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Tag Archives: Mike Scully
The Simpsons Is Born Again in “She of Little Faith”
Season 13 was a time of transition for The Simpsons. The show would burn off the last handful of episodes overseen by superfan punching bag, Mike Scully. Al Jean (who’d supervised seasons 3 and 4 with writing partner Mike Reiss) would return to take the reins after almost a decade away. And the show gradually shifted from its manic decline to its comfortable persistence. The result, as I’ve discussed before, was a season of television that called back to the classic era Jean had been a part of, that still found itself subject to some of the worst habits of the Scully administration, and that previewed the steady anodyne march of years that would possess the show for the next [gulp] two decades.
But as I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, the opening episode of Jean’s second tour of duty, “She of Little Faith”, gave fans a glimmer of hope. Make no mistake, the episode still has some of the telltale signs of the prior regime’s failings. The pacing is a little nuts. There are some overly cartoony gags. And at times, there is still the undercurrent of meanness that hurried along the show’s fall from grace.
“Simpsons Safari” Represents the Supreme Laziness of The Simpsons’s Decline
The greatest sin of Mike Scully’s time in charge of The Simpsons — that period from season 9 to season 12 when the show fell from grace — isn’t what you might think. As I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, it’s not the show’s humor, which became vastly more hit-or-miss in that four year stretch. It’s not the characters, who grew more and more flat and caricatured under Scully’s reign. It’s not the stories, which became ever more disjointed and rambling. And it’s not even the extra zaniness, which frayed whatever remained of the series’s thin tether to reality.
It’s the laziness, the sloppiness, the sense that the people making what had once been the greatest television show of all time had just kind of stopped caring.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Africa, Episosde Reviews, Homer Simpson, Jerkass Homer, John Swartzwelder, Mike Scully, The Simpsons Season 12
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The Simpsons Botches the Relationship Between Homer and His Daughter in “Make Room for Lisa”
Homer and Lisa have the richest, most complicated relationship on The Simpsons. The series will no doubt continue doing Homer and Marge relationship episodes until the sun burns out, and Marge and Lisa have an undeniably special kinship, and Homer and Bart never fail to make a stellar comic duo. But Homer and Lisa are complete opposites who, nevertheless, love each other dearly. That means there’s always fertile ground to cover about how a father and daughter learn to relate to one another and, gradually, understand each other a little better.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Homer Simpson, Lisa Simpson, Mike Scully, The Simpsons S10E16, The Simpsons Season 10
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The Nine Showrunners Who Defined The Simpsons
Too many talented writers have passed through the doors of The Simpsons to count. From folks who’ve gone on to create great television shows of their own like David X. Cohen (Futurama) and Greg Daniels (The Office, King of the Hill) to stellar longtime contributors like John Swartzwelder and George Meyer to those who’ve broken out as stars in their own right like Conan O’Brien, the writers’ room of The Simpsons has seen a nearly unmatched array of superb comic scribes contributing their wit and humor to the program.
But in the nearly 30 years The Simpsons has been on the air, only nine individuals (with one honorable mention) have served as showrunners for this hallowed and hilarious series. They’re the first names you see in the credits after the end of an episode, a sign that however a story began, however it may have changed and been shaped by the show’s fantastic team of writers, animators, and performers, the buck ultimately stopped with them. These nine people were responsible for shepherding each episode from the first pitch to the final cut, and it makes their contributions to The Simpsons unique, even among the scores of creative people who make the show possible.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Al Jean, Bill Oakley, David Mirkin, James L. Brooks, Josh Weinstein, Matt Groening, Matt Selman, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Sam Simon
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Can Greatness Just Be Funny? – The Simpsons and “Marge on the Lam” (s05e06)
Mike Scully is, however unfairly, the bête noire of The Simpsons in the eyes of the show’s most ardent fans. Scully was the series’ showrunner for seasons 9-12, and he shoulders much of the blame for the show’s decline. One of the most frequent criticisms leveled against Scully is that he had no mind for story or character. Instead, the episodes under his watch have been slammed as nothing more than joke after joke with no deeper grounding in storytelling or consistent characterization to add color or depth to the comedy.
But Mike Scully was hired by a man who has both faced similar criticisms and presided over some of the show’s peak years. David Mirkin joined The Simpsons as the series’ showrunner for seasons 5 and 6. He brought with him a brand new staff, including Mike Scully, after the departure of most of the show’s stalwart writers from the first four seasons.
Mirkin was known for having few concerns about realism in The Simpsons. His only writing credit on the show is for “Deep Space Homer” an outlandish (and subsequently lampshaded) tale where Homer’s angry crank calls somehow lead to him joining N.A.S.A. and launching into space with Buzz Aldrin. While the show’s most devoted fans look back on Mirkin’s tenure fondly, some of those same diehards point to this lack of grounding and diminish him in comparison to other showrunners from the series history. In fact, a recurring criticism of David Mirkin is that he was merely “Mike Scully with better jokes.”
“Marge on the Lam” was the first episode produced under his watch, and it does little to contradict this narrative of Mirkin leading a “nothing but gags” administration. The episode is jam-packed with jokes, many of them pretty outrageous, and story and heart clearly take a backseat to the humor.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged David Mirkin, Mike Scully, The Simpsons Season 5
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