Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

The Simpsons will finally make its movie debut in the summer of 2007. There are a few trailers for you to watch, if you’re into that sort of thing.

These days, there are two distinct camps when it comes to anything Simpsons. The first camp decries The Simpsons as self-indulgent, boring, played out, long past its prime, and going through the motions. These are the people for whom the shark had long ago been jumped, as it were. The other camp, quite simply, still finds the show funny and likes to tune in every Sunday. I, for one, welcome our yellow-hued overlords.

The Simpsons debuted way back in December of 1989 (not counting the Tracey Ullman shorts), when I was just about to turn seven years old. I am now nearly twenty-four, and though I may be bad at math, I’m sure that’s a very long time for any one show to be on the air. Throughout all that time, The Simpsons has remained both funny and topical, pulling off satire as easily as slapstick. Week after week, episode after episode, the show is consistently entertaining.

Over its long, long lifespan, The Simpsons has transitioned from a program representing a controversial subversive humor to redefining the mainstream. It’s also changed from a show about a family to a show about a town, and like something out of a Stephen Johnson book, the complexity has gone way up. Have you watched the first season lately? The characters morph from episode to episode, the jokes are achingly slow, and the plots read like a standard sitcom. It’s a whole different universe from today’s episodes. This tremendous narrative flexibility is what has made The Simpsons so enduring.

So yes, I’m a big fan of the show. That said, I question why they’ve chosen now to do the movie. FOX has been sitting on the www.simpsonsmovie.com domain name since at least 1998. At this point, what could Groening and company do that they haven’t already done on television? I’m all for Homer and family getting on the big screen in fabulous stereophonic sound, but what could you possibly do there that you couldn’t do in my living room? If The Simpons has displayed any weakness over the years, it’s that they’re under constant pressure to beat themselves. It’s become such an issue that it’s been parodied by the very shows that owe The Simpsons their existences.

Regardless of whether you think The Simpsons long ago lost its spark, I think we can all agree that it’s still a great show that deserves a perfunctory presentation in widescreen. Lord knows you could do worse. The War at Home is still airing, after all, in defiance of the concept of a just universe.