If there was undeniable proof The Simpsons had sold out, it was that the once-controversial cartoon created a family-friendly, corporate-approved animated short promoting another show on a family-friendly streaming service for a multinational corporation.
Recently, Disney Plus released “The Good, the Bart, and the Loki”, a six-minute-long Simpsons short created as a promotional tie-in to the new Marvel show, Loki. There’s not much to discuss about the short itself. Essentially, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is sent to Springfield, hijinks ensue, and various Simpsons characters dress as Marvel superheroes to stop him.
To quote another Simpsons character: That’s the joke!
Again, there’s not much to discuss. The crux of the short’s humor is Loki interacting with the Simpsons family and the other characters cosplaying as notable superheroes. (Look! Moe is dressed as Vision. It’s funny because Moe is dressed as Vision. Ha ha! References are automatically funny! Now go watch Loki!)
The Simpsons are no strangers to parody. In its more than 30-year run, the animated sitcom has satirized everything from Star Wars and The Godfather to Boyhood and Legos. The difference, of course, is that those parodies were created because the show’s creators wanted to earnestly lampoon something popular in the cultural zeitgeist.
This Loki short, on the other hand? No doubt created via corporate mandate to generate corporate synergy for another corporate product. Disney most likely thought to themselves, “Hey! We own The Simpsons now, and we have every episode on Disney Plus. So let’s use them to promote another show on our streaming service!”
Sigh.
Remember when The Simpsons were subversive? Remember when it was considered “scandalous” for a cartoon to be created for adults, with humor and political satire not suitable for children? Remember when parents were warned not to let their kids watch the show lest it corrupt them? Even politicans like then-president George H. W. Bush denounced the show, insisting that Americans be “a lot more like The Waltons and a lot less like The Simpsons.” And then The Simpsons struck back by making an entire episode ridiculing him!
This blog post isn’t about discussing the downfall of The Simpsons. If you want to learn how and why the show lost its edge, I highly recommend watching this video essay by Jonas Čeika. Long story short: The Simpsons started as a subversion of family sitcoms, but inevitably devolved into becoming a parody of itself for the sake of parody.
When The Simpsons first started, it wasn’t afraid to be controversial. It was willing to push boundaries, challenge social norms, and offend other people’s sensibilities. It was unafraid to be politically incorrect. Now, over its decades-long run, the show has declined steadily in quality, its humor has become safe and toothless, and what was once an affront to political correctness now kowtows to the perpetually offended, removing characters and even entire episodes deemed “too offensive.”
The Simpsons have been dead for a long time, to the point where fans have called the past two decades of the series “Zombie Simpsons.” The show died long ago, and yet it continues to shamble on as a zombie, as a shallow husk of its former self.
The final nail in the coffin, undoubtedly, came when Disney purchased Fox. Now the Mouse House owns The Simpsons and airs the entire series on Disney Plus, even using the cartoon to promote its new streaming service. Don’t get me wrong: being able to watch (almost) every episode of the series on a single streaming service is great, but the fact that the service is, of all things, Disney Plus, feels…wrong.
The Simpsons was once a subversive show that families were warned not to show their kids. Now, more than 30 years later, Bart Simpson and his family have become so sanitized that they now exist on a family-friendly streaming service home to kids’ characters like Mickey Mouse and Queen Elsa. And their show has become such a corporate sellout that it is used as corporate marketing for other corporate products.
The Simpsons are dead. Long live Disney.
J.C. Alexandre 