D’oh! How Homer and Bart Simpson spoke to an entire generation
WELL, eat my shorts! The Simpsons, the all-American dysfunctional family created as a pre-ad break short occasionally dedicated to showing that no-one watched TV ads, has misguided a generation.
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WELL, eat my shorts! The all-American dysfunctional family, created as a pre-ad break short occasionally dedicated to showing that no-one watched TV ads, has officially misguided an entire generation.
“That horrible little boy,” as his hostess Tracey Ullman described skit star Bart Simpson, debuted on Ullman’s variety show on April 19, 1987, along with doughnut-chomping dad Homer, blue-rinse beehive mum Marge and sisters Lisa and Maggie.
Despite a theme-song imitating conventional family sitcoms of the day, the show instantly deteriorated with the unkempt homecoming of Simpson offspring, then Homer smashing his car into the garage, before all rushed to unite on the couch in front of the television.
Created on the spot by disillusioned comic-book publisher Matt Groening as he waited one hour to meet Tracey Ullman Show producer James Brooks, by December 1989 the animated skits became a half-hour television series for Fox Broadcasting. Within two years The Simpsons was broadcast in opposition to the top-rating Cosby Show. Star Bill Cosby — since accused by 60 women of either rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and/or sexual misconduct — described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him “angry, confused, frustrated”.
US president George Bush in January 1992 said: “We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.” Three days later Bart declared, “Hey, we’re just like the Waltons. We’re praying for an end to the Depression too”. Groening’s scriptwriters later brought Bush and wife Barbara to live in Springfield, across the road from Bart.
Created for The Tracey Ullman Show, where Bart and Lisa began a wild sibling brawl as TV adverts started, then stopped when the show they were watching returned, Groening said the Simpsons were “the all-American dysfunctional family. They’re typical of every family I know”. He named all characters except Bart after his own family. Bart’s name was explained as an anagram of brat, and as sounding like bark every time Homer bellowed at his wayward son. The first 50 short cartoons on the Ullman Show focused on the relationship between Bart, spoken by Nancy Cartwright, and Homer, spoken by Dan Castellaneta.
“I wrote them with Homer being angry and Bart being a clueless little jerk, driven in some weird way to cause trouble,” Groening explained. “I knew from the moment we decided to turn the shorts into a TV show that Homer was going to be the star. There are more consequences to him being an idiot.”
Springfield, the Simpsons’ hometown, was named after the town in 1950s TV show Father Knows Best, which Groening imagined was the town “next to Portland, my hometown. When I grew up, I realised it was a fictitious name. I also figured it was one of the most common names for a US city. In anticipation of the show’s success, I thought, “This will be cool; everyone will think it’s their Springfield.”
The show travelled south in episode 119, screened in the US on February 19, 1995. Producer David Mirkin said, “We like to have the Simpsons travel and this was the beginning of that. Australia was a fantastic choice because it has lots of quirky visual things.”
But many Australians were not amused, with more than 100 writing to Simpsons producers to complain they were insulted by the episode, later used for sociology courses at the University of California to “examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show”, and figure out what it is “trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies”
The episode took aim at Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee, and Michael and Lindy Chamberlain, when Bart tells an Australian on the other end of a long telephone call, “I think I hear a dingo eating your baby.”
When the Australian Parliament wanted to give Bart a “booting”, a kick in the buttocks with a giant boot, as punishment for fraud, the family flees to the US Embassy. In a compromise, the Simpsons accept one kick from the Prime Minister, through the gate of the embassy, with a regular shoe. But Bart dodges the kick, moons the Australians with the words “don’t tread on me” written on his buttocks, then hums “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
Two years later, on February 9, 1997 in episode 167, The Simpsons fulfilled an earlier suggestion that it would become The Flintstones of the ’90s, surpassing The Flintstones as the longest-running animated sitcom in history.
The next year, Groening apologised to parents and teachers who had complained Bart was a bad role model for kids: “I now have a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old boy so all I can say is I apologise,’’ he said. “Now I know what you were talking about.’’
Originally published as D’oh! How Homer and Bart Simpson spoke to an entire generation
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