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Is The Simpsons' 20th season pushing too hard to be grown up? Euan Ferguson finds out.
Matt Groening is his usual delightful geek-gone-right self when it comes to plaudits for The Simpsons.
It's now the longest-running prime-time animated series and the longest-running comedy series in the United States, but its creator admits only to one record: "I think we've used more yellow paint than any other TV show."
It's just kicked off its 20th series (yes, it's really 20 years since George Bush senior gave it an inestimable boost by declaring he wanted the American family to be "more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons") and a few hearts sank when the scuttlebutt arrived that we are about to get our first "adults only" Simpsons.
That's right: they are going to make an episode naughtier, to be shown when the children have gone to bed, or are out clubbing.
But the whole point of The Simpsons is that it can be watched by everyone, of all ages, all the time, and the naughtiness goes right over the heads of the tots.
Down the years they've covered - with simple wit and integrity - alcoholism, divorce, drug addiction, manic depression (Krusty), sexual orientation, war, religious extremism, chainsaw murder, resurrection, care-home scandals and Aryan supremacism, but with marginally more doughnuts than Nightline.
And without, generally, swearing, and utterly absent of gratuitousness. No need, surely, to push the envelope and outrage for the sake of it. In the US the number of people "offended" by The Simpsons has for two decades formed a handy bellwether for the mental health of the country: why start giving the window lickers something to be genuinely offended over?
You can, I'm pleased to say, rest easy. They haven't gone silly so it still stands a chance of having plots and being funny. No, the episode, which is due to screen in New Zealand on November 30, is about Homer and Marge talking about their years as newlyweds. The great news is that it is, basically, about what we must call America's greatest ongoing love story: Homer and Marge.
Flawed, resilient, the marriage has been hanging on shaky nails but never hit by the cartoon anvil. Marge was tempted twice: by the snakey French bowler Jacques and by Ricky Gervais.
Each time she came back to Homer. "How do I know I can trust you?" she asked after one spat. "Marge, look at me: we've been separated for a day, and I'm dirty as a Frenchman. In another few hours I'll be dead! I can't afford to lose your trust again."
She sighed, in bed, over The Bridges of Madison County. Homer responded with a belch and threw the book in the fire. He still went into space to win back her respect. You know they want different things, always will. My own favourite exchange: Marge: "Homer, is this the way you pictured married life?"
Homer: "Hmm, yeah, pretty much. Except we drove around in a van solving mysteries."
But a true romance goes on, swings doggedly around the need/pity/trust axes, like so many in real life: and it has been subtly, winningly done over two decades.
And if we get more Marge/Homer action, I can't see the problem. It would be nice, however, if the bluest thing remained Marge's hair.
- OBSERVER
