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A review by amberhayward
Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation by Chris Turner
5.0
The thing about me is that I love The Simpsons. I'm not one of those people who refer to episodes by their alpha-numerical title or could identify the essentially reclusive writers in a line up or anything, but I know more than the average person and my adoration for this show is incredibly pure and forgiving.
This book sites one of my personal favorite episodes (4F23, "The Principal and the Pauper") and the point at which the show declined from its "Golden Age" to its "Long Plateau". It is an episode that I refer to, at the chagrin of my husband, pretty often. Sometimes I will just shout, "OK, ARMIN TAMZARIAN" if someone is impersonating someone or if I just feel like it, I guess. It's such an absurd episode and so self-referential and like a hilarious in-joke to me (the premise is that perennial mama's boy and middle school principal Seymour Skinner is actually NOT who he says he is, but rather was a no-good rebel named Armin Tamzarian who assumed the identity of one Seymour Skinner when he was thought to be killed in Vietnam). That is how unflinching my love for the show is.
My sister and I can quote, at length, bits and riffs from the show that normal people probably do not even recall. We identify episodes not by their nerd-title or actual title or even by what happened in them but instead by our favorite lines. So episode 3F09 is not referred to as such (its production code) or "Two Bad Neighbors" (its actual title) or "the one where George Bush moves in next door and he & Homer don't like each other" but instead by us screaming the lyrics to the song Homer composed at the neighborhood rummage sale: "Hey big spender/Dig this blender/rainbow suspenders ... Now, let's give it up for Table Five!" etc etc.
THE POINT IS: I am pretty biased. Reading 400+ pages about why This Thing That I Love is so awesome is pretty much my (and everyone else's, I would think) favorite thing. Even though I don't agree with every point the author makes (just most of them) I just loved this book.
This book sites one of my personal favorite episodes (4F23, "The Principal and the Pauper") and the point at which the show declined from its "Golden Age" to its "Long Plateau". It is an episode that I refer to, at the chagrin of my husband, pretty often. Sometimes I will just shout, "OK, ARMIN TAMZARIAN" if someone is impersonating someone or if I just feel like it, I guess. It's such an absurd episode and so self-referential and like a hilarious in-joke to me (the premise is that perennial mama's boy and middle school principal Seymour Skinner is actually NOT who he says he is, but rather was a no-good rebel named Armin Tamzarian who assumed the identity of one Seymour Skinner when he was thought to be killed in Vietnam). That is how unflinching my love for the show is.
My sister and I can quote, at length, bits and riffs from the show that normal people probably do not even recall. We identify episodes not by their nerd-title or actual title or even by what happened in them but instead by our favorite lines. So episode 3F09 is not referred to as such (its production code) or "Two Bad Neighbors" (its actual title) or "the one where George Bush moves in next door and he & Homer don't like each other" but instead by us screaming the lyrics to the song Homer composed at the neighborhood rummage sale: "Hey big spender/Dig this blender/rainbow suspenders ... Now, let's give it up for Table Five!" etc etc.
THE POINT IS: I am pretty biased. Reading 400+ pages about why This Thing That I Love is so awesome is pretty much my (and everyone else's, I would think) favorite thing. Even though I don't agree with every point the author makes (just most of them) I just loved this book.