The precision-engineered plots that defined the best Golden Age episodes (e.g. Australia,” which begins with Bart & Lisa flushing bathroom products down the toilet and ends with the family being airlifted from the roof of the Australian embassy) existed not to bring about emotional catharsis but to facilitate the telling of jokes. The point of Golden Age Simpsons, in other words, was to make you laugh. This is why we all remember specific lines, and the specific inflections with which they are delivered (“I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN!”, “It’s a pornography store. I was buying pornography,” “Use a pen, Sideshow Bob”), and why we have a harder time reconstructing the plot of any given episode. At its peak, The Simpsons exhibited a kind of sunny, nerdish nihilism: it would sacrifice anything (character consistency, narrative logic, continuity) in order to be funny.

Being funny was the show’s supreme value. There’s a name for this particular aesthetic: absurdism. Those of us who grew up loving Golden Age Simpsons didn’t love it because of the characters.ĭuring its Golden Age, The Simpsons was the greatest absurdist comedy ever made. We loved it because of its highly distinctive upbeat nihilism, and because of the sheer density of perfectly-delivered jokes that made up the true substance of every episode.

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