by John Ortved
HARRIS KATLEMAN: They didn’t save Fox. Rupert’s got deep pockets and he was determined to make Fox Broadcasting work. Did The Simpsons get us noticed? Absolutely. The Simpsons made the other networks say, “Wow. Look out. This is a network waiting to happen.”
WESLEY ARCHER: We didn’t know if there was going to be a Season 2 while we were doing Season 1. And while we were doing Season 2, we thought there would probably be a Season 3. Then when we were doing Season 3, we were pretty sure there was going to be Season 4. And the merchandise was kicking in and we thought, Well, this could go on for seven or eight years.
EIGHT
Bigger Than Jesus
In which no one really wants to relive the Depression with George Bush Sr … . a stranger tries to starve James L. Brooks’s children … and Matt Groening finds great pleasure in the ass of a ten-year-old boy.
Do the Bartman. It was as ridiculous as it sounds. In a fervor moment worthy of parody (which would come later—the metahappy Simpsons never had issue satirizing itself), Bart Simpson had his own dance, and real people everywhere were doing it. “Do the Bartman” as well as “Deep Deep Trouble” played on MTV to a point far past overkill. He had music videos, a gold album, coffee cups, air fresheners, talking dolls, and T-shirts, all of them plastered with his image. One (awesome) trend that emerged involved middle-class kids horrifying their parents with the letters BART shaved into their hair. There were magazine covers and controversies. The media called him a “fad,” “cult hero,” and “America’s sweetheart.” If Bart had been a real preadolescent, this is when the paparazzi would start popping photos and champagne bottles.
The show was Fox’s biggest ratings hit, reaching a high at the end of its first season when it cracked the Top 10 (the only Fox show to do so that year). Fox struck a deal with Mattel and fifty other product licensees, beginning a merchandising boom the likes of which television had not seen before or since. Bart was more than just a beloved cartoon character; he was a cultural phenomenon. Things became so crazy that Barry Diller, worried about overexposure, began discouraging the show’s staff from cooperating with print and TV journalists.
Bart was brazen and obnoxious, but he said all the things we wished we could say to the authority figures in our own lives—our father, our boss, or the Man in whatever form he took. In an early example, when Bart is told to say grace at dinner, he offers, “Dear God, we pay for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.” With that wise-ass remark, Bart touched on our resentment of religious piety, the debate over deist involvement in our lives, and the religious inculcation of children by parents everywhere. That single joke also alludes to the family’s unity and its observance of some of the traditional family values promulgated by sitcoms: this is a family that sits, eats, and prays together regularly. It was also pretty funny. And all of this in just one line—no wonder he and the show were catching on like wildfire.
Bart’s catchphrases such as “Underachiever and proud of it” and “Don’t have a cow, man” became hallmarks of the early nineties lexicon and his popularity courted disapproval from teachers, parents, and “values” spokespeople of the religious right, including the Bushes (whose battles with cartons were not limited to The Simpsons—Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury characters also felt the wrath of George H. W. Bush). Naturally, the negative attention only sparked greater fervor for the sassy little troublemaker. When TV Guide put The Simpsons on its cover, it sold more copies than any other issue that year.1 Newsweek ran The Simpsons on their cover in April; “Why America Loves the Simpsons—TV’s Twisted New Take on the Family” (on the same cover: “Gorbachev’s Ultimatum; A Blockade of Lithuania”), and Time followed suit, making Bart its “Best of ’90” cover boy. Fox purchased twenty-four episodes for Season 2, and then 3, then 4.
