The Simpsons Hits Its Peak

Introduction

With three years of domestically focused stories and well-established characters under its belt, the fourth season of “The Simpsons” showed the series relentlessly capitalising on all of its strengths. While intelligently remembering its roots as a down-to-earth show, the writers expertly extracted all of the humour they could get from even the simplest situation. At this point in its lifespan, “The Simpsons” was at its absolute best, with every episode brimming with an assured self-confidence, heaps of wit, and compelling and emotive characterisation. With animation niggles a thing of the past, the series was also at its most warm and impressive visually, and the excellent voice acting ensured that the interesting ideas and pointed gags of the scripts were sharply delivered to the viewer. The resulting product stands up not only as the best of “The Simpsons”, but also of contemporary comedy and animation.

Episode List
(Highlights in bold, lowlights in italics)

1) Kamp Krusty; 2) A Streetcar Named Marge; 3) Homer The Heretic; 4) Lisa The Beauty Queen; 5) Treehouse of Horror III; 6) Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie; 7) Marge Gets A Job; 8) New Kid On The Block; 9) Mr. Plow; 10) Lisa’s First Word; 11) Homer’s Triple Bypass; 12) Marge Vs The Monorail; 13) Selma’s Choice; 14) Brother From The Same Planet; 15) I Love Lisa; 16) Duffless; 17) Last Exit To Springfield; 18) So It’s Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show; 19) The Front; 20) Whacking Day; 21) Marge In Chains; 22) Krusty Gets Kancelled

Brief Discussion

Selecting the highlights of season four is difficult, because it’s pretty much all highlights. With the exceptions of a clip show (seemingly made to fill the episode order without incurring any extra animation expense) and two weaker stories from new writers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein (“Marge Gets A Job” and “Marge In Chains”), it’s gold all the way. The episodes I’ve bolded in the list above are my personal favourites, but I feel that anyone would be able to really enjoy the numerous layers of humour and themes presented within them (“Last Exit To Springfield” in particular is a grade A classic). Simply put, it’s a regular tour de force of good writing, with cohesive plots, zinging one-liners and a warm, human core. If you’re going to buy any “Simpsons” box set, make it this one.

Detailed Discussion

Season four begins strongly with some of its best episodes. “Kamp Krusty” combines a solid story about the Simpson kids going to summer camp with smart satire on individuals who’ll lend their name to anything, showing that the series could function just as well outside of Springfield as it did within the main town. After that, characterisation comes to the fore in “A Streetcar Named Marge”. One of the great things about “The Simpsons” was the way in which you could come back to an episode and pull out new things each time, and “Streetcar…” is a good example. Although it portrays a fairly commonplace ‘marriage crisis’ scenario, it adds a new spin to the concept, with Marge’s casting as Blanche DuBois in a musical parody of “A Streetcar Named Desire” cleverly paralleling her own life. The solid A-plot is coupled with a hilarious Maggie sub-story, where the youngest Simpson proves she’s a mix of Bart’s deviousness and Lisa’s intelligence as she engineers a rebellion at the Ayn Rand School For Tots.

The excellence continues with “Homer the Heretic”, which is a great look at some of the intricacies of religion. Getting in some decent barbs against both sides of the debate, it packs in laughs while drawing to a thematic conclusion that seems especially pertinent today. “Lisa The Beauty Queen” and the third annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode are also strong, with the latter having one of the show’s most risque lines (at this point) coming from a shipboard Smithers. It seems that network standards had changed quite a bit from the days of season one, where terms like ‘groin’ were the subject of decency debates.

After so much goodness, there’s a minor dip in quality with “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie”, which takes a bit too long to get going and paints both Bart and Homer as parodies of themselves. The following “Marge Gets A Job” is probably the weakest episode of the season, with an incredibly convoluted plot that feels like a few random ideas jammed together. Homer is also at his worst in this episode, being thoroughly obnoxious in some scenes in a way that proves a nightmarish and unwelcome glimpse of the later seasons. Mix in a lousy resolution and a pointless guest appearance from Tom Jones, and you have the closest thing to a dud here.

Fortunately, the lull is brief. “Mr Plow” is a timeless episode packed full of genuine laughs, while “Lisa’s First Word” maintains the series’ run of excellent flashbacks with an adorably cute ending where we hear Maggie speak for the first time. “Homer’s Triple Bypass” is also impressive, dealing with the gravity-laden plot of Homer needing major heart surgery with an appropriate amount of respect, yet never being maudlin or overly depressing. “Selma’s Choice” is similarly excellent, as the title character determines to have a family so she won’t end up alone, but reconsiders things after spending an afternoon with Bart and Lisa at the Duff Gardens Amusement Park.

It’s interesting to note that when “Marge Vs The Monorail” was originally aired, Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa) dubbed it the ‘worst episode ever’. Although her call seems way off now (just wait until Season Twelve and Homer being raped by a panda), she did actually have a point. Although “Marge Vs The Monorail” is a decent episode, it’s the first to fully violate the ‘down to earth’ mandate the series was built upon, featuring the town’s first song-and-dance number and a number of throwaway stupidities. Although it’s no problem here, it was the first time damage was done to the show’s universe, and something that would only get worse from season five onwards.

Thankfully, episodes such as “I Love Lisa” and “Duffless” bring things back to reality, with solid plotting and believable characterisation. “Last Exit To Springfield” is probably the best of the latter half of the season, with its stories about Lisa needing braces and Homer leading a strike at the nuclear power plant meeting beautifully. The characterisation of plant boss Mr. Burns is perfect, and leads to some hilarious scenes as his attempts at quashing the rebellion fail miserably.

As season four draws to a close, the goodness keeps on coming. Aside from a throwaway clip show and the not-quite-there “Marge In Chains”, the end run is consistently funny, from “The Front” (which sees Lisa and Bart writing for the ultra violent cartoon Itchy and Scratchy under their grandfather’s name) to “Krusty Gets Kancelled”, where a number of big names including Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Midler and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers make appearances without seeming gratuitous. Everything is handled well, and the year draws to a satisfying close. It’s a shame that this level of skill wasn’t maintained in later seasons, but little can diminish the strength of what was achieved here.

DVD Extras

At this point in 20th Century Fox’s DVD releases, they truly started to up the content. The flaws of previous sets have gone, with all menus being incredibly clear and the different features easy to access. The ‘play all’ feature on each disc can also be utilised to listen to episode commentaries in turn, and the discussions themselves are of higher quality. Although there is the odd intriguing moment in which the writers comment that they should bring back realistic plot devices (thus somewhat acknowledging the show’s current inferiority), the talks have plenty of interesting information to offer the diehard fan. Meanwhile, animatics for several episodes allow a look into the complex art process, and featurettes discuss the more controversial aspects of the year, from a battle with Barbara Bush through to a song that offended New Orleans (and the hasty apology that ensued). The extras given are definitely the fullest and most satisfying of the DVD sets thus far, and are a great complement to the episodes themselves.

Conclusions

In no uncertain terms, Season Four rocks. Even its weakest episodes (of which there are few) are enjoyable, and the vast evolution of the show in such a short amount of time is truly impressive. The undoubted peak of “The Simpsons”, this box set groups together a thoroughly enjoyable set of episodes that should not be missed. 5 stars.

***
"The Simpsons" on DVD:
Season One; Season Two; Season Three; Season Four; Season Five; Season Six; Season Seven; Season Eight; Season Nine; Season Ten