SIMPSONS ANONYMOUS

The following is an actual transcript of a Simpson’s Anonymous meeting from an undisclosed location somewhere in America. The group’s responses are in parentheses ….

“Hello, my name is Ernest and I’m a Simpsonaholic.” (‘Hi Ernest’)
“I never thought I would end up here. At it’s height, my addiction cost me jobs, friends, and money. The only thing I didn’t lose was my girlfriend, and that’s because she was watching too. We enabled each other.” (Knowing murmurs) “We would exchange Simpsons paraphernalia at Christmas and birthdays, recite entire scenes together, and watch Simpsons marathons for days without leaving the house……oh God, we were hooked. I guess I should back up and start at the beginning. It all began innocently enough back in the late 80’s. I’d watch the Simpsons once a week with my friends, real social-like, you know? The animation was fairly crude back then, and the voices were unrefined, but the laughs were non-stop. Pretty soon though, my whole week revolved around Simpsons night. Then came syndication in the mid 90’s. I was upta 2 or 3 episodes a day……and I was watching alone.” (Understanding sniffles) “The animation by then had become much stronger, and the voices more potent. By ’99 I was gone. When the first notes of the theme came on it was……it was like a wave of joy flowing through my veins. The opening clouds parting were like the very gates of heaven opening!” (Scattered ‘Can I get a witness’) “I’d started calling in sick when episodes like ‘Mr. Plow’ or ‘Bart sells his Soul’ were going to be on. The Simpsons was all I talked about, constantly driving my friends crazy with best line/episode debates, and always correcting their quotes. Every action every day was driven by when I could see another episode. Believe me, cable didn’t help either. Between local and national stations, there was an almost constant supply of The Simpsons. It was always right there, waiting for me, calling me! It was at this time that I met my girlfriend. We bonded immediately over our love of the four-fingered smack as we called it. There were good times at first, but as many of you know, it can only go in one direction. We comforted each other through the rough times, like cable outages and VCR jams, and we laughed through the good times, like Sideshow Bob’s return and Homer finding his soul mate. Through the ups and the downs, we always had each other, but we knew something had to give. Our eyesight was failing from too much TV, we were broke, and I was getting ‘Yellow Skin Fever’ pretty bad” (Muffled sobs) “That’s when it happened. I don’t know if God intervened on our behalf or what, but last Sunday night at 8 o’clock we were crouched in front of the TV in our pre fix ritual when the most peculiar thing occurred; the show started and we didn’t laugh. It was just ‘Homer is dumb, Lisa is smart, Marge worries, Bart causes worry.’ Where was the funny? The soaring highs were gone, the clever innuendo and social commentary was missing. Horror of horrors, it was just another TV show!” (Relieved gasps) “I looked at my girlfriend and we just hugged and cried. Our long bittersweet nightmare was over. The producers and writers had finally run out of product. From the animation fields of Korea to the red hills of Springfield, the creative poppy fields were barren and we were free at last, thank God almighty, we were free at last!!!” (Thunderous applause) “We aren’t out of the woods yet though. We still sneak an occasional re-run, but only classics, and in moderation of course…” (Forgiving chuckles)