Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Dooo Do-Doot Doot-Doo Doot-Doot Do Do-Do-Do-Do

So a while back I rented The Simpsons Movie. I used to be an ardent Simpsons watcher, as were my roommates at the time. It was a ritual for us to gather around the TV and laugh hysterically at the antics of Homer and the rest of the gang. I have a lot of good memories of those times. At some point though my fascination started to wain. I don't believe the show lost any of it's humor or it's edge, but still I found myself not rushing to watch it anymore. It's hard to say why since as I said I still found the show funny when I did watch it. It could be it became painful to watch for a while after the passing of Phil Hartman. Or perhaps it's because it just wasn't the same watching it alone as it was with the group. Or maybe it was because it's really not Ginger's type of humor. It may have even been the fact it was on the same night as my bowling league and it was BT (Before TiVo) so it meant recording it on VHS and my labeling system for VHS tapes kind of sucked. Who knows what the real reason is, but whatever the reason is I basically strayed and stopped being a regular viewer. Then I stopped being a sporadic viewer and it wasn't long after that I found myself not watching anymore at all. So when the movie came out I thought that was something I wanted to see. And I have to say that watching the movie is a lot like coming home after being away for a long time. Where even though you haven't been there for a long time it's as if you were never gone. Your family is still dysfunctional and your Uncle is still crazy, but it's home. That's sort of how I felt about the Simpsons movie. Some of the same old jokes that they've used hundreds of times before are there, but they're still funny. And the self deprecating humor is there too even in the opening line where Homer waxes poetically about why anyone would pay to see something that's on TV for free every week. Not all the jokes work, but the ratio of jokes per minute is so high that even with the small percentage that miss the mark the movie is still a riot overall. Much like putting on a pair of old sneakers that just fit but aren't yet falling apart it was great to return to the Simpsons. Mind you, I'm still not taping or watching the weekly episodes, but watching the movie made me long for that times when I did.

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