The Simpsons is on course for its 25th season...... sigh

Well after facing cancellation over budget issues the Simpsons has been renewed for a 24th and 25th season.

Why? (note, I realise that revenue is the reason why)

Despite the fact that it should be in the bin of 1990's trivia with Kurt Cobain, the X-Files and Monica Lewinsky, it will continue well in to the second decade of the new millennium. Don't get me wrong, I have very fond memories of watching this show.......... when I was in grade 3, or talking like Ralph Wiggum......... in grade 8. It's a huge part of my childhood. Season 4 and 5 still have some of the funniest moments on television (a streetcar named Marge, Kamp Krusty). It was clever, satirical and actually funny. Not cheap laugh/groan funny, but laugh til you can't breath anymore funny (Planet of the Apes, the Musical). Phil Hartman's death was the first thing to go wrong with the show, Conan O'Brien leaving was another, but at the end, the writers have just been out of ideas....... for a decade. The charaters are charicatures of themselves. We all know what Mr. Burns is going to say and then he says it and we all laugh. There are no more stories, it's like an episode of Family Guy (which also needed to stop about ten years ago).

Anyway, 25 years (10 of which were actually good) SHOULD be long enough and I hope it will be. I know people will say that there was a good episode in season 19, or that season 21 was better than the last 5 (or whatever) but it's like in the 1990's when all of these dinosaurs of rock started releasing records and touring again. Jimi Hendrix seemed to have more unreleased material than should be possible. The Beatles had more Anthologies than they did records. The Stones were touring ("what a drag it is getting old" sounded better out of Mick in 1965 than it did in 1995 for some reason). Page and Plant, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton etc. Now we all thought that their music was great, I mean who doesn't like Zeppelin IV? But didn't you secretly think it was also kinda sad? I mean, was any of it half as good as their 1968 records? Wasn't it just our parents nostalgia keeping these guys going? Would you really rather listen to Jimmy Page tuning his guitar than, you know, a song? It's T.V this time but we are doing the same thing. It's nostalgia for season 5 that has given us season 25. Maybe that's a testament to how big a part of our youth the Simpsons was but much like Page and Plant to our parents, it belongs in our childhood.

The Simpsons is a relic from our childhood, and there's nothing wrong with that.