More intriguing than anything to emerge from recent tribunal sittings was an admission by an RTE broadcaster yesterday, during a discussion to mark the 10th anniversary of The Simpsons. The eminently respectable broadcaster, Rodney Rice, claimed never to have seen a single episode of the cartoon series.
Rodney Rice owns two TV sets, so how has probably the most pervasive television phenomenon of the late 20th century eluded him? It beats the "how could someone forget giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to someone else?" conundrum any old day.
Mr "I've never seen The Simpsons" Rice would be quite a useful guinea pig in some of that academic research in the US which is devoted to exploring popular culture, Simpsons cartoons included. (Imagine the essay title, Compare and Contrast: the psyche of a Simpsons fan with someone who has never seen an episode before. Popular Culture Student: Jeez, Professor, there is nobody on the planet with a TV set that hasn't seen The Simpsons. Professor: I thought so too but our European research team has located this guy in Dublin, Ireland. The name's Rice. And get this. He has two.)
For all the Rodney Rices, a very brief explanation. The Simpsons are a unswervingly blue-collared dysfunctional American family. Father Homer, Mom Marge, mischievous son Bart and goodygoody daughter Lisa. The baby, Maggie, is mute and the rest of the cast are the assorted residents of Springfield, a town boasting a nuclear power plant.
The series' subtext is to subvert all traditional American images, everything from JFK to Mom's freshly baked apple pie. It contains every genre from slapstick to farce, cinema to musical theatre. There have been more than 200 episodes and it is now seen in more than 100 countries. No other cartoon has received the same level of in-depth analysis and it seems the eggheads are only getting warmed up.
This intellectualisation of The Simpsons reached previously unscaled heights this week, with respected critic and novelist Gilbert Adair comparing Homer Simpson to both Joyce's Leopold Bloom and Hasek's Good Soldier Schweik. He amended a quote from French philosopher Michel Serres, saying: "The Simpsons is a chef-d'oeuvre to which the work of no currently practising English-language novelist is comparable in importance or greatness."
He went on listing "the Hogarthian vividness of its characterisation and the fact that literally dozens of jokes jostle for space for Lebensraum, in any one story" as reasons for its appeal.
The Washington Post was unequivocal: "How much more can be said about Shakespeare after 400 years?" But much can be learned from Homer Simpson. Time magazine named it the greatest TV show of the 20th century. George Walden, a former British MP, called it "an example of genius in popular culture".
Yet another commentator urged Tony Blair to follow The Simpsons' patriarch's lead in his approach to his new baby, Leo. What's more, he backed up his suggestion with yet more academic musings. Last November Charlie Lewis, professor of family and developmental psychology at Lancaster University, described Homer as "a very good Western cultural icon for fathers". Rodney Rices please note: Homer is the only beer-swilling, belching slob (not to mention his serious BO problem) in history to be hailed as a role model.
Incredibly, after 10 years, the series continues to be afforded almost unanimous critical acclaim. A TV review in the Guardian last December showed that The Simpsons has a particular knack for parodying the mundane in society with the knowing laughter of "I recognise that" the reaction all over the world.
Reviewing the episode where Marge goes to Rancho Relaxo to unwind, leaving Homer to take care of baby Maggie, David Thomas of the Guardian explained how, when it comes to The Simpsons, animation can often imitate life. No sooner had he switched on the preview tape than his wife came in to find him slumped "Homerically" in front of the box. "She immediately registered intense disapproval . . . but the similarity between Marge's plight and her own provoked smiles, then chuckles, then outright guffaws."
There is a downside to what has become the constant drip-feed of The Simpsons - when channel-grazing it is virtually impossible to avoid the programme. Back in the early 1990s, you made a conscious effort to sit in on Sunday evening to watch the double bill on Sky. Some of us taped the new episode, and some of us watched it again straight afterwards. Twice. OK, then, maybe three times.
These days, you can't turn on the TV without tripping over the banana-coloured bunch, with the result that over the past 10 years the series has drawn ever closer to the Kingdom of the Geek. (Population: Trekkies, Trainspotters, X-Philes and soon, Simpsonites.) There are some people - you probably know one and if this is the first thing you read in today's paper there is a good chance you are one - who have turned The Simpsons into a kind of post-modern, new millennium religion.
They worship at the altar of Homer and are very useful at pub quizzes for questions like "quote one reference to the Bible found in The Simpsons?". (A: "Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else - and it hasn't - it's that girls should stick to girls' sports like hot-oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such" - Homer)
Afflicted with what's known as the Monty Python Syndrome, these are types who still have Simpsons' images on their screen-savers at work, can quote whole episodes of the series verbatim and mutter Okeledokely Ned Flanders-style when answering in the affirmative. These unbearables are still under the impression that saying D'Oh! (with them you can actually hear the exclamation mark) after making a blunder is a witty way to carry on and that a debate on the relative merits of Marge and that Country and Western bird Homer nearly copped off with makes for sparkling dinner party conversation.
You (yes, you with the Eat My Shorts Tshirt and Springfield reference book collection) probably stayed in last night for The Simpsons anniversary extravaganza on BBC2 instead of taping it like a normal person and going out with your mates.
You did, didn't you? Go on admit it. Dear, oh dear, oh dear.
