart, albeit not always by their own volition. (Script supervisor Doris Grau succumbed to cancer in 1995, Phil Hartman was gunned down in 1998, and Maggie Roswell briefly resigned over a financial dispute in 1999.) The tragedy and turmoil combined with avenues for comedy and plot elements being curbed.

So I’m not upset that the show was weakened. If the show had declined over the four years alone, it would’ve been rather sad, but understandable. Few shows go out at the perfect time. If it hadn’t, I would’ve been more astonished.

What does frustrate me, however, is how the show took critique over the tone and quality of the scripts. Overall, the tone of the series became… nastier. The Simpsons always had a cynical streak, no doubt about it. But there used to be this sense of genuine warmth underneath it all. Even at the silliest moments of Seasons 5 and 6, The Simpsons felt real. During the Scully years, in contrast, the tone became far more acerbic all while attempts at creating pathos felt more forced (or were undermined by a rather off-color attempt at comedy). Jerkass Homer alone would’ve been a concerning development, but he’s a symbol of how the show traded off multifaceted characters and situations for soulless zaniness and acerbity. Evolution felt more like devolution.

And when called out on this, the series became defensive. “Saddlesore Galactica” was intended to mock fandom complaints in the very same episode where characters encountered cannibalistic jockey elves. “Alone Again, Natura-Diddily” feels like a spit in the face for those who grew attached to the characters in Springfield. “Missionary: Impossible” has no ending, mocking the show writing itself into a corner. Many episodes had quips regarding the sudden shift in characterization or the zaniness in plots, all with this aura of “whatever” or “you pedantic nerds watching this need to go get some fresh air” or “we were just parodying this obscure thing, don’t you get it?”

Instead of recognizing that something was wrong and trying to correct it, trying to approach these ideas in a more coherent and relatable path, keeping a close eye on how the characters and the setting interact with one another and the overall tone of the series, the writers doubled down on its strategy and provoked the audience to respond in kind. End result? The show caved in on itself. It became everything it once scorned. Worse, it became the establishment while crumbling in on itself, all while shows with stronger writing were sent down the river by the network.

It’s hard not to blame Mike Scully as a result.

The showrunner sets the tone for his role in the series, as well as for further episodes to follow. The Groening/Simon/Brooks years were grounded, revolving around the titular family and their world. The Jean/Reiss years expanded upon the already blossoming Simpsons universe. Mirkin managed to add in just enough surrealism while still putting out very tight, relatable, and hilarious scripts. And Oakley/Weinstein went back to more grounded character pieces, with some episodes from this era being deeply moving. Each era has its own distinct identity, but they all feel distinctly Simpson-y, adding to the brilliant tapestry of the Series. In contrast, by Season 13, the show felt stripped down to a lesser form of itself. Every addition did more to subtract from the series.

While one could argue that elements that would plague the series go as far back as Season 4 (albeit executed well then), it was only during Season 9 when the execution really began to falter. Yes, one could argue that a new crop of writers came in, but surely the older writers that were there would try and curb the worst excesses, that the scripts would be molded into something brilliant.

If John Swartzwelder’s scripts are any indication? Yeah, I have my doubts. In fact, guess what? Scully wrote episodes in the “classic era” – “Lisa’s Rival”, “Lisa on Ice”, “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds”, “Marge Be Not Proud” (yeah, I like that one), “Team Homer”, and “Lisa’s Date with Destiny”. These are some genuinely brilliant episodes here. How do you go from those to “How I Spent my Strummer Vacation”? The series replaced fresh and timeless ideas with boring concepts and stale execution.

Now, let me be clear – I don’t think Scully made it his mission to drive the series into the dirt. Far from it. As mentioned above, I think the show was bound to run out of gas thanks to external pressures. But when fans begin to complain about your show’s quality at the same time you take stabs at said complaints? Yeah. Not a very good look.

Combined with a show being kept alive thanks to the marketability within? Well, one could argue that the show didn’t need to try. Not that they shouldn’t – justify your timeslot, give me a reason to watch you instead of sports or Disney cartoons or Netflix. But this show remains alive, renewed back in February 2019, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they renewed it once more (at least) before the curtain falls.

And look, I’m repeating myself at this point, so I’ll just cut to the TL;DR. FOX renewed the show with little regard for quality. Mike Scully didn’t appear to do a brilliant job at quality control, and his execution of the series contrasted so staunchly with the aura laid down beforehand that the shift became noticeable and stark. And the media and cultural landscape around The Simpsons so dramatically changed that the show’s decline just became starker.

It was just a tragic combination of circumstances. And yet…

…I can’t stay mad for too long.

Because all of the Loch Ness Monsters, Jockey Elves, shirt cannons, mysterious islands, and diamond-exploiting scientists are a drop in the bucket compared to what The Simpsons brought to the table at its peak. Let’s take stock with what the Scully era and “Zombie Simpsons” stemmed from. Some of the smartest social satire in American cultural history. A fantastic cast of characters. Brilliant, relatable, hysterical comedy that impacted on all levels. The perfect balance between societal cynicism and personal warmth, with many episodes able to stick a lump in the viewer’s throat. All of it so influential on pop culture for the thirty years since “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”. Where millions upon millions of Americans (just to start) watched on a weekly basis.

This held for eight seasons. 178 episodes. Comparatively few shows had such a strong streak before, during, or since. Seinfeld, All in the Family, the golden era of The Simpsons… three of the best and most influential American sitcoms ever, one could argue. That’s not particularly bad company.

If the cost for that is twenty years of mediocrity tacked on at the end, then guess what? It’s almost worth it… especially since the discussion of the mediocrity is so often drowned out by the discussion of the brilliance that came beforehand.

And nothing will take away the brilliance. Nothing.

The saying (some would argue cliche) is to take the good with the bad. To my eyes, the show caved in dramatically once it hit a certain point. That argument should be recognized, taken as a warning for other shows so they can go out on a high, to maintain their creative integrity, to not take the audience for granted. Many of the episodes that I’ve reviewed over the past seven years, I will probably never watch ever again – at the very least, not for a long while.

But what came during that stretch beforehand should be celebrated.

For that, for everybody who contributed to the golden era of The Simpsons, even if I’ve been critical of some of your later works… thank you. You’ve shaped American society for good. On a personal level, you’ve created probably the most influential piece of media that I’ve ever watched.

And that argument will never die.

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And with that, I want to thank everybody who’s read my attempt to dissect the Mike Scully years of The Simpsons. The feedback I’ve received has been insightful and fascinating, and your readership has made this experience that much more enjoyable.

But I’m not done yet – far from it! I’m taking on The Movie in a bit. And I’ll be taking on Infinity Train and Red Dwarf: The Promised Land shortly after. Also, Steven Universe is going back to bat.

Before all of that… let’s do something else.