By 1991, six animated sitcoms, all inspired by the success of The Simpsons, were being developed by the networks, with major production muscle behind them. Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton produced Family Dog for CBS, about a caustic suburban family seen through the eyes of its pooch, while Steven Bochco (producer of L.A. Law and perhaps the biggest name in television at the time) came up with Capital Critters for ABC, a show about a mouse who moves to the basement of the White House, after seeing his Midwestern family exterminated—ugh. Both CBS and ABC made thirteen-episode commitments, at approximately $600,000 per episode2—for shows that turned out to be complete failures. Facing a similar fate was Fish Police, a Hanna-Barbera-animated mystery comedy that took place under the sea. “Call it fish noir,” Hanna-Barbera’s CEO told The Wall Street Journal. You could also call it canceled—the show lasted three episodes. (Family Dog lasted only two, but the entire series was later available for purchase—on laser disc). And these were the good ones: The Jackie Bison Show—a cartoon series featuring a buffalo, based on Jackie Gleason, with a talk show—was thankfully never picked up by NBC.
Like a real celebrity who had reached his zenith, Bart did have a fall, but it was far from the Feldman/Haim, Spears/Lohan variety. As Bartmania tapered off, and Bart dolls found their way to the discount stores and the prize racks of carnival booths, the writers were discovering that there was more comedy gold in Homer than could ever be written for Bart. (With a ten-year-old, there are only so many situations you can exploit: a kid covets an item, he gets in trouble at school, he develops a crush, etc.)
WALLACE WOLODARSKY, writer/producer, The Simpsons (1989–92): The Homer stories were always the easiest to write, and then the second easiest were Bart stories, and then Lisa stories. Marge stories were always the toughest, because we were a bunch of boys, really, and nobody had any understanding of what it meant to be a mother or a woman, so those stories Jim invariably insisted on us doing and I thought they turned out really well.
But in the first years of the 1990s, it was all about Bart, the foul-mouthed (for his time), disobedient voice of a new generation. The numbers for The Simpsons were a godsend to Fox, and they milked it for everything they could. Licensing deals came through Fox Broadcasting by the bushel.
TIM LONG, writer/co–executive producer, The Simpsons (1999–present): When the show started, I was a sophomore in university. I remember thinking, This is the fastest, funniest show ever. I cannot believe this show is on the air. It just felt like a miracle.
BILL OAKLEY, writer/producer, The Simpsons (1991–97): The idea that there would be a cartoon in prime time, other than The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, was astonishing to people. The fact that a boy would be sassy to his principal and say, “Eat my shorts,” was amazing.
ROBERT COHEN, production assistant, The Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons (1989–92): It was just amazing, because you could see the show going crazy. And you could see something that was worked on quietly with these guys, who were busting their ass on it. It was starting to just really become hip and take off. And for me in particular, the first “holy crap” moment was during the Hollywood Christmas parade, which is this dopey parade that goes down Hollywood Boulevard, and stars of yesteryear wave from convertibles; it’s this very weird parade. It was the second season, and they’d asked the Simpsons to be in the parade, so they hired some dancers to put on costumes and Jay Kogen and I wore our Simpsons crew jackets. We piled into this car called the Graciemobile, which was this big old El Dorado convertible painted with the Gracie logo. The plan was that we would drive the Simpsons down the street in the parade. When we pulled out on to the street and it was parade time—I was at the wheel—the people mobbed us to the point that the car could go only about twenty yards. The sheriff’s department had to veer us outta there because it was like a riot. And they weren’t interested in us. They were interested in these actors in Simpsons costumes. Obviously they weren’t even the real Simpsons. That’s when I realized, Holy crap. This thing’s outta control. Because it was just hundreds of people mobbing stinky felt costumes that represented the show. I knew the show was popular, but I didn’t realize how popular until that moment.
WALLACE WOLODARSKY:
When you’re twenty-six, and you’re a part of something that is that successful, it’s good if you’re single. In the end, we were just a bunch of nerdy guys and it gave me a kind of cachet that I never could have gotten any other way.
JAY KOGEN, writer/producer, The Simpsons (1989–92): We were working really hard on the show. We didn’t have a lot of time to do a lot of other things. It was hard.
