The Simpsons may have made an annual tradition of letting their hair down and the bugs out each Halloween from their second season onward, but for a while they were reluctant to revisit the holiday that provided them with their very first standalone outing back in 1989. It would be a further six years before they produced a second festive-themed episode, "Marge Be Not Proud", in Season 7, so great was the writing staff's fear of not being able to measure up to that iconic first episode (which was never intended to be the first episode, mind). After that, the floodgates were opened and more and more Christmas episodes slowly started to trickle out, but Mike Scully's tenure as showrunner was almost upon us and the show was nearing the end of its classic era. That means that if you and your friends are planning a marathon of seasonal Simpsons episodes and wish to remain within the show's golden age (debatable, but most feel that this covers seasons 1 to 9), you are limited to just three episodes - "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (damn, is that a scary title, even if the cultural allusion is obvious), "Marge Be Not Proud" and "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace". And too bad that "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" also happens to be one of the most hated episodes of Season 9. It's nowhere near as controversial as "The Principal and The Pauper", of course (because very few things in life are), but there are still plenty of fans out there who'd prefer to skip that one. So that leaves us with "Roasting" and "Marge Be Not Proud". Unfortunately, "Marge Be Not Proud" is not a universally beloved episode either - at any rate, the folks over at Dead Homers Society have it pegged as the only truly bad episode of the show's original eight seasons. Personally, I happen to think that "Marge Be Not Proud" is a very good episode and I was genuinely taken back to read Dead Homers Society's diatribe of it, but I'll save my defense of the episode for another year. If you want to play it safe, maybe you had better stick to just the first episode. Unfortunately, you might get one of those awkward folks with the opinion that, "Early Simpsons suck! The show didn't get good until Season 3!" (I have very little patience for such people, but they're out there.) In which case you really are stuck. This is what you get for trying to please all of the people all of the time.
At this stage you might want to start scouring the Simpsons archives for additional episodes which could be seen as "unofficial Christmas episodes", ie: episodes that don't actually take place at Christmas but can somehow be incorporated to the seasonal theme. "Mr Plow" of Season 4 would be a strong contender, since most of the episode takes place in heavy snowfall. "When Flanders Failed" of Season 3 might work, given that the ending borrows so extensively from that perennial Christmas favourite, It's A Wonderful Life (1946). My top recommendation, however, would have to be "Radio Bart" (8F11), also of Season 3, which is a wonderful episode indeed, and one I make a point of trying to slip in a viewing of at some point in the Christmas countdown. What makes "Radio Bart" such a pertinent episode to the holiday season? Because it's taking the piss out of Band Aid, whose ugly, malodorous legacy has been one of the real bugbears of the season since its genesis in 1984. Or, more accurately, it's taking the piss out of USA For Africa, the American attempt to replicate what Band Aid were up to. Either way, it's performing an important service in reminding us of the overall shoddiness of charity records where a bunch of celebrities get together to sing one or two lines apiece, possibly with an eye more toward improving their own public profile than with making a notable difference to the flavour-of-the-month cause in question. If, like me, you loathe Band Aid (or USA For Africa) with every fibre of your being and resent having its pseudo-piety forced upon you every yuletide (or whenever they tend to play USA For Africa) then "Radio Bart" is the Simpsons episode for you.
Even before we get onto the business with Band Aid/USA For Africa, "Radio Bart" sets itself up as a strong contender for the most bitingly satirical episode The Simpsons ever produced. It certainly wastes no time in baring its fangs at a wide array of targets. The episode first aired on January 9th 1992, at a time when digs at German pop duo Milli Vanilli were still in vogue - hence, "Radio Bart" kicks off with with mention of a Milli Vanilli pastiche, Funky See Funky Do, whom we're told will be back shortly to "lip sync another one of their hits". Milli Vanilli, of course, had been the subject of controversy a couple of years prior when it was revealed that they did not perform their own vocals; in this fleeting cultural allusion, we find our first inkling of the fraudulent nature of celebrity and hollow media posturing that the episode as a whole takes such delight in skewering.
As the episode opens, Bart's birthday is just around the corner and the family are concerned with buying him fun and meaningful presents. Homer, ever the devoted worshiper at the alter of the telly box, goes after the first shiny thing the chattering cyclops dangles before him, the Superstar Celebrity Microphone, a pastiche of an existing product that was marketed in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Mr Microphone. Straight away, you can see what I mean about "Radio Bart" being an episode that takes no prisoners. Its send-up of the actual commercial used to promote Mr Microphone is just SAVAGE.
I have to admit, when I watch the above commercial, the most prominent thought running through my head is "Why the hell don't I have one of those things?" It's the guy at 0:23 who really sells it.
