Killer Baboons - Some Thoughts on Wackiness

Yesterday, I was watching In Marge We Trust, and thought the ending was interesting. Ned, after getting bad advice from Marge, is trapped in the zoo, surrounded by killer baboobs, and then Reverend Lovejoy rescues him by a train and attacks the baboons. I thought it was interesting because it was extremely wacky, the kind of plot development you'd expect in seasons 11 and 12, not as far back as season 8, with monkey humor and an implausible rescue. Yet the episode is highly praised. Few people have complained about that ending, and Matt Groening named In Marge We Trust as one of his top 10 favorite episodes of all time, particularly because of the baboon plot. Even I found the ending amusing. So many people on alt.tv.simpsons violently detest wackiness of the new seasons that I've wondered why the ending to In Marge We Trust was fairly well-taken.

I think this illustrates a huge difference between good wackiness (early seasons) and bad wackiness (Scully seasons). I hate episodes like Simpson Safari and New Kids on the Blecch and It's a Mad Mad Mad Marge because they display a "any wackiness is automatically funny". The writers think that Homer stabbing his fingers for no reason, or Homer wrapping himself in dynamite (and pulling the plunger) is funny, or Homer getting disemboweled by a badger, or monkeys being forced to work a diamond mine are inherently funny concepts because they're ridiculous situations. In Marge We Trust has a subtle difference that makes it superior. The wacky ending is placed in the end, with events leading somewhat logically up to it. The rest of the episode is realistic, and even emotional, and a bit mundane, so when it ends with something as ridiculous as killer baboons, it's funnier. The audsience thinks, "how did the story come to this?" and that somehow makes it funnier. Another example would be Viva Ned Flanders. The episode starts of fairly realistically, with Homer and Ned traveling to vegas, and by the end, they're being chased by their 2 new wives, and confronted by casino guards, Drederick tatum, The Moody Blues, and Siegfried and Roy. That's funny. Both In Marge We Trust and Viva Ned Flanders show a great virtue of The Simpsons, starting off with a realistic, mundane situation, and having fun with the story by adding gradually wackier and wackier twists. Newer episodes fail at wackiness because wackiness is used throughout the episode, and mainly for unexpected shock value.

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< Even I found the ending amusing. So many people on alt.tv.simpsons violently detest wackiness of the new seasons that I've wondered why the ending to In Marge We Trust was fairly well-taken.

The Conquest Of The County Of The Apes gag afterwards.

~Paul Melnyk, too Laozi to come up with a witty nickname. "An autocrat is a facist that's loved, a dictator is a fascist that's hated."

You're damn right. There needs to be contrast between reality and unreality.

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In alt.tv.simpsons, on the "Killer Baboons - Some Thoughts on Wackiness" thread, TheAbman wrote:

This was something I noticed as far back as the seventh season, as the show was moving from its relatively realistic early seasons, to the "anything goes" philosophy of recent episodes. At the time, I felt "Bart on the Road (3F17)" was an excellent example of how to do an off-the-wall story. Yeah, the idea of a bunch of fourth-graders renting a car and driving to Tennessee is far-fetched, but the writers built up to it plausibly enough that we could suspend our disbelief.

Also, I think that requiring yourself to logically introduce a wacky ending puts some sort of upper bound to how weird you can get. A few years ago at a zoo, a small child fell into a pit with gorillas in it. (Fortunately for him, one of the gorillas protected the child from the other apes until a zookeeper could rescue him.) Considering that, Ned getting menaced by baboons isn't so unbelievable after all. Likewise, I've heard news stories about grade-school children who drive off in the family car and even get a few miles away from home before the police flag pull them over. Knowing this makes Bart's road trip more of a funny exaggeration than a break from reality. On the other hand, is there really a way to start "realistically" and get to the endings we saw in "The Great Money Caper (CABF03)" or "New Kids on the Blecch (CABF12)"?

If you watch it from the beginning, you'll see that "The Simpsons" was intended to be more realistic than other cartoons (and indeed than many other live-action shows of the time). That doesn't bar the occasional wacky caper, but the writers have to be careful about it, or the wackiness will backfire.

<If you watch it from the beginning, you'll see that "The Simpsons" was intended to be more realistic than other cartoons (and indeed than many other live-action shows of the time). That doesn't bar the occasional wacky caper, but the writers have to be careful about it, or the wackiness will backfire>

Even the Springfield Gorge scene was hilarious in the fact it was totally opposite from Bug's Bunny and and stuff.

~Paul Melnyk, too Laozi to come up with a witty nickname. "An autocrat is a facist that's loved, a dictator is a fascist that's hated."