Time to age The Simpsons

With stale plots and repetitiveness it's time Bart, Lisa and Maggie grew up to breathe fresh air into the show.

But how much? 1 year? 5 years? Should Marge and Homer and the rest of the cast age too, or just the kids

What do you think?

[email] wrote:

NO. That would definitely be the death of the show.

Je�us wrote:

IAWT No. The fact that they don't age is why The Simpsons has lasted longer than any live-action comedy series.

Besides, Homer and Marge have aged four or five years, sort of; they were 34-35 in the early episodes but 39-40 in later ones.

Maybe - MAYBE - as a Saturday morning spinoff of some sort (the way "The Flintstones" spun off "The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show", which was on Saturday mornings and had the kids in high school), in which case how much they age depends on what you want to do with Maggie; if the show is pretty much just about Bart and Lisa (with Homer, Marge, and Maggie all background characters), I'd age them 4-5 years, but if you want to make Maggie a meaningful character, you have to age everybody 7 years (that makes Bart and Lisa the ages of Meg and Chris on "Family Guy" - another reason you don't want to age anybody ("it's already been done") - and Maggie becomes Lisa's age). (Besides, if you don't have at least one of them in high school, you turn the show into "All Grown Up".)

In the words of the WW2 posters in England telling Mothers in London not to take their evacuated children back - "Leave the Children Where They Are."

-- Don

Garry Trudeau did it with Doonesbury. It survived. So, who is going to turn out to be gay?

Mr. Museum

aaronhirshberg wrote:

Only because the adults are the "stars" of Doonesbury, so you don't notice it as much - and the one character who went from child to adult (Kim) was, for all intents and purposes, two different characters (correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't she pretty much disappear from the strip when she was a child and reappear as an adult years later?).

-- Don

"Don Del Grande" wrote in message news:[email]...

Then you have "For Better or Worse" where everyone ages normally. And look how good that strip is! Am I right, or am I right, people!?

• chirp * chirp * chirp * <--- (cricket sound effects)

-- R Flowers

I looked at that for the first time in years and found it very depressing that the parents are so old now.

I was trying to make a joke about "Megaphone" Mark Slackmeyer. How come nobody acknowledged it?

Mr. Museum

On Feb 2, 11:30 am, Don Del Grande wrote:

If you mean "lasted" in the sense it can put out whatever's "good enough" because people have become too familar with it and accept it because "it's the Simpsons!".

I'd rather have a new Series set 12yrs later and the characters dealing with life's challenges in their respective age groups (albeit in a humorous way) instead of "Homer gets a job #231" or "Another Marrige Crisis 113" from the current one. Unfortunetly, the writers have given us 3, totally silly "futures" and because some people take so much stock in the current show, they think the 3 "futures" are end- all depictions of how the characters can age.

Jake

I would most definately want to see the characters take an age leap, specifically in a new series only, but only in a new series a couple years after it ends. When I'm out and about, I actually will do some informal polling with the general public in regards to a new Simpsons series about an older Maggie and new, younger brother. The quoted text below is clipped from Deviant Art blog:

"Well, I've seen the Simpsons Movie this past Saturday, and I'm glad they tried to inject real emotion into Springfield again. (I won't spoil what transpired for the 7 Simpsons fans who still haven't seen it.) Overall, this movie reminded me of the funny, rapid fire jokes from the first few seasons, and the added length of being an actual movie made the story seem far less-hurried than the episodes. Other than movie ending far too quickly, I'd give this movie a solid A minus.

A few days later on Tuesday, the Limited Edition Simpsons Movie Soundtrack was released and I managed to get the last copy at a Best Buy (Rogers, MN), but that's not the best part. The clerk at the customer service counter where my CD was on hold was humming the Simpsons theme as she was taking the Soundtrack out of a cabinet and I knew I had to ask her for an opinion about a "Simpsons spinoff about a 13yr old Maggie and a new kid, Eric."

I got the usual answer: "Well after so long, I couldn't imagine the characters any differnt." She said, perplexed I'd even ask such a question...but luckily, I was carrying my finished art folder with me. Any hesitations regarding another Simpsons series quickly evaporated. I showed her my drawings of an older Maggie, explained the complexities of the characters (new and old), and within a few minutes, she had waved over close to a dozen of her co-workers to show them.

Not one of the employees, nor a few curious customers passing by, seemed bitter and spouted the cliched "it's a cartoon! They're not supposed to get old!". Everyone who came by were genuinely amazed, and even better, left with big smiles.

Um...Wow..."

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wrote

How about they stay the same age but all get accidentally trapped in a cryogenic chamber that sends them all to New York in the year 3000, where they meet the crew of an intergalactic delivery ship, including a lobster-man and an in-your-face robot.

That could work...

Paul

Sweet Zombie Jesus. I believe you have something there.

On the otherhand, 'The Simpsons: the college years" would seriously flop, I'm sure.

I don't think it would work. You can't have them the same age in the show for 20 years and then magically age them. In "real time" Bart would be 30 and Lisa would be 28. Even if you only aged them 10 years, you've got a whole different dynamic. All of their childhood friends are gone, they don't have Skinner or Krabappel as characters, etc., etc. So much of their identity is locked up in school...

You might be able to get away with it with Marge and Homer (with a talking Maggie). Maybe...

On Feb 6, 4:33 pm, "[email]" wrote:

What I don't understand is how anyone thinks any spinoff scenario would AUTOMATICALLY fail. Any failure would be due to poor writing, unlikeable characters, or poor marketing by Fox and I believe any substantial age leap, 10 years or more, could work.

I was watching Ratatoulie last night (blows the Simpsons Movie out of the water) and I belive a Spinoff could be the "Remy" to the old Simpsons fanbase's "Ego."

I don't think any spin-off scenario would *automatically* fail. There are spin-off variations that could work, but it would be extraordinarily difficult to do things like age the characters significantly. You might be able to spin something off with Lisa in college and Bart...well, Bart doing whatever it is he'd be doing after high school... You might even be able to throw the hardcore fans a bone by having the Hugh episode intersect the spin-off timeline at some point. But the fact is, it would be a *very* different kind of show and the personality changes would have to be so different that I don't think it's an automatic success, either. It'd be a very tough road to follow.

Oooo, breakthrough idea - you should email Matt!