Explaining "Brawl in the Family" (plus some free rambling)

I'm no fan of the Scully era (seasons 9-12). I think in those years "The Simpsons" took a turn for the worse, developing many, many bad habits which are discussed here very often. I'm not saying that Scully himself ruined the show, but it did become a very different show while he was in charge (mainly, some of the problems started in the now ancient Oakley & Weinstein era).

Some of the problems developed in the Scully era are pointless episodes with lots of plot twists that go nowhere and lots of unfunny jokes involving sex or major injuries in between. These things are not that bad in small doses, but in those seasons it seemed that every week the episodes were like that. It made me stop taping the show in season 12 (after three seasons of hardly watching what I taped) and I stopped going out of my way to watch the show. I still don't care about the season 12 episodes I haven't seen, and that's not a situation I like.

I read The Rack's "Truckosaurus" review of "Brawl in the Family" (which I have just seen for the first time), in which he says that these "bad" episodes are done on purpose. He makes some good points about how the writers know about the dumb plots and make references to that fact. I certainly noticed those "winks" (lots of those episodes look like they knew what they were doing, for instance Maximum Homerdrive). But I'm still not convinced. *Why* would they make bad episodes on purpose? Because they are running out of ideas? I don't think so, they have a zillion characters, it's not _that_ hard to come up with 22 stories per year when you have a group of 10 or so talented writers, is it? And even if they did run out of ideas they can cram 22 movie parodies a season and no one would complain. Maybe they are trying to see how far they can go before the general public notices it and the ratings start to decline (would they risk something like that?)

Also, it doesn't make sense to me that they would make episodes to try to piss off some newsgroup people. Who cares if the people on the Internet don't like the show? There have certainly been references to alt.tv.simpsons (each with less wit and originality than the last), but why an entire episode? More so, why _many_ entire episodes? Why turn the season into an inside joke that, say, 1000 people in the world would understand?

If you listen to the audio commentaries in the DVD set, you can tell that they are proud of their work. Al Jean seems to know the p-codes by heart, like some people here (me included). I don't get how these talented people would not know how worse the show is compared to what it used to be (it's not hard to compare any season 12 episode to any season 3 and see that for yourself). So if I were Al Jean, when I took over I would try to get the show back on its feet.

There have been some signs of recovery. The two DABFs that have aired show some promise (although there are still problems to be solved). These are some good signs: -Jon Vitti has been rehired. -New writers have been hired, who shouldn't be used to the Scully way of making Simpsons. -There are more funny jokes that there used to be. -Less sex and injury-based humor. -Less dumb self-references (it seems that there is at least one of them in every Scully episode).

After a promising "She of Little Faith" (big timing problem but otherwise very, very decent) I just got to see "Brawl in the Family", having been warned of its plot twists. It certainly is a very disjointed episode, no one will dispute that. I found it tolerable (unlike some people), and I laughed hard a couple of times (which is not often nowadays).

(Warning: free interpretation follows)

This is episode #DABF01, or the first under the new management. This is the first episode produced by Al Jean after taking over from Mike Scully. In this episode, after the new government makes the environment (hey! it rhymes!) very hard to live in, some guy appears like an angel and finds the Simpsons in a bad state. He proceeds to examine each of the characters and lead the family into a better life (complete with magically healed environment). But first they have to get over the recent past, in the form of the Vegas wives (and also of Ned's quite new wifeless state). Working together they make these ghosts of the past leave.

I don't know if I have made my point. To me that's exactly what Al Jean wants to do with the show (and maybe it's wishful thinking, but a man can dream). He has to get rid of all the bad weed of the last few years to make the show good again. I think it can take the whole DABF series for the show to recover. I'm confident that the show will be good again eventually (but it takes so long, my lord). Let's hope the rest of the season has the show finding its lost way. Maybe we can look forward to a classic season 14.

I'd like to hear opinions about this.

Cheers,

(P.S. ("pre-script") Please forgive the lateness of my reply)

Drunk and full of pie, Nicol�s Di Candia wrote:

No. In fact, that's one of the things I said _wasn't_ a reason.

This implies you see the show as written from a "character driven" perspective. They have characters, so they have stories. But, it also ignores the idea that the writers made bad episodes on purpose.

Just because they "could" write classic episodes doesn't mean they "would". Season 13, though, seems to be a righting-of-the-ship, as it were. People complaining about the newer episodes NOW seem to come _mostly_ from the group who defended the show from ATS critics from Seasons 9-12.

Interesting, but there doesn't seem to be as much value in that... at least for the writers. I mean, from the perspective of writing bad shows on purpose: look at how many otherwise smart people they fooled!

