Cancel The Simpsons

Make no mistake - I love The Simpsons for all the years of memorable quotes and innumerable good times. But at the same time, all good things must come to an end. And as with many things in this world, it is far often better to go out in a blaze of glory rather than fade away as a shadow of one's former greatness.

A few years ago, one could tell that the writing staff of The Simpsons had started phoning it in and the series had become derivative. Even worse, as I have described before, the show became a parody of itself. Instead of being the relevant, poignant example of an animated series that defied expectations, it just tried to mooch off of all the success that its imitators had enjoyed. Family Guy was never anything more than a Simpsons rip off that tried to distance itself from its source material by being more offensive, shocking, and unpredictable. Family Guy is a rip-off of The Simpsons, and when The Simpsons tried to make itself more like Family Guy... well, a copy of a copy is never as sharp as the original.

And now The Simpsons has sunk to a new low.

Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) is now trying to be just as much of a bleeding heart commie as Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy). Every episode I've seen of the repeats of last season leading up to the new episodes, and the two new episodes thus far, have been chock full of asinine liberal commentary.

It isn't smart. It isn't hip. It's the same tired jokes that every other voicebox in Hollywood has already made 10 times before.

There's nothing left to copy. Nothing else to imitate and mooch off of to attract the next generation of viewers. Just limp along until the movie is released next summer, and let that be the end of it.

Try to go out with some dignity.