Don’t ever call it a cartoon.
Don’t even think of saying it’s just for kids. Comments like that will see you sent around to the Flanders's house for Sunday lunch.
Day of days, sing it out from the rooftops. The Simpsons turns 25 today.
Can I remember the badly drawn early vignettes on the Tracy Ulman show where Homer’s voice was an octave lower? I can’t say that I can. It must have been season two or three that I joined the yellow revolution. It was around the time when George H Bush said the US needed more families like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Well look at the programme now, George. Despite everything thrown at them, this family sticks together. They even eat dinner every night AROUND a table.
The Simpsons had the last laugh in an episode where the Bushes retired to Springfield and Bart decided to target George.
Some of the forays into politics were pure class. One Sunday in 1996, after a long day typing the final draft of my thesis, I retired to a public house and this came on:
If that isn't one of the finest pieces of political satire then I’m Kang himself. The episode was also one of the first Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials. This brings us to the second reason why it should never be seen as a cartoon. Step forward, Edgar Alan Poe.
He has been a regular ‘co-writer’ of the Halloween specials since their ghoulish birth. The best of these is The Raven.
Yes it's only audio but it still works beautifully. An honourable mention must go to Bart’s science project the Tell-Tale Heart. I can’t find the video but it's also significant as it brought the word diorama into my vocabulary.
But my all time favourite ‘And this is not for kids’ moment must be when Homer loses his religion. For him, Sunday is about watching football and his adult-related magazines. The one that makes him say the following stunning line:
”Ah the coil. Love springs internal."
It must have been 20 years ago but it actually made me fall off my chair in paroxysm of laughter.
Never call it a kids show - and at 25 it sure is all grown up.