Simpsons mania—and Bart’s appeal in particular—transcended race and class lines. “From Harlem to Watts, black variations of the popular cartoon grade-schooler … have been the most enduring T-shirt images of the year,” reported the Chicago Tribune. “Wearing gold chains … or sporting the colors of the African National Congress, Bart has appeared in the personae of Malcom X, Michael Jordan (‘Air Bart’), Bob Marley (‘Rasta Bart’) … No other nonblack figure, born or drawn, has been so freely appropriated by young blacks.” The black Bart spouted either Bart Simpson’s familiar lines or slogans of racial pride; a rasta Bart’s caption read, “Watch it, mon!” Russell Adams, the chairman of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, explained to The New York Times that Bart’s popularity in the black community rested in his role as an outsider that spoke to black youths in a society that alienates them: “There is a suppressed rage in the cartoon that black people are picking up on.”3 The Times reported the sale of T-shirts featuring black Bart standing next to Nelson Mandela, against an African backdrop immediately after the South African leader had finished speaking at Yankee Stadium during the summer of 1990.4 The juxtaposition of cultural icons and the appropriation of cultural symbolism was interesting in itself, but there was also something inexplicably cool about the pairing. None of the black Bart merchandise was licensed by Groening, who said in a statement, “You have mixed feelings when you’re getting ripped off.”
Of course, not everyone was thrilled with Bart as the new favorite thing of kids everywhere. Schools banned Bart T-shirts, hoping to discourage his “Underachiever, and proud of it” message—which J. C. Penney soon removed from the specialized Simpsons shopping sections they’d created for their stores. “Bart Simpson Is Chic, but Educators Dislike His Cheek” ran an Associated Press headline. “We feel like the Bart Simpson show does a lot of things that do not help student self-esteem, such as saying it’s OK to be stupid,” one principal told the news agency. Another principal who banned the shirts claimed that such a shirt was “a poor reflection on [students], their parents and their school.”5 Matt Groening issued the following statement: “I have no comment. My folks taught me to respect elementary school principals, even the ones who have nothing better to do than tell kids what to wear.”6
If these prohibitions weren’t attracting enough free publicity for the show, the president of the United States and his family decided to take umbrage with the cartoon, adding even more fuel to The Simpsons’ fire. In an interview with People magazine in September 1990, Barbara Bush called The Simpsons “The dumbest thing I had ever seen.” Marge responded with a letter to the first lady, chastising her with the following: “I always believed in my heart that we had a great deal in common. Each of us living our lives to serve an exceptional man.” The first lady wrote back, apologizing for her “loose tongue.”)7
Later that year, visiting a rehab center Bush drug czar William Bennett noticed a Bart Simpson poster and commented, “You guys aren’t watching The Simpsons, are you? That’s not going to help you any.” He later had to recant, admitting he’d never seen the show, and adding, “I’ll sit down with the little spike head, we’ll straighten this thing out … There’s nothing that a Catholic school, a paper route and a couple soap sandwiches wouldn’t straighten out.”8 The Simpsons’ writers responded, “If our Drug Czar thinks he can sit down and talk this over with a cartoon character, he must be on something.”9 And then there was George Bush’s own shot, taken at a campaign stop at the National Religious Broadcasters in May 1992, when he promised to make families “a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.”
BRAD BIRD, executive consultant, The Simpsons (1989–97); director, The Incredibles, Ratatouille: We were delighted. But we also collectively thought it was idiotic. He [Bush] is talking about a cartoon family. And he sounds like someone who has never actually seen an episode because as much as it looks chaotic and insane and a somewhat gratuitous on the surface, it actually has a lot of sharp things to say about contemporary living and I think comes down on a morally sound, thoughtful side. Underneath the wackiness on the surface, if you dig into it, there’s plenty there.
Bush repeated the jibe some months later at the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston (where keynote speaker Pat Buchanan gave his famous “culture war” speech, arguing that there was a battle of values raging across the United States). Three nights later, as the weekly episode was about to air (a repeat), The Simpsons retaliated. Seated in front of the television, the family watched Bush take a swipe at them. “Huh?” asked a surprised Homer. Lying on the floor at his feet, Bart offered the following reply: “We’re just like the Waltons. We’re praying for an end to the Depression too.” The response, both playful and slick, was a virtuous shot back at the Bushes. It was a repudiation of all the fantasy values Bush was pushing and a reminder that there was an ongoing battle with poverty that no prayer or culture war would help win.
