Best.Show. Ever.

The Simpson family has stayed together longer than mine could. I suppose this is a reason the show has been so important to me growing up; it’s been a comfort to have something consistent in my life that has been there for me when my family was going through some trouble.

Nostalgic escapism aside, “The Simpsons Season 20” DVD is in stores, featuring 21 episodes of television’s favorite yellow family. This is a hell of a long time to be making a cartoon series and, now that it is in its 21st season, I’m curious to see how much longer they’ll be able to keep the show running. The show has survived nearly as long as me; Maggie Simpson should be old enough to drink Duff Beer now.

On top of the 20th season DVD, I’ve also been watching a boatload of episodes from earlier seasons of “The Simpsons,” attempting to get a comprehensive hold on the town of Springfield. This has shown me the sobering formula the show has reverted to in the last decade, which basically has several different plotlines running simultaneously, all leading to one outcome, usually a strange moral tale or a simple tongue-in-cheek gag. Throw in a celebrity guest voice and some topical issues, and you’ve got an episode.

This season does have some pretty cool celebrity guests: Kelsey Grammer makes his 11th appearance as the hilariously homicidal Sideshow Bob. Other guests include Ellen Page, Denis Leary, Joe Montana, Jodie Foster, Marv Albert, Mark Cuban, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt.All criticism aside, “The Simpsons” has undoubtedly become the most iconic cartoon family on television. Still riding off the general success of 2007’s “The Simpsons Movie,” the Simpson family has found themselves on more than just our TVs.

Marge Simpson was featured in a 2009 spread of “Playboy.” While these pictures didn’t answer the main question (does the carpet match the beehive?) it did feature one of the first “Playboy” pieces I’d been interested to check out since they published the collaboration between Gonzo-journalist Hunter S. Thompson and Playboy’s (then) assistant editor, Tim Mohr: “Postcards from the Proud Highway” — a string of Thompson’s analyses on a wide range of subjects spanning firearms to physical fitness. This article was Thompson’s final contribution to “Playboy” before his death Feb. 20, 2005.

But I digress. This mention of Hunter Thompson’s suicide is making me wonder when “The Simpsons” will make that same final decision. Morbid as it might sound, the creators and voice actors of this show must be exhausted … aside from the actors’ lucrative $400,000 per episode paychecks. There is one warning sign that Matt Groening and the creators are losing spirit in the show, namely the lack of commentary on the DVDs.

With Conan O’Brien out of NBC, it’s important to remember that he wrote and produced for “The Simpsons” between 1991 and 1993. These seasons contain some of the best episodes found in the 451 episodes created.

While watching Adult Swim, one of their textual “bumps” between shows hinted tongue-in-cheek they were interested in buying “The Simpsons” from FOX. Since FOX has kept an extremely firm grip on the show, this is really indicative of how much greater “The Simpsons” is than “Family Guy,” which has been on Adult Swim for several years.

While my family wasn’t able to remain a single unit for as long as Springfield’s residents in 742 Evergreen Terrace (even though Homer and Marge have been remarried four times, due to strange circumstances), I’m happy. Happy that such an excellent show has been able to stay afloat for more than two decades. Taking a cue from Comic Book Guy, my favorite character in the series: “Best. Show. Ever.”

Death of primetime: TiVo's rise

It seems your friendly neighborhood slacker has once again found himself living with his parents, which means one thing: cable television.

Something relatively new to our television is TiVo, the digital video recorder (DVR) box used to save shows so you may fast forward, rewind and pause your programs. This has been a life-changing implement to my daily routine, here’s why: My biggest beef with television was the fact that I had to plan my schedule around the programming in order to watch what I wanted.

Primetime is now a thing of the past with DVR.

Considering the fact that I’ve relied upon Hulu.com and streamed sites off Chinese databases for the bulk of my television fix, having a full array of 500 or more channels feels like I’m stealing. Except, it’s the opposite of stealing when you’re paying $124 per month.

The price tag is what keeps me from independently acquiring cable. Paying for just wireless Internet dents my monthly budget enough and, in my opinion, if I only have the Web at my disposal, then I’m more likely to utilize that resource closer to its full potential. When I was without cable and wanted to watch my favorite shows, I would try my best to use the previously mentioned streaming sites. In general, I wouldn’t recommend this method. More often than not, you’re going to find dead links and terrible quality if you manage to successfully find something to watch. In my case, I ended up watching grainy episodes of “Dragon Ball Z” simply because it was one of the only working shows I could find.

Since DVR records the episodes and keeps them until I manually delete them, it keeps track of everything I’ve watched. This is a nice way to gain a perspective on what has been on my TV, though I’m not the only one who has this information. The cable company also has the information on what I’ve been recording. Privacy issues aside, this has done something extraordinary in revealing a very apparent feature about myself: I watch almost nothing but cartoons.

“Johnny Quest,” “The Venture Brothers,” “South Park” and “King of the Hill” are the primary shows in my DVR track list. While I’m not a huge fan of many crime shows, “Dexter” has also become a favorite of mine, making it (along with “30 Rock”) one of the rare live shows, with real actors, recorded on my DVR.

So how has DVR actually changed television? The commercials. Something DVR banks on is the ability to fast forward through commercials. This gives the viewer a false sense of cheating the system, like they’re not being constantly exposed to advertisements; this is simply not true. Look at a commercial as it’s fast forwarding, even at full speed. You are almost guaranteed to still get the full gist of the commercial. As the commercial speeds through, the logo advertised remains onscreen for a sufficiently long enough time to know what they’re trying to sell and what it will do for you, even in bizarre selling-point logic. For example, watching an Axe body spray commercial shows me that sloppy, greasy young men will be aggressively and randomly caressed by vivacious, scantily clad blondes at the mall if they wear Axe. Now, you wont be able to make sense out of every commercial you watch on fast forward. It’d be impossible to figure out Geico commercials without the contextual dialogue.

I’m not the type to willingly pay for cable — I’m fine without a working television so long as I
have the Internet, video games, kittens and maybe a ukulele. My justification is that I’d be more productive without cable. That is bull shit. Now that mommy dearest is paying the cable bill, I’ve become a serious couch potato during my down time.