On Structure and Simpsons

Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em.

Tell 'em.

Give three examples to back up your point - but only in cursory form.

Tell 'em what you told 'em.




Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em about point 1.

Flesh out point 1 using at least three sentences to elaborate.

Tell 'em you told 'em about point 1.




Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em about point 2.

Flesh out point 2 using at least three sentences to elaborate.

Tell 'em you told 'em about point 2.




Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em about point 3.

Flesh out point 3 using at least three sentences to elaborate.

Tell 'em you told 'em about point 3.




Remind 'em what you were going to tell 'em in the first place.

Remind 'em of the three points you made in the middle paragraphs.

Remind 'em that you told 'em.


The End




When I was living in Colorado I was living deep in the woods - far from the things of man. So one of the things I brought with me was a satellite dish. This helped a lot with the whole passing of the time thing.

What I discovered with my satellite dish was that I could watch between 3 and 6 different Simpsons episodes a day, and that really there was very little else I wanted to watch.

I was slow on the uptake with this show. I was a fan during its incipient days on Tracy Ullman but lost touch soon after when it got its own thing going. So most of my experience with the show has been through re-runs.

What's interesting about watching the show in such deep concentration is that the structure of the episodes emerges more clearly. There is some variation, but by and large the structure is consistent.

It is a kind of A.D.D. rhapsodic, if you had to name it. Almost every episode starts with the family doing some project- they go to a movie, they go shopping, they buy a gadget- whatever. A logical story begins to unfold that should have a clear beginning, middle, and an end.

And then, inevitably, the story line breaks away into a tangent, and then that tangent usually carries the piece the rest of the way.

Because the moment to moment content is so funny, the piece can support this random, unsupported structure. Indeed, it is a wonderful underpinning echo to the main characters' own lack of directionality and focus.

And I really like this.

As a writer, I am a big fan of the preamble. I enjoy words for their own sake and for their own melody and mouthfeel. As I stated in an earlier post, I don't really believe in proving things- particularly not by scientific examples which are entirely transposable and/or Protean. I prefer to argue by exhortation or by acclaim. This seems to work a lot better. My old history teacher whose name I forget used to tell me that it was the spoken word that was more powerful than the written word, and on this I agree. The written word has weight over time, but time has no power, only wisdom. Hitler could not have pulled off what he did by writing bi-weekly columns in Die Zeitung. It was the power of his oratory that moved the masses. Facts be damned.

I'm still a demagogue at heart, I suppose. I find substantiation tedious and finally lacking in real power. I am alright with the world coming undone periodically by the whims of dictators. They are, after all, only speaking for their constituents. It's their endurance that I don't like. Demagogues should come and go- to cling to power is unseemly, and that is where the real destruction lies.

With music, my feelings are a little different. Pardon the inconsistency here. Schenkerian structures still make the most sense to me, and even the most beautiful melody becomes intolerable if it is unsupported by a reliable urlinie.

This is why atonal music sucks. There is no beginning and no end. Its demarcations are arbitrary and unmoving. The only way someone like Stravinsky gets away with it is by writing very short pieces with highly simplistic, repetitive forms (ABAB, for example, or even just ABA). In this way, the melody can reveal its charm but the piece will be over before one grows sick of it. This is how we get through Stravinsky's most successful pieces, the Rite of Spring, for example, and the lovely Suites for Orchestra.


His less successful pieces (or tracts from the more successful ones) are those in which he tries to out-endure himself with tiring tidbits.

But for most modern music it is far worse. Randomness, not in the service of satire, is simply random and unappealing. The Simpsons writers have mastered form and moved beyond it, using, like Stravinsky, the short form (this would not carry in a movie). The typical modern composer has no such mastery of classical form and simply tries to weasel his way out of it by blowing it up altogether. This is why we listen to Britney.

I, myself, am bored with much form, largely due to its lack of playfulness and its sinister left-brain bias. I think that a message that unfolds through story, narrative, and circuitousness penetrates deeper into the mind and convinces more through art than through logic.

The form outlined at the beginning of this page is almost a satire itself, were it not the prescribed way of making one's case in academic circles. But nothing comes of this write-by-numbers style other than the gold-star or check-plus of a bored or addled professor. Surely we can do better.

In keeping with my purpose, I have left out any specific examples of Simpson episodes to back up my case. This is due almost entirely to laziness and not principle- something I am happy to admit at present. But I urge you, my reader, to follow up on this essay and do your own homework. Turn on channel 11 and see for yourself the acute twist that each episode's plot takes. Pick out your favorites and send me a link. Although right now, I am surrounded by so many things of man, that I am sure more TV is something I can do without.

D-Blog