The Simpsons

The Simpsons

A sitcom is a situational comedy television series. Sitcoms usually

use comic devices to make them funny like puns, violence and

exaggeration. They use satire, farce, parody, jokes, gags and

slapstick to entertain the audience. Sitcoms usually last 30 minutes

if shown on commercial TV and they involve chracters having problems

which they try to sort out. "Leaver it to Beaver" was about a typical,

white middle-class 1950's family that had problems and worked together

to work them out. They had the same sort of characters as "The

Simpsons" but they didn't have the same controversial issues. When

"All in the Family" aired in the 1970's it was a different story. A

black family was introduced and it dealt with controversial subjects

in realistic ways. It was the first show to do so. This made it

popular. Nowadays "The Simpsons" has taken its place. It ridicules

important people and deals with subjects that were earlier described

as forbidden. "The Simpsons" takes advantage of being an animated

sitcom and makes some drastic changes in life, for example the family

is yellow skinned, has 4 fingers and seems to not age at all. In

certain scenes they may be badly injured, but in the next they are

fine. This all makes "The Simpsons" enjoyable to watch.

The opening sequence tells us that the following programme is going to

be a comedy. The soundtrack is quite fast and lively. As the clouds

clear we see the words "The Simpsons" and then an aerial shot of

Springfield. Our first expectations are that the town is normal and

clean with no violence or pollution, but as we see more in the shot,

we notice the nuclear power plant and ...

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... them in a new more

exiting way. Over the years "The Simpsons" has changed sitcoms into

controversial and interesting programmes. The show is successful

because of the way it plays with our expectations and how it blows

them out of proportion. It has taken ideas from past sitcoms like

"Leave it to Beaver" and improved them. As it is a animated sitcom it

makes it funnier as characters can do things that could not be

possible in reality. Even celebraties have taken a shine to the

sitcom. "You can learn all life's lesssons from watching The Simpsons

" Mel Gibson. "The Simpsons" is the sitcom of the 21st century dealing

with real life problems in a comic way. I think that the show can is

really good at what it is meant to do which is entertain the audience,

it not only shows the audience how life is but also involves them.