Picking Fights
Matt Groening is what you get if you took the good parts of Michael Moore and Ted Rall, and combined them (with a lot of needed filler) into one human being.
If you aren’t familiar with his alt-weekly comic strip, Life Is Hell, go pick up your local alt weekly and start reading it, pronto.
I’m pretty damn sure you’re already familiar with Matt’s other baby. A little TV show called The Simpsons. It’s been running for over a dozen years now, and seems to have a few devoted fans here and there.
But now Matt Groening says the end may be near for Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, & Maggie.
From the Financial Times story:
“I think we are closer to winding it up,” he says. “Although what happens generally if we win the Emmy for best animation show is that that gives us another couple of years to run it into the ground.”
Matt is right. And they should have cancelled the series two seasons ago.
Don’t get me wrong — there have been some classic episodes the last two years. There was the one, uh. . .well, and. . .let’s face it, the show has been pretty lame.
When Matt left to work full-time on Futurama, and the late, great Phil Hartman went to work for God personally, The Simpsons suffered greatly. I mostly watch now out of habit. Better to have killed it off at the top of its game (seasons Ten and Eleven were among the Best. Seasons. Ever.), than to let it suffer the long, slow decline it’s in now.
It would be a mercy killing, really.
I tend to agree with you but look how many times SNL has pulled a Lazarus-like comeback. And it was, at times, much worse than any under performing Simpsons episode. Maybe I’m being
sentimental but I hope it continues for another season.
I haven’t been able to watch SNL since the end of the Third Great Era.
That’s when Hartman, Nealon & Co left the show. SNL survived OK without Miller, but without Phil? Fuggidaboudit.
FYI, the Three Great Eras were:
1) The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players (with and without Chevy Chase and Bill Murray)
2) The Eddie Murphy/Julia Louis-Dreyfus/Tim Kazerinsky Era. Although anyone mentioning a certain cast member with the initials J.P. will be slapped with a brick.
3) Miller/Hartman/Nealon/Carvey/etc.
I’m not sure I can include such one trick ponies and Spade and Farley, but let’s be generous since Farley is dead and Spade is stuck working with Laura San Giacomo, who has made a career out of being whiney about having to pretend to hide her two enormous talents.
Blasphemer! Next time you go outside, watch for lightning.
Just consider this: despite your claim that the show has declined, can you in any way argue that The Simpsons isn’t still the best show on television?
No, God, please don’t cancel The Simpsons!!!! If they do, I will have absolutely nothing to watch on TV but the news!!!! What kind of world would that be????
Ben, I never thought I’d say this, but Friends has been funnier this year, and Will & Grace has been funnier for two years running.
And that’s about all the TV I watch.
I would endorce cancelling the Simpsons if it meant that Futurama would get the full time love it deserves. But since it seems that show may not be around much longer, The Simpson’s may be all I have TV wise.
Besides the West Wing, Six Feet Under, and Queer As Folk that is. I love digital cable.
Actually, it’s Life “In” Hell. Carry on.
I’m not sure about this, but I believe I had once heard that Groening has almost nothing to do with the writing of the Simpsons TV show.
That would explain why the TV show is funny while Life in Hell is pure tedium.
Life in hell is reading Life in Hell. Or Doonesbury.
Eric, one of these days I swear I’m gonna hire a copy editor.
Copy editor for rent: I won’t necessarily catch your mistakes, but at least you’ll have someone else to blame them on…
Myria
did you ever find life in hell archived online? that was you, wasn’t it? a month ago or so?
apparently, jimmy fallon is pretty amazing. i don’t watch snl anymore, but that’s what i hear…
Doesn’t anyone watch King of the Hill? I find it hysterical — a worthy successor to The Simpsons for best animated series. Then again I’m a Texan.