What’s to Stop ‘The Simpsons’ From Going Back to Its Classic Look?

The Simpsons obviously looks a lot different today than when it first premiered 35 years ago — and not just because those of us who were around back then have worse eyesight now. The animation style of the show has changed pretty drastically, owing to myriad production changes and technological shifts.

The extent of the show’s stylistic evolution is especially glaring when it visually references past episodes, as it’s done several times in recent years. Like how the fourth wall-breaking Season 36 premiere, “Bart’s Birthday” recreated the ending of Season Two’s “Bart the Daredevil,” albeit with a grisly twist. 

This gag was so seamless, it was hard to even tell where exactly the old footage ended and the new footage began. Or maybe it was all new footage? Who can even tell?

This isn’t the first time that the show has experimented with re-capturing the classic Simpsons look. Season 34’s “Lisa the Boy Scout” found a middle-aged Bart traveling back to the very first Christmas-themed episode for reasons that are too complex to go into right now. 

Similarly, a segment in last season’s “Treehouse of Horror XXXIV” began with an alternate ending for Season Five’s “Cape Feare,” in which Sideshow Bob brutally murders Bart with a machete. Again, the recreation of the 1993-era animation was stunning and 100 percent convincing.  

This has prompted some fans to question why the show doesn’t revert to that earlier style, which the animators are clearly capable of reproducing. Not just for the occasional fleeting scene, but for good. 

There’s no right or wrong style for The Simpsons, and no one era can be claimed as definitive. But these scenes looked great. Obviously nostalgia may be clouding people’s judgment to some extent, but it’s hard to argue that the contrast between the current Simpsons aesthetic and the “classic” hand-drawn style favors the rich colors and fluid movement of the vintage era. 

This isn’t to knock the current look, but it slowly evolved over decades and was seemingly primarily informed by changes in the cel animation process, and eventually, by the switch to digital. But now digital animation has progressed to the point that The Simpsons can look like almost anything. So why not do something new? And by new, I mean old.

Instead of dutifully adhering to the current in-house style, the Simpsons creatives could opt to come up with an aesthetic ideal for the world of Springfield and go with that — and I’m probably not alone in believing that the seasons from the early ‘90s represented the show’s aesthetic ideal. 

They could at least try it out for one season and, if it doesn’t work out, just blame the whole thing on a gas leak like Community.

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).