6 ms·

> how much of a given it was that they own a house on a single income. Homer has a stable job It isn't - especially if you watch the original first season of t

> how much of a given it was that they own a house on a single income. Homer has a stable job It isn't - especially if you watch the original first season of the Simpsons [0] (Homer's Odyssey - the 3rd episode of the Simpsons written right as the 1990 recession was kicking off) as well as that Frank Grimes episode back in 1997 [1]. The older Simpsons episodes weren't that common on syndication from what I can remember growing up - at most you might see an episode from 1994 in the early 2000s, so I wouldn't be surprised if these episodes may have been forgotten. Simpsons in it's original iteration during it's golden age (1989-1999) was essentially lampooning the 1960s American dream (which itself was legally unattainable for a large portion of Americans in the 1960s - there's a reason why we had a Civil Rights Movement as well as normalized anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-Italian, anti-Greek, anti-Spanish/Portuguese, and anti-Jewish sentiment until these communities assimilated into being "white" in the 1980s and even heritage Americans in vast swathes of America lacked indoor plumbing, medical care, education beyond the 5th grade, etc) being punctuated by the harsh realities of America at the time [4] (eg. $pringfield (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling) from 1993). What I've noticed from the comments on HN (as well as the viciousness of the community when I point this out) is most HNers grew up in middle and upper-middle class households in the 1980s-90s that in most cases weren't representative of the lives the median American would have lived then, and a lot of the rose tinted glasses appear to betray that upbringing. For example, from 1989 to 1994, household incomes in the US dropped at the same rate as they did during the Great Recession and the COVID Pandemic [2] and didn't recover until 1997, but because most HN users today weren't the head of a household during that period they view the 1990s as a golden age. It's the same with 1980s nostalgia with everyone ignoring the 1980s recession which is lampooned in Mr Mom [3] - strip the 80s humor and it's basically a story about a single earner household where the primary breadwinner is made structurally unemployed right when the Rust Belt was starting to rust due to Japanese and German automotive exports becoming more competitive than American exports. [0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu1W8O-CKNw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu1W8O-CKNw [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UNj2nlFttCM&t=71s&pp=2AFHkAIB https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UNj2nlFttCM&t=71s&pp=2AFHkAIB [2] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [3] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xth2v727PiQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xth2v727PiQ [4] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iTuHQxIC7rY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iTuHQxIC7rY

acomjean 9mo ago
Frank Grimes is one of the best characters on TV. "I live in a single room above a bowling alley and bellow another bowling ally".. Very few shows, show actually living situations (flight of the choncords is the only other I can think of).
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  Amen to that! Sadly, a lot of that authenticity fell to the wayside when the original Simpsons writers left the show to work on "Futurama" and "The Critic" and Fox retooled the show for syndication. I'm personally more of a KOTH fan - I found it to be a much more grounded example of middle class life in the late 1990s and early 2000s while also recognizing that the Hills had it good. I find a similar strain of authenticity in Bob's Burgers (unsurprising since much of the team worked on KOTH). > Frank Grimes is one of the best characters on TV I remember getting enraged as an elementary schooler watching that episode because his statement hit true, but we were also a family of 4 living in a 1 bedroom apartment at the time and newly immigrated, and even then I felt similar to Grimes when watching the Simpsons. When I reached my teens, I finally understood it was a callout by the writers trying to remind viewers that the Simpsons wasn't reality.
  - iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
    << When I reached my teens, I finally understood it was a callout by the writers trying to remind viewers that the Simpsons wasn't reality. Interesting. This is not how I interpreted it at all in my initial viewing ( or subsequent ones for that matter ). If Grimes criticized anything, it was Homer and people like Homer. If it was a meta-commentary, it was certainly not drawing a distinction between reality of Grime's life and the imaginary one income head of the household doing surprisingly well given the circumstances. Grimes story was a story of a guy, who just had a bad luck.. over and over again, but even when the good luck did show, he failed the test and focused not on what he gained, but others have despite being, in his eyes, lesser than him. That is the moral of the story. Don't be Grimes. He may wish he can be Homer Simpson, but he sure can't touch those high voltage signs.

acomjean 9mo ago

Frank Grimes is one of the best characters on TV. "I live in a single room above a bowling alley and bellow another bowling ally".. Very few shows, show actually living situations (flight of the choncords is the only other I can think of).

alephnerd 9mo ago
Amen to that! Sadly, a lot of that authenticity fell to the wayside when the original Simpsons writers left the show to work on "Futurama" and "The Critic" and Fox retooled the show for syndication. I'm personally more of a KOTH fan - I found it to be a much more grounded example of middle class life in the late 1990s and early 2000s while also recognizing that the Hills had it good. I find a similar strain of authenticity in Bob's Burgers (unsurprising since much of the team worked on KOTH). > Frank Grimes is one of the best characters on TV I remember getting enraged as an elementary schooler watching that episode because his statement hit true, but we were also a family of 4 living in a 1 bedroom apartment at the time and newly immigrated, and even then I felt similar to Grimes when watching the Simpsons. When I reached my teens, I finally understood it was a callout by the writers trying to remind viewers that the Simpsons wasn't reality.
- iugtmkbdfil834 9mo ago
  << When I reached my teens, I finally understood it was a callout by the writers trying to remind viewers that the Simpsons wasn't reality. Interesting. This is not how I interpreted it at all in my initial viewing ( or subsequent ones for that matter ). If Grimes criticized anything, it was Homer and people like Homer. If it was a meta-commentary, it was certainly not drawing a distinction between reality of Grime's life and the imaginary one income head of the household doing surprisingly well given the circumstances. Grimes story was a story of a guy, who just had a bad luck.. over and over again, but even when the good luck did show, he failed the test and focused not on what he gained, but others have despite being, in his eyes, lesser than him. That is the moral of the story. Don't be Grimes. He may wish he can be Homer Simpson, but he sure can't touch those high voltage signs.