You could damn his oily hide.
I would suggest The Simpsons has always been geared to generating money rather than to providing amusement — through various avenues; and that it cynically helps social control by co-opting pseudo-anarchic rebellion to authoritatively approved shoulder-shrugging acceptance of the system; therefore it has value to FOX beyond income.
Still, it is occasionally amusing, and since the introduction of HD the landscapes are works of art.
You can’t dismiss the longevity of this show as if it’s just typical television. There have been literally hundreds of shows that have been cancelled since The Simpsons began. I’m sure dozens of them had better ratings or were more profitable when they got the ax because the network figured it could be doing better. So there’s something unusual here.
I’m not sure that it’s a large assumption.
Fox executives often get lambasted on the internet for cancelling smart, funny, off-beat shows like The Tick, but too many critics seem to equate “Shows I Like” with “Profitable Shows.” I thought The Tick was great, and Fox has cancelled other shows that i liked, but in most cases it was because the shows didn’t rate as well as their inferior stablemates, and were therefore less profitable for the network.
But this makes it sound like renewal is the norm, which it isn’t. Most shows get cancelled. A show doesn’t have to be on the least profitable list to be cancelled; it just has to not be on the most profitable list.
It can’t just be that animated series are cheaper to make so they’re more profitable. Look at how many animated series have come and gone in the last twenty-five years.
Shows are usually cancelled for one reason: poor ratings. Fox is happy with The Simpsons ratings, so they don’t cancel.
And these days successful shows go off the air because actors are signed for seven years and to re-sign them for additional years is expensive. In addition, the actors grow tired of the work schedule and want to move into something that pays better but also gives them a chance to do something different.
Animated shows, however, pay their cast far less. Assuming the $3000K figure is true for the Simpsons cast, it means the actors were getting just under $2 million in salary per episode. Hugh Laurie probably made more than that by himself toward the end of House. Further, doing voices is easy work: only a few weeks a year (if that) standing in front of a mic and reading your lines. The rest of the time, you can take any other work you like. So the actors don’t have any reason to quit.
Plus you can replace them and nobody can tell the dee-diddly-difference.
Not even close to true.
Even restricting it to American scripted fiction, with recurring characters*, several soap operas have run for over 50 years, Sesame Street has been going for 44 years, Mister Rogers ran for over 30, and Power Rangers is still going after 21 years. Just for a few examples.
And, of course, there’s foreign examples, like Coronation Street (60+) and Doraemon (30).
- The top are mostly news, anthology, sports, or gameshows.
We could speculate on whether the show could or should keep going without one of the main six voice actors if one of them should quit or die, and I think I vaguely recall a thread where we did just that; but The Simpsons has never had to face that issue, and at this point, I suspect that if one of the main cast were unable to continue, it would give them a reason to end the show.
What are you basing that on? Typically the networks will run a profitable show into the ground if they can. What happens more often is the cast or creators want to do something different. The only time I’ve heard of successful shows being pulled by a network was when (I think) CBS decided they wanted to change their line-up from rural humor to more sophisticated, urban shows, and dumped Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and such, even though the shows were doing well.
You actually posted the answer to your own question (I underlined it, above).
This Guardian article is dated 2010, but other Internet snippets seem to support the idea that it’s the merchandising and licensing deals that make The Simpsons worth keeping on the air, ratings be damned:
Has the main cast’s salaries gone down over time? I can’t imaigne they’re demanding or making what they were at their peak. Since ratings have gone down over time and it’s still easy money I’d expect they negotiated and accepted much less than they were once making.
Nothing new about that; back in 1997, King of the Hill would get better ratings than The Simpsons on a regular basis. My theory is, this was because The Simpsons was on against 3rd Rock from the Sun, while KOTH was against the crashing-and-burning Boston Common, and there was nothing else for 3RftS viewers to watch (ABC and CBS had hour-long shows from 8 to 9).
Both of these are valid reasons. One problem with “family sitcoms” is, eventually the “cute kids” grow up (Wally and Beaver on Leave it to Beaver; pretty much everybody on The Brady Bunch; Tommy and Nicholas on Eight is Enough; Kelly and Bud on Married…with Children), and the show’s dynamic changes. However, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are more or less the same characters in 2014 that they were in 1990.
Not as true as you think - besides, the decision not to replace Marcia Wallace as Mrs. Krabappel makes it clear that if any of the six stars dies, the show ends pretty much then and there. Even if they wanted to replace the actors, the three male stars (Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer) each do so many voices that it would be almost impossible to replace any of them without getting rid of too many characters.
“Who knows what great adventures they’ll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable?”
…or Meet the Press (67 years & counting.)
I grant you recurring characters, but scripted fiction?:dubious:
- Now* who’s being naive?
I think most people understood I am talking about primetime scripted fictional series running on broadcast networks in the United States.
The Simpsons Movie grossed $527 million on a $75 million budget in '07.
That’d make me think twice about scrapping it.
I have lots of new episodes on my DVr. Just watched one where the Comic Book Guy gets married. It was legitimately funny.
Also makes you wonder why they’re not making more features.