If I thought I felt pressure writing about previous seasons, well triple it here for the vaunted fifth season. The season where, let's face it, the plots are ridiculously insane, even for The Simpsons. They get a pet elephant, Bart AND Homer both become famous, and Homer goes to fucking space. Needless to say, the show didn't seem to feel the need to restrain itself. Virtually any parody or wacky plot could conceivably happen, which is a welcome change from the usual repeated storylines even the best sitcoms tend to have. (In theory, having the plots be virtually anything shouldn't work. In theory, communism works. In theory.)
This may sound like sacrilege to some, but honestly this is the first season where I get it. I understand its love, its admiration, and its obsessive fans. This is the first season of The Simpsons that worked for me like I expected it to. Now, I'm not saying the previous seasons disappointed me by any means, I just felt like my expectations had been built so high that I was holding the show to an impossible standard. Those standards haven't been lowered so much as the fifth season reached them.
I realized something else to help me reach this conclusion. The Simpsons do two things that are common nowadays, but back then was rare. The first is the cutaway gag. It's not exactly accurate to say it's overused now, because if it's done well it will always work, but between all of Seth McFarlane's shows, 30 Rock and New Girl (and others), the cutaway gag is all over the place.
The other thing is meta humor and meta sitcom humor (I don't know what else to call it). The show makes fun of itself frequently and comments on its place in pop culture. It also makes fun of the structure of the show itself and how sitcoms usually work. Other shows do meta humor - hell other shows did meta humor around the same time (I am scared to put this show here because of the hate it gets now, but Friends is a good example). But no other shows make fun of how exposition works and say things about how the episode is wrapping up much quicker than usual. (Although, if there's a weakness in this season, it's that they went to that well too many times. It felt like every episode had a meta joke in it)
Those two things helped me appreciate The Simpsons more, but what also helped it was that I found it much funnier. The "insect overlords" scene makes me laugh every time I think about it and is one of the funniest scenes of any comedy show ever for me. For some reason, watching Sideshow Bob get constantly pummeled is also endlessly hilarious including walking into a rake a ridiculous number of times. Then there's the innumerable amount of times The Simpsons generates laughs by doing the opposite of what would be expected.
Adding to the laughs is an almost insanely amazing ability to deploy famous guest stars in the best way possible. I can't think of any better use than what they do with James Woods, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ernest Borgnine, and Albert Brooks. And not necessarily due to their voice work like the actors, they tend to make comedy gold out of their musical guest stars such as George Harrison, the Ramones, and James Taylor.
Despite these laughs, I don't think The Simpsons sacrificed any humanity for its characters. There's a shocking character consistency that I expected to falter. If Homer needs to find something out, every single time they make sure he only finds out because it's blatantly obvious. Bart is mischievous, but he's not downright evil by rejecting Burns and confessing that he witnessed an apparent assault. This aspect of The Simpsons is evidently missing from newer episodes from what I've read (well that and being funny).
If there's one thing that I miss the most in Simpsons episodes, it's the not insignificant amount of its pop culture references. One of the weaknesses to being young (humble brag) is that my cultural cache is much, much smaller than most people. Sure, I most likely have a considerably bigger reach than most people my age, and I'm trying hard to expand it, but I have nowhere near what The Simpsons writers had. I mean four of the first seven episodes are elaborate parodies of things I have little knowledge of. The history of The Beatles? I'm probably the farthest thing from an expert on The Beatles. Also, I've never seen Cape Fear, Citizen Kane (gasp!), or Thelma & Louise. You could say I feel a little bit left out.
If anything though, the impressive reach of movies/shows that it would inspire me to watch is an enormous positive for the show. And to revisit these episodes after having seen things that the show mocks, lovingly parodies, or comments upon will be a joy. I've said it before and it never has been truer than now for me: I will enjoy these episodes more on re-watch than my first viewing.
Lastly, because I think it deserves merit, is the show's title sequence. It says something about what a run they had reached that the chalkboard and couch gags became must-see television. Between "I will never win an Emmy," "I will not celebrate meaningless milestones," and every single, unique couch gag, the show was clearly firing on all cylinders.
It feels good that I finally get it. I'm really interested to see how I view previous seasons now that I feel I understand its love. I don't know what it says about me that it took until the fifth season, but an important thing to understand is that I have always expected to laugh more at these episodes. And this is the first season where that expectation was met. (Last note: It's amazing how many quotes I am well aware of that I didn't know came from The Simpsons)
Playlist
1. "No Rest for the Wicked" - Lykki Li
2. "High" - Freddie Gibbs feat. Danny Brown & Madlib
3. "Gooey" - Glass Animals
4. "Do it Again" - Robyn, Röyksopp
5. "Comes and Goes" - Greg Laswell
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