The Simpsons: A Yellow Family – Arts Essay
Matt Groening’s undoubtedly most successful work is about to celebrate, next year, its thirteenth anniversary. Twelve years now of increasing world-wide recognition which have situated this sitcom in the first place in the best-cartoons-ever podium. This hasn’t been by chance. It is due to the hard job throughout the 90s of an incredible team, who then tried to duplicate this
success by creating the well-known cartoon “Futurama”, which didn’t fulfil the expectations of those many millions Simpsons’ fans, who still prefer watching their favourite family incidents every Sunday.
In its initial stages, “The Simpsons” were classified, in Spain at least, as belonging to that reduced list of adult cartoons but its great popularity soon became apparent and the TV station which owned its broadcasting rights, began to include its episodes in the children’s cartoon programs. The success was immediate. From there on, a new generation grew up with the yellow family on their TV screens, weekly at first and daily thereafter. The simple tricks that have made “The Simpsons” stand out from its contemporary competitors is that it is not as far-fetched as all those bloodthirsty Manga cartoons. As easy as that; what appeals to us most about “The Simpsons” is that they find themselves with the same problems every family will have to face up to sooner or later.
In my opinion, the best-achieved character is the head of the household, Homer, because he portrays the typical father that nearly no one has but whose habits and personality everyone can easily imagine. Although predictable, corny, stupid, a kind of animal-being but, however, as many of us behave sometimes, Homer gives almost all the humorous touches to this sitcom. The sitcom that portrays a family model that hasn’t stopped emerging from all sorts of problems from its origins twelve years ago remaining together at the very end of each season, of each week. Maybe that’s why it was forbidden for children before, for being so mature? It’s time that young generations learned from a cartoon series.