BRAD BIRD: They wanted to have it on TV within a week or two of him saying it. So they just took some existing animation and moved his mouth back and forth so that the dialogue roughly synced up. But they recorded the response and got it on the air really quickly. That was vintage Simpsons, because it was the perfect response. They embraced it rather than getting offended by it. They embraced it and then came up with the smartest response anyone could come up with.
The animators had their own fun with the Bush dustup. Bush’s Waltons speech set off a contest of satirical drawings placed on the walls of the studio. Somehow the subject matter devolved from satirizing Bush to completely obscene animations of The Simpsons, ending with an animated scene where Grandpa Simpson was having sex with Maggie, with Lisa trying to break it up and Grandpa savagely beating her.
JONATHAN GRAY, author, Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality: I think the kiss of death, if you were a conservative who wanted to like The Simpsons, or the wonderful stamp of approval if you weren’t and you wanted to like it, was when Bush intoned that we need more families like the Waltons and fewer like The Simpsons because at that point it all of a sudden dragged The Simpsons into the culture wars and positioned it on the opposite side of all the sort of very neoconservative sitcoms that had reigned in the eighties like Family Ties and The Cosby Show and so forth.
RUPERT MURDOCH: In the first few years, some old-fashioned people thought it was undermining family values, and it was terrible, and such. I think that’s nonsense.
Before the first episode had even appeared, there were already forty-five licenses sold to merchandisers,10 and by the end of the first season there were fifty-two.11 “We’re getting over 100 requests a day to use The Simpsons,” 20th Century Fox’s vice president of licensing and marketing, Al Ovadia, told Adweek. Sellers were hungry for anything allowing them to latch onto the spending power of the show’s twelve- to seventeen-year-old fans, a lucrative demographic where The Simpsons was number one. The kids loved Bart; they idolized him—Fox had themselves a brand. “Our only problem is getting enough merchandise in,” a J. C. Penney executive told The New York Times’s N. R. Kleinfeld. “As soon as it comes in, it sells off the shelves.” There was Bart bubble gum, snow boots, notebooks, underwear, and posters, a Bart air freshener, Simpsons pasta. Burger King sold Simpson figurines with their burgers; Butterfinger had the Simpsons as their spokespeople; Bart eventually even did a commercial for Japan Air Lines. At one point, Bart T-shirts were selling at the rate of a million per day in North America.12
AL OVADIA, former vice president of licensing and marketing, 20th Century Fox (to the Los Angeles Times, September 25,
1997): The Monday after The Simpsons special debuted, Jon Dolgen, then chairman of Fox TV … called me into his office. He said, “The show will debut on January 14—go to work.” Basically, go out there and secure as many deals as you can.
The revenues from the first year of merchandising were estimated at $750 million13 (the only products that took in more money that year were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and New Kids on the Block14), with Fox nabbing around 8 percent of that number. In 1991, Groening made Forbes’s “Top 40 Richest Entertainers,” with an estimated $18 million.15
GAVIN POLONE, former agent for Conan O’Brien, Simpsons writers; executive producer, Curb Your Enthusiasm: Everybody was making millions of dollars. Matt, Sam, and Jim (having seen profit take and things like that) collected well over $600 million … My recollection was that of the total pie, they had 50 percent.
Matt Groening, no stranger to the windfall merchandising could bring, was delighted by the marketing opportunities. Both he and Gracie had final approval over any Simpsons products, which resulted in meetings where Matt, Gracie people, and the Fox execs would essentially get to test out all the new toys. Matt was only somewhat discerning about what he put his name on. The sheer volume of Simpsons merchandise indicates an eagerness to make whatever he could from the brand. Both he and Jim Brooks dismissed only the occasional product they considered “too cheesy.”16
