The Simpsons... or The Valerios?

There were three television shows that I was not (and still not) allowed to watch under my parents’ roof.  Charmed, Ren and Stimpy, and The Simpsons.  Charmed became the highlight of the week, every week, with me sneaking out of my bed and into my older sister’s every Thursday night at ten. The Ren and Stimpy ban I weaseled my way around because it was the show of choice at daycare after elementary school.  The Simpsons, however, was never one that I took to.  With it’s discolored characters, demeaning attitude towards children and a dysfunctional family life; I never tried to dodge around my mother to tune in.

Being the longest running comedy on television, the topic of many high school and early college year conversations, and the subject of a three credit humanities class at my own higher education institution – I thought I’d give it another go.  And let me begin by saying, that I am not so sure if the outcome would have been so terrible if my mother had permitted us to sit and watch ourselves on television for thirty minutes every Sunday evening.

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire aired in December of 1989.  The pilot show began with two parents arriving late a to a school production showing the different origins of Christmas and ways that it is celebrated in different cultures and countries.  Setting the stage for the all-American family, we see the proud mother, the father snoring in his auditorium seat, the misbehaved child, and the conservative one.  The plot develops when Homer, the father, loses his Christmas bonus and comes to the realization that it will be a meager Christmas that year.  Lined with undertones of the typical middle class American Christmas, the pilot comes full circle with Homer saving the holiday by bring home a lost puppy.

Instead of the vulgar and demeaning humor that I expected, the moments that were funny, and that were meant to be, were all too familiar – especially around the holidays.  The impersonal Christmas cards with my annoying smiling face plastered on it, that my mother had to send to three dozen people that we hadn’t been in touch with since the form letter sent the year before, the annoying in-laws and great aunts that completely took over my bedroom when they came to stay Christmas Eve, and the intense frustration that comes with untangling all of the Christmas lights (and the humor that comes with watching my father attempting to do it.  We see Homer try and recite the eight reindeer that drive Santa’s sleigh (does anyone really know all of them?) and his attempt at the impossible Christmas shopping list.

Not only does the episode allow the audience to laugh at themselves for these incidents that everyone is guilty of, but they also laugh at their ordinary plot line with the son, Bart’s, plea, "Come on, Dad, this could be the miracle that saves the Simpsons' Christmas. If TV has taught me anything, it's that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas. It happened to Tiny Tim, it happened to Charlie Brown, it happened to the Smurfs, and it's going to happen to us."

It was clear, too, that many of the writing is drawn from outside the shows context.  Airing just sixteen days after the popular holiday move A Christmas Vacation, many scenes appear to be similar: the missing Christmas bonus, the cutting down of the wild pine tree for the living room, and the friendly competition with the neighbors to produce the most impressive yard light show.

With a little humor and a little love, The Simpsons surprised me.  I didn’t laugh out loud, but I do appreciate the show revealing humor in my everyday agony. 

Other reviews of the Simpsons, season one.