Series Outlasts Everyone, Doesn't Pay Actors
By Cory Forsyth
A&F Associate

On Sunday night, at a quarter to eight, numerous Claremont Colleges students, myself among them, were enjoying a final free meal with their folks as Parents Weekend drew to a close. Ten minutes later, I was frantically running back from the Village to catch the opening tritone of the 300th episode of The Simpsons. Over the next couple of minutes people steadily trickled into the room until there was a total of twenty-five packed into one half of a Clark I two-room double, all watching in rapt silence punctuated by occasional raucous laughter.

The Simpsons surpassed Ozzie and Harriet this past weekend to become the longest-running sitcom ever with its 300th episode. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, originally created the characters because he was looking to move into animated features, but didn't want to give up control of his Life in Hell characters, which populate a comic strip that he writes. The original Simpsons episodes were simply animated shorts only a few minutes long that were shown on The Tracey Ullman Show. Groening explains that, from the start, the Simpsons were "about the things that drive you crazy. How do you live with people you love and you want to kill?"

Groening has imposed some stringent stylistic rules for the show since the beginning. The Simpsons never make "cartoonish" faces or cross their eyes when hit on the head, no stars or birds ever flutter around their heads, and the show doesn't use a laugh track. These nonstandard requirements for an animated show, along with the irreverent, topical humor, are often cited as reasons for the show's continued success over fourteen seasons. Another reason is the competitive nature of the show's writers. Groening believes that the show "sustained its velocity because each new set of writers tried to top the previous set." Al Jean, one of the producers of The Simpsons who has been on board since the Tracey Ullman days, explained the fastidiousness of the show's writing: "The producers get together and someone pitches an idea. If they like the idea they'll write a first draft and then get together to heavily rewrite it, line-by-line, about eight times before they do a rough cut of the animation. The producers and writers meet with the cast members to rewrite any necessary parts of the rough cut, and then it is finally sent to South Korea for overseas animators to illustrate the final version of the show." Jean believes that The Simpsons, which was one of the first shows to sign on with the Fox network in the late Eighties, singlehandedly made the network what it is today.

The Simpsons also enjoys widespread success on Pomona's campus. For many students, it's the only television they watch all week. Nancy Hanna '03 likes the show because "It's not afraid to be random... it throws you off and that's what's funny." She explains that liking The Simpsons is a "very Pomona thing," and finds the universal reverence that Pomona students have for the show to be "cute."

There is a camaraderie among Simpsons viewers that is engendered by the show itself. The writers often include inside jokes and internal references to past Simpsons episodes in their scripts, which gives the viewers a sense of connectedness to the show. That witty irreverence, combined with biting topical satire including biting-the-master's hand jabs at the Fox Network, surely appeal to the college crowd. Also, what Jean calls the show's "overriding philosophy of ... nihilism" makes watching it, much like watching Seinfeld -- another "show about nothing" -- a great escape on an otherwise busy Sunday night.

Janice Kang '04, a Simpsons fan, said "If I were making a time capsule, I would include an episode of The Simpsons." And Catherine John '05, another fan (who owns the first two seasons on DVD), said "If any group of viewers appreciates this show, it's college kids, and watching and discussing the show adds to the familial feeling of college."

With their first-ever Golden Globe nomination this season and their passing the 300-episode milestone, the Simpsons looks as if it will be around to delight Pomona viewers for many episodes to come. New episodes air Sunday nights at 8 p.m. and classic episodes are shown every weekday night at 11 p.m. on the Fox Network.