‘The Simpsons’ Was a ‘Hybrid’ of These Two Classic Shows
When The Simpsons first debuted back in 1989, it was obviously unlike any other series that had come before it. But it still had its fair share of pop-culture influences. For one thing, the opening credit sequence was Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver.
But the tone of The Simpsons can be traced back to two wildly different TV shows from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
The Ringer just shared the first chapter of the new book Stupid TV, Be More Funny: How the Golden Era of “The Simpsons” Changed Television — and America — Forever by Alan Siegel. In it, writer Jon Vitti, who penned classic episodes such as “Cape Feare” and “Radio Bart” revealed that “the basic hybrid that creates The Simpsons is Batman crossed with actual emotional stories of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
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Vitti is obviously referring to the classic Adam West Batman series, which has been directly referenced on the show more than once, including in the Vitti-scripted “Mr. Plow.” The episode guest starred West as an unhinged version of himself at a car show, a joke that was written purely so that Vitti could meet Batman.
And West later reprised the role of the Caped Crusader to battle special guest villain ClownFace, played by Krusty.
“We cut our teeth on Batman,” Conan O’Brien told Siegel. “That’s why Robert Smigel and I ended up writing a pilot just to bring Adam West back to TV. That’s how devoted we were,” the former Simpsons scribe claimed, referring to 1991’s underrated Lookwell.
O’Brien explained that Batman worked as “just an action-adventure TV show, and it delivers. It’s a home run because there’s fight scenes and bad guys and great costumes and outrageous traps and excitement and thrills and chills. ‘Batman’s in trouble, I hope he gets out of it.’ We all watched it on that level.”
It wasn’t until Conan was older that he noticed that Batman was also a comedy. “The ’70s roll around and you keep watching it, you start to realize — and now I’m 14, 15, 16 — this is hilarious,” O’Brien noted. “These scripts by Lorenzo Semple are amazing. It’s the perfect writing meeting the perfect actor. Adam West is killing it. The tone is perfect.”
Fellow Simpsons writer George Meyer observed that Batman was “a satirical show in that it took on authority and made authority figures look kind of ridiculous.” Come to think of it, Gotham City’s Chief O’Hara constantly bucking his own responsibilities while relying on Batman isn’t so different from Chief Wiggum telling a distressed citizen that the real emergency number is 912.
“The rules seemed to have been tossed out the window, and that was such an exhilarating experience for a young viewer,” Meyer said of Batman. “Because a lot of the shows, as well done as they were before that, seemed kind of square and stale and tame compared to that.”
Meanwhile, The Simpsons’ untethered satirical lunacy works best when complimented by genuine character drama, which was definitely present in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, another landmark comedy produced by James L. Brooks. And Homer did go full Mary Richards one time, albeit in the middle of a bowling alley.
