The Itchy & Scratchy Show – The Simpsons’ recurring cartoon-within-a-cartoon that’s a heightened, gory parody of Tom & Jerry and its ilk – becomes the subject of Marge’s protesting ire, after she attributes Maggie’s attacking of Homer with a mallet to the show’s influence on the children of America.
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Itchy & Scratchy & Marge is one of the series’ earliest and best examples of this, satirising censorship and issues of free expression. One of the best things about the prime era of The Simpsons is the show’s ability to insightfully skewer political and social issues without beating viewers over the head. Just ignore the fact that Bart has remained in the fourth grade for the following 30 years of episodes. It’s an enduringly great episode either way, with some beautiful animation flourishes, but a key one as a mission statement. Stern and director David Silverman strip back the boy’s punky facade to show that, underneath all the bravado, is a child who’s deeply afraid of failure. But with this poignant Season 2 opener, in which Bart is faced with an ultimatum to pass a final exam or be forced to repeat the fourth grade, writer David M. In its first season, the show was arguably centred more around Bart’s anarchy than the rest of the family, which would change going forward. They also had the advantage of being able to respond to feedback concerning the first season and the pop culture juggernaut that the show had already become – on that note, Season 2’s opener, Bart Gets an ‘F’, remains the highest rated episode in the show’s history, with an estimated 33.6 million viewers. With the central characters now established, the writing team had a better idea of the direction they wanted to take those characters and their roles in the show’s dynamics. The second season is where The Simpsons truly became ‘The Simpsons™’. This is not true of the season that immediately followed.
If you are a total newcomer, then this point may seem strange, but going back to Season 1 can be jarring beyond the radically different animation style. While the show’s first season has its own charms and historical importance, its rhythms, objects of focus and certain characterisations don’t gel so well with the golden years that followed. This list is presented in order of air date: Bart Gets an ‘F’ (Season 2) Whether you’re a Simpsons novice or an ardent Springfield fan, here are the 30 – 31, technically – essential episodes to watch on Disney+:
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Any way you look at it, this golden age can be boiled down to the 1990s, when the show was at the height of its popularity and creativity.īut where to start if your only exposure to Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie (and Grandpa) is the odd new episode on Sky One or Channel 4? Or if you’ve never seen an episode in your life? Where to turn to first if you’d like to explore the legacy of one of the most influential series in television history, but want to get a broad taste of its treasures instead of watching several hundred episodes in order?įear not, for the following list, complete with some historical context concerning the show’s evolution, presents the best of all the ways The Simpsons can make you laugh and make you cry. Seasons 1 to 8 are generally considered the safest, although many will argue that the abbreviated first season is very much a test run for a show that properly began in Season 2. Some say it goes up to Season 10, others will say 9. Consensus varies as to what actually counts as the golden age. Yes, while The Simpsons may be America’s longest-running sitcom and scripted primetime series, much of the actual passionate love for the show concerns a specific golden period early in its run. ( Update: This has now been fixed – see here for details.) But any easy access to The Simpsons is good access, even if conventional wisdom is that only an increasingly small fraction of the output is worth accessing. The Michael Jackson-featuring Season 3 opener, Stark Raving Dad, was pulled from circulation in 2019 – you can currently only get that episode legally on the existing DVD box set of that season.Īdditionally, most of The Simpsons’ 30-plus seasons was initially presented on Disney+ in an incorrect, cropped aspect ratio. Thanks to Disney’s acquisition of the 20th Century Fox back catalogue, one of the big selling points of Disney+ is access to the entire library of The Simpsons.
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