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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: October 1, 1992
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Simpsons, “A Streetcar Named Marge” (Season 4, Episode 2) [Watch it on Simpsons World]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: The Simpsons‘ gift with a song parody wasn’t exactly news by the time the fourth season rolled around, but there is still something wildly impressive about the scope with which the show not only delivered a pitch-perfect parody of a stage musical, but also a pitch-perfect Tennessee Williams send-up, all the while mining laugh after laugh from the community-theater experience. And that’s not even getting into a day-care subplot that managed to include references to Ayn Rand, The Birds, AND The Great Escape. This episode had it all.
The city of New Orleans famously took umbrage with the opening number to “Oh, Streetcar!” which on one level seems like an overreaction to what was an intentionally, comedically over-the-top take on place-setting in dark musicals. (One of the writers compared it to “There’s No Place Like London” from Sweeney Todd.) Then again, there are few times when I hear about New Orleans and I don’t start humming the Simpsons lyrics (“home of pirates, drunks, and whores…), so maybe those folks had a point.
Like many great Simpsons episodes from this era, there are almost too many great things to tally. (Jon Lovitz’s performance as both play-director Llewelyn Sinclair and his Rand-ian task-master of a sister and daycare operator, for one thing.) But while the ancillary laughs are there in spades, the central plot about Marge’s sadness and her lack of fulfillment is honestly moving, especially once it becomes clear that Homer cannot, will not get it. And then all the stuff with Flanders at rehearsal. It’s just one of the best Simpsons episodes ever. Make like a humble newsie and let it seduce you.
[You can watch The Simpsons episode “A Streetcar Named Marge” on Simpsons World]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
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