Bask in all the Simpsons glory

Oftentimes, when my friends and I reminisce about our childhoods, the discussion inevitably leads to the TV shows we grew up watching. These are the conversations where I feel mostly out of place. Most of my friends grew up watching Dragonball Z and Ghost Fighter and those kinds of animated cartoons. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a different kind of cartoon. I grew up watching The Simpsons (and it took a while for me to qualify for its PG-13 rating).

So, as you can imagine, I was giddy like a four-year-old when I found out that there was going to be a movie. After I saw it, amid all the letdown potential of an over-hyped movie, I was amazed at how, 18 years since the show was born, the material and humor of The Simpsons  was still impeccably spot-on. The Simpsons Movie delivers with the same laughs that have led people like me to follow them for 400 episodes.      

The plot of The Simpsons Movie, for better or worse, is treated with more scale and grandeur than the television series. The storyline is more complicated, the settings are more diverse and the plausibility of it all is a stretch, to say the least. But with 18 years of buildup, I guess the-powers-that-be decided it was time to bring viewers a grand culmination in full Simpsons glory. Not to spoil anything, but the plot revolves around Grandpa Simpson’s prophetic seizure, a pig, a big pile of crap and Homer doing something idiotic. These events lead up to the eclectic cast of Springfield going after Homer and family to extract revenge. All in all, pretty classic Simpsons stuff.

What I loved about the movie, though, was that the jokes kept on coming. The Simpsons Movie brought out the entire arsenal. One could tell the writers had put in a lot of effort and creativity to finely craft the humor for this movie. From double entendres to slapstick to vintage stupidity, the movie is loaded with laughs. Sure, Homer gets most of the glory, but some real solid comedy comes from surprising characters, most notably newcomers US President Arnold Schwarzenegger and EPA chief Russ Cargill, the once-boring and plain Flanders and not-so-useless-anymore Grandpa Simpson. Although the sheer number of characters makes it virtually impossible for everyone to get a fair share of screen time, the brand of Simpsons comedy we love so much does not suffer.

I’m actually pretty surprised that everybody who’s around my age isn’t salivating over the premiere of this move. This is the longest-running, most successful show on television, ever. Nothing else on TV has lasted 18 seasons. Heck, nothing in the entertainment industry stays strong for 18 straight years. This is the ultimate example of how cultural relevance can be attained — and maintained — through cartoons and humor. This is history.

I promise you, as if 18 years of viewing proof weren’t enough, watching The Simpsons Movie will leave you grateful to be part of this long journey of fat jokes and racial stereotypes. The movie shows a creative strength that you rarely see in a cartoon that’s almost as old as I am, and it makes you realize that it’s still got the juice for a couple more seasons (and maybe another movie or two).  This movie makes clear that The Simpsons has officially become a cultural institution.

After all this time, I still haven’t stopped laughing.

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For questions, comments or corrections, please e-mail me at emailcarlramirez@yahoo.com.