Am I the only one who gets annoyed about celebrity guests on the Simpsons? First of all they add nothing to the show. They always sound like the celebrities they are, rather than the Simpsons-style voices that are so well done by the regular voice actors. But that is when they are voicing a fictional character, which I could put up with.
Worst of all are the celebrities who come on the show and voice themselves. If you're going to have a celebrity on the show, it should be someone impersonating them. I mean, this show is supposed to be satirical, but if you are slagging off a celebrity, and they are voicing themselves, you can never really say anything too hard-hitting. And the result is that we, the audience, know that the celeb doesn't mind what is being said (since they are the ones saying it). So it's not really good satire, I mean The Simpsons hasn't really had a go at the person.
But it seems to me the Simpsons has turned into a mini show-case for celebrities rather than a programme which takes the piss out of them. Bring back the days of satire.
I mean take the boy-band episode. I mean it was funny enough a piss-take of boybands, but I imagine they had to tone down their insults a bit, otherwise N-sync would have never agreed to do the episode. Imagine what they could have gotten away with if they didn't have those shackles.
Similarly (maybe even more so) the Tony Blair episode. Though I didn't see that one...
And it's not like The Simpsons needs the status - the show became great on its own, it doesn't need celebrity voices to boost its publicity.
Finally, if they are going to have celebrities on, get celebrity impersonators or comedians who will be good at the humourous satire and social commentary that The Simpsons is famous for. (Rory Bremner should have been hired to do the Tony Blair one... but then I suppose he isn't a celebrity to Americans)