If I were a writer, I'd have laughed myself hoarse every week at the very smart, yet bitter and clueless fans who ripped the episodes up oneside and down the other--this, despite subtle clues (all along) that they were writing bad episodes on purpose. It's a genius idea... there are enough gags for a general audience to keep the show popular, but everything that the obsessive fan enjoys is thrown down. I'd have laughed my ass off for three straight years.

Well, you're basically agreeing with my original post--you're just eliminating the same reasons I did.

Inside jokes are the funniest--even when the writers might be the only ones who get it. That might have been a product of Mike Scully. Al Jean seems a little more "humane" to the hardcore fans, at least from the impressions he gives during the DVD commentary.

Inside jokes, in general, are just the funniest. Its truly what drives satire. Look how many people were fooled by the satiric rip on those banal "Angels In The Outfield" movies, done in "Jaws Wired Shut". They focused on the literal representation of a joke, thinking that The Simpsons was stooping to bathroom humor. The show was actually ripping those idiotic movies, and the types of jokes that drive them. Homer was the only one in the audience who laughed, albeit with a "laugh of impatience". That indicates that only "simpletons" like those kinds of movies. It's a slam at the movie industry. Isn't satire wonderful?

Satire probably works so well because there is a certain contingency of people who will NEVER "get it". It's truly an "inside joke". Whereas we had satire for the first several years of "The Simpsons", the hardcore fans were on the inside laughing with the writers. During Seasons 9-12, the hardcore fans were put "on the outside" by the "bad on purpose" ideal. It was still an inside joke, but not to us. Many people from a general audience still loved it, because "crap" and "boobs" humor was plentiful.

See, the "bad on purpose" explanation takes that into account. A "bad on purpose" episode is actually a good episode, because it violates the rules of screenwriting. It gets angry responses from brilliant, yet clueless fans on the internet. Thus, it's an inside joke. Not until they show an episode with such blatant "clues" that it's a "bad on purpose" episode, such as "The Great Money Caper" did any of us suggest that the shows might be written "bad on purpose".

When as compared to any "classic" episode, a "bad on purpose" episode would look like your classic pile of puke. When you say "back on its feet", you still imply that the show has been toppled, or that it's been out of control. I maintain that the writers knew exactly what they were doing the whole time, and could have written episodes in the old style all along. "Trilogy of Error" proved that.

I can't blame the writers, if they felt trapped by a certain pattern... and that maybe they wanted to try something avant garde, like making the show "into a controlled train wreck". Hopefully they're done with that though, since while I can appreciate the genius of a "bad on purpose" show, I still appreciate inherently "good" episodes better. Don't we all?

We were s'posed to infer something from the plot synopsis? It does sound a little wacky, but not bad... the way you've written it.

I'd say we're in the midst of a fairly strong upswing. Mind you, this isn't because (IMO) they're doing a better job; they're just writing more inherently "good" episodes. The "bad on purpose" concept implies that they never lost ideas, intelligence, writing skill, control of the show, or even a deep respect for the characters. If anything, it shows that the writing staff was/is very creative, and innovative. Now, let's hope they continue with more "good on purpose" eps like "Jaws Wired Shut" and "Half-Decent Proposal" ;)

It's not, how we say, "inelegant".

"The Rack" wrote...

group

ideas

Good point. But I've read people like Mike Scully saying that "it's hard to come up with stories after X years". I say the characters alone provide a huge number of potential stories.

public

like that?)

My point exactly.

I like your "bad on purpose" theory. It does seem to apply to a number of episodes in the past few years. What I don't get is *why* they would do that. I can't help but think that maybe all those "bad on purpose" references (such as the ones in The Great Money Caper) are done as an afterthought, and equal to lazy writing. When they read the scripts they see that, and instead of rewriting the episodes they just throw in a reference about how bad it is. To me, it looked like they just didn't care. Although I wish the "bad on purpose" theory is true. Nancy Cartwright mentions in her book that there was a third (I think) table reading which was eliminated "two years ago", adn that she misses it. That's equals to less time spent in writing the episodes. And who knows what else was changed in the writing process. My point is that it's easier to aknowledge bad writing than to write well. I can see a "bad on purpose" episode, and that could be a good experiment. But why make it permanent is beyond me.

Oh yeah.

the

the

and

form

I don't know if we were supposed to infer something from the plot synopsis, but I have fun doing that. And this (while a desperate attempt to make some sense of such a disjointed episode) looked quite right to me. On the other hand, if 7F01 was just "two guys throwing in jokes" and all episodes are written like that, this shouldn't make much sense.

Cheers,

On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 21:58:54 GMT, [email] (The Rack) wrote:

That's what I was saying all along!

Yes it is indeed. ;)

Then you have people who have developed buttocks that can support enjoying both sides of the fence...

Especially if you suscribe to the school of thought that there's no such thing as a controlled train wreck... ;)

TTYL