Blast from the past

When I was an undergraduate, there were exactly three TV shows that I watched. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and the Simpsons.

Yes, The Simpsons is that old.

The fact that the Simpsons outlasted not only Star Trek: TNG, but Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and the reboot of the entire movie franchise still amazes me. Of course, it is a very different show than those heady days in the early 90's. You just can't repeat the same jokes for 21 years without having to change things up occasionally.

Or so I thought until last Sunday's episode. This was truly a blast from the past, an HD version of the early seasons. It opened with a pitch perfect filmstrip parody of the "city of the future" so beloved in the 50's and 60's. Cut to Mrs. Krabappel pining over the possibility of meeting single firemen. How long has it been since Mrs. K showed her man-hungry side? Ten, eleven years?

And the plot was a hearkening back to the days when The Simpsons tried to keep at least one foot grounded in reality. Here Bart is playing his parents against each, a standard trope at least as old as Leave it to Beaver. The syndicated loop for the Simpson's has been running from 1990-1994 lately, and this episode would have fit right in.