That’ a big piece of what I’m saying; you could almost literally recast “Friends”, tweak (not dramatically change, mind you) the hair and clothes, and it would still be relevant. Or you could resurrect "Will and Grace’…wait.
Anyway, I think that whatever this phenomenon is sort of retarded the decline of The Simpsons- it neither pushed it to be better and more relevant, and nor did it drive it into its grave.
And I agree that there was a LOT of the nuclear family sitcom stuff in the air in the 1970s and 80s. Either in the form of original 1950s-1960s re-runs on UHF stations, or in the form of somewhat wistful 1980s-1990s shows attempting to recapture a lot of that- “Family Ties”, for example.
So when “The Simpsons” came along, it was pretty surprising, and in some ways hilariously true to life. I mean, I hadn’t seen my father laugh so hard as in the early episode when Homer comes in, steps on a Lego, and somehow falls down, and then utters in a low voice “Bring me the boy.” Apparently that was the sort of real-life situation that the older shows about families glossed over, but The Simpsons hit right on the head.
Yeah, the conventional “family sitcom” had been displaced after the late 70s by more lifestyle/workplace sitcoms and in the 80s/90s we saw “variations” on the family sitcom that sought to make it more appropriate to the time. And the late 70s/1980s/early 90s “family sitcoms” existed in the age of the Very Special Episode, itself prime fodder for lampooning.
Then of course there was the 800-lb monster in the room for the 1980s: the Cosby Show and its Ultimate Urban Utopian household. At the time Married With Children came out , many saw in it not just a parody of the old nuclear-family comedy, but as the Bundys being overtly the Anti-Huxtables in almost every possible way.
I kind of think that “The Simpsons” and “Married with Children” were sort of colleagues in skewering both that older style show and more Pollyanna contemporary shows like “The Cosby Show”, considering that they were only two years apart and covered similar topics, albeit in very different ways.
When the Simpsons first came out, I’d make a strong point of watching new episodes. I did that through high school and much of undergrad, often with my buddies.
As life got busy, I’d watch it less often but would catch up later on DVD.
Now when it comes on… it is okay. It is still clever. But not nearly as clever as it used to be. I rarely make it through a whole episode. Maybe someday I’ll catch up but there are better shows like Letterkenny which feel funnier and more zeitgeisty.
I don’t think they were parodying them for the most part so much as “done in the style of” - because Modern Family is still on the air and Malcolm In The Middle is another one of those shows which hasn’t aged at all and is still effectively contemporary TV. Sure, they used some clever elements from those shows (like the talking to the camera thing you see in reality TV) but it was done as an expected trope, not a “Those old shows were so cringeworthy, amirite?” the way it was with the earlier era parodies. I mean, I saw more than a few people on social media trying to work out what the last two ‘era’ episodes were supposed to be parodies of, because it was so close to current TV style.
I am inclined to agree, although it’s interesting South Park decided to keep itself current and remain relevant while The Simpsons has sort of become TV comfort food.
There was a 2000s Friends but it was a very different show. It was called How I Met Your Mother. You can’t really do a 2010/20 Friends the same way really.
The ‘00s era episodes of WandaVision were very clearly parodying Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family.