Episode 12 - Homer the Father
25 January 2011
Review
Synopsis: Homer watches 1980s sitcom "Thicker than Waters" and is inspired to use its parental moralising on Bart. Bart wants a new dirt bike and Homer suggests he works hard at school instead of making demands. Bart works hard to get an A in Math and is outraged when Homer doesn't buy him a dirt bike. He offers to sell nuclear secrets to the Chinese in exchange for the bike.
The Good: The plot was actually very good.
The Bad: That's what makes this so utterly frustrating.
Let's start with the basics. There is nothing passé about morality on television. Nothing. The highest rated scripted shows on TV are crime or hospital dramas. Two shows whose fundamental formula involves right triumphing over wrong and lessons being learned. There was a tone to this episode which implied that The Simpsons was now above those silly 1980s sitcom with their cheesy moral messages. That isn't true and it never has been. The Simpsons has always been a cheesy moral TV show like any other. The shows great skill was in subverting the cheese and turning it into cutting humour. But at its core the main storylines have always revolved around the love of the family for one another.
Those 1980s sitcoms often ended up turning their parental moralising into the kind of TV formula which had grown stale when The Simpsons arrived in the 1990s to satirise them. The producers of the show owe such a debt to those sitcoms for establishing the predictable rules of TV comedy which The Simpsons turned upside down to create their place in pop culture. Yet despite that huge debt the current producers have long forgotten how to successfully parody those shows. I think by the episodes end the producers looks shallow and a bit pathetic for mocking shows which frankly were a good deal more entertaining than The Simpsons has become.
So Homer's parenting is inspired by a parody sitcom called "Thicker than Waters" which references several shows but The Cosby Show being the most recognisable. Homer doesn't fully understand how to play Bill Cosby and so manages to anger Bart when his higher grades don't result in the appearance of a dirt bike. Bart decides to steal nuclear secrets in order to trade them for a dirt bike.
This is the part the writers got exactly right. In order to get those secrets Bart has to go on his best behaviour and spend quality time with Homer. As a result Homer decides to buy him the dirt bike. Bart doesn't know this and has already got his bike from Chinese spies. It's a brilliant twist which demonstrates so simply a moral lesson. If Bart had behaved and worked hard all the time then his parents would have been more willing to indulge his desires.
But instead of driving home this simple but rich emotional truth the writers head off into la la land once more. Bart's guilt is summed up with a silly vision of American symbols beating him up and a crappy joke about a manila envelope. Homer too doesn't get to react with any emotion to his son's behaviour but instead takes his place and heads to China to tell them his nuclear secrets. Of course he knows nothing which makes the scene where the newly constructed Chinese plant blows up even more pathetic and ridiculous than it could have been. It's such a cop out, sentiment void, pointless, waste of our time. Those cheesy 1980s happy endings served a purpose. This did not. This underlined everything that is bankrupt, arrogant and foolish about a show which is only parodying itself at this point.
The jokes throughout the episode had no basis in reality. None at all, they were awful. Lisa, moral good daughter Lisa, implies she has been taking money from her family when she needs to. Groundskeeper Willie admits to murdering a child. We see a pond in the Simpsons' yard which has never been there before. We have Homer not wanting to kiss Marge "in front of the refrigerator" which makes no sense.
Best Joke: We see thought bubbles showing Homer taking in the lessons from "Thicker than Waters" to teach Bart. On one of them he authentically adds writing credits as the story ends which was kind of clever.
The Bottom Line: I'm still sad inside that the production team who put together ten years of quality TV just don't understand why they were successful. It's easier for me to accept that time, fame and money have just allowed them to lose touch and the show will remain awful forever. When they show flashes of skill like this it makes me angrier at their lack of understanding.
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