Did Simpsons make more sense as an 80's/90's era family?

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Pe Khi

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One thing that bothers me about the seasons from 2000 onward isn't just the worse writing, its that its just WRONG to see them using 2000 era technology and referencing celebrities and pop culture from the 21st century.

I always saw Simpsons as a late 80's or early 90's family at the most. This is why they had that old beat-up 80's TV, they didn't even have a computer in the older seasons, there were no cell phones....Bart seemed to play on what resembled a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, etc.

It also makes sense, because Homer and Marge grew up in the 70's and had Bart in the 80's. Since they always reference their 60's and 70's roots, it only fits.
 
The Simpsons uses a sliding time scale, that's why Homer & Marge were in college in the 90s and why the Simpsons have cellphones and computers now.
 
The point is Homer/Marge did not grow up in the 90's, so that aspect of their lives was retconned out of continuity.

Whenever the showed their child years after that, they were teenagers in the 70's again.
 
Which could easily be changed back to the 90s (or the 00s given the passing times). You shouldn't over-rely on how the show treats its setting. The best thing would be to take it in broad strokes (Homer meets Marge at high school. Despite all odds, he competes against Artie Ziff and succeeds in getting the girl. Some time after that, Bart gets born out of wedlock. Then Lisa comes in soon after. Homer loses his hair. And after that, Maggie.)
 
Well, if you figure the family has one working parent and lives in a house and drives cars that look like they came out of the 80's, yeah, I can see how the show looks odd embracing modern technology.

IMO, imagine if the characters on Leave it to Beaver was suddenly flashforwarded to 2010 and was given an iPods and cellphones, it'd seem just weird. And even though the Simpsons is a cartoon, having the characters ape off whatever seems 'hip' in the present day seems equally odd.
 
I kinda get what you're saying Cubed. The flat screen tv does seem a little out of place for The Simpsons, but I think that's probably just because it's not what we're used to after all these years.
 
I agree with the general argument. The Simpsons is very much grounded in a late 80s/early 90s era in my mind and it never really works when they try and add more modern elements. I think it's partly because the characters at their core haven't changed enough. If the show started today, the characters would likely be quite different from how they are now. The result is that the show lives in this weird bubble in time and yet somehow odd elements sometimes poke through into the bubble.
 
It did make sense when they were a 90s family. When it comes to continuity for TV shows, writers will basically update it. For example in the South Park episode "You Have 0 Friends", Stan's Facebook page said that his birthday is on October 11th, 2001. Now that makes it as if the events of Seasons 1-12 never happened. Now look at it another way, sometimes the shows don't tell the date (EX: It's March 23rd, 1995) and the episodes can take place anytime in the updated continuity if there's no mention of recent events of that time. I have no problem with The Simpsons continuity now but it's best for me if "That 90's Show" never existed (plus, the dean in that episode should've been voiced by Ashton Kutcher in my opinion).
 
I think it’s a silly idea that the Simpsons should stay stuck in the 90’s.

I mean, if they were, it could be good for a few jokes. Seeing them regularly using 90’s technology that’s largely become anachronistic by now, like pagers, fax machines, a discman, or make mention that the president is Clinton, or how the Japanese are taking over the auto industry. There may be a laugh in their being so out of date.

But really, the Simpsons were never meant to be a period piece. They just got lucky and lasted.

If they want to be free to do commentary or satire on todays society, they can’t be out of touch with the world of today.

On the other hand, they are lower middle class, or poor, or rich since Marge has her own chain of fitness clubs, or millions in debt from Homer and Bart getting in big time trouble. I’m not sure, but it all kind of evens out to about lower middle class. And as such, most of the stuff in their crap-shack should be out of date, with some modern amenities brought to you thanks to the low, low prices of Walmart, or the cartoon equivalent, that should have driven away all other businesses during the 2000’s.
 
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