It's honestly heartbreaking how much of a contrast exists between Homer and Bart's respective outlooks on the Celebrity Superstar Microphone in the early stages of the episode. Homer sincerely believes that he's snagged Bart the greatest gift ever, but come the big day Bart takes one look at it and isn't even willing to feign enthusiasm. I know that we're supposed to think that Homer picked out the dorkiest gift imaginable, but as a kid I would have killed for a toy like the Celebrity Superstar Microphone and couldn't understand why Bart was being so down on it. Now I'm adult, I've seen the ad for the actual gadget the Celebrity Superstar Microphone was spoofing and I want one more than ever. What the hell is wrong with you, Bart? Eventually, Bart does come round to Homer's gift, once he realises how much potential it has for playing pranks on gullible and unsuspecting souls. And it's here that "Radio Bart" really kicks into gear. Like "Homer Badman" of Season 6, it is an episode preoccupied with media manipulation, only whereas "Homer Badman" went for contemporary targets, like the 1990s tabloid television show Hard Copy, "Radio Bart" is more concerned with evoking the Ghosts of Media Past that continue to haunt American's collective cultural psyche. The initial prank that Bart plays on Homer, in using the Celebrity Superstar Microphone to convince him that aliens have invaded the Earth (and eaten George H. W. Bush), is an obvious nod to the widespread panic attributed to Orson Welles' radio dramatisation of The War of The Worlds in 1938. The episode's pivotal prank, in which Bart lowers the radio into a well and convinces the townspeople that he's Timmy O'Toole, a hapless young orphan who's gotten himself stranded down there, echoes the true-life story of Kathy Fiscus, a three year old girl who became a media sensation when she fell down a well at San Marino, California on April 8th 1949. Kathy's plight and the subsequent rescue efforts attracted a great deal of attention from various media outlets, including the recently-established KTLA television station, who broadcast live coverage of the events outside the well. Sadly, the story did not have a happy ending, for Kathy had already died of asphyxiation by the time the rescue party reached her. Kathy's tragic tale remained ingrained in America's consciousness as it entered the 1950s, and is cited as one of the key inspirations for Billy Wilder's 1951 film Ace In The Hole, which deals with the media circus (both literal and figurative) that springs up in a town in New Mexico in response to the plight of a local man trapped inside a cave (and the efforts of an unscrupulous journalist, played by Kirk Douglas, to exploit the incident for his own personal gain). Ace In The Hole clearly had a few ardent fans among The Simpsons production crew, for there is a sequence in "Radio Bart" that's recreated pretty lovingly from Wilder's film, in which crowds of people are seen gathering around the grounds of the well amid the incongruously buoyant strains of fairground music, whereupon the camera pans up to reveal the grotesque sight of a big wheel rotating above what is, when all is said and done, the site of a thoroughly distressing mishap (if it were actually true, that is).
Crucially, no one is doing anything to help the fictitious Timmy, who is essentially left to rot in his underground tomb while the townspeople enjoy the carnival up above (complete with popcorn snacks* marketed - somewhat unappetisingly - as Timmy O'Toole Baby Teeth) and make a big show of Timmy's apparent nobility in enduring his plight (as if he has any choice in the matter). Eventually, the story attracts celebrity attention, in the form of local entertainer Krusty the Clown, who figures that the best way to help Timmy is to assemble a bunch of his showbiz friends and write a song about it. Hence, we get "We're Sending Our Love Down The Well", The Simpsons' vicious send-up of the kind of "supergroup" charity records that became lucrative business following the success of Band Aid in 1984. Band Aid, the mother of all insufferable charity supergroups, had been the brainchild of Irish rock musician Bob Geldof, lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, and his wife Paula Yates, who were moved by the BBC's coverage of the then-ongoing famine in Ethiopia and were ultimately inspired to record a single to support the humanitarian aid. For this, they assembled a swarm of musical chums in the form of Sting, Bono and various other representatives from the hottest British pop acts of the age, including Duran Duran, Heaven 17 and Bananarama. And good grief, did these guys churn out an absolute stinker. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a detestable song on just about every conceivable level. Some people are inclined to give it a pass for being such an appalling piece musically on the grounds that it was all in the name of charity, but even then we have the problem of the song's extremely odious and condescending attitude toward the very people it purports to be helping. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is not a song with a whole lot of love or respect for Africa - rather, it clearly posits Africa as the Western world's intrinsic inferior, inserting the jaw-droppingly myopic lyrics "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you", and telling us over and over what a grotesque and inherently unlivable place Africa is. The problems arising from the crisis in Ethiopia (for some bizarre reason, the song puts a lack of snowfall on the same footing as drought and famine, which is indicative of how little thought went into the lyrics) are ascribed to be characteristic of the entire African continent, presumably under the assumption that all Africans are alike in the eyes of dumb Westerners. But then the purpose of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was never to encourage you to feel respect or a genuine affinity for the people of Ethiopia. Rather, it's more about selling you a perfectly gift-wrapped vision of these wretched Africans in dire need of white saviours, so that you can pat yourself on the back and feel good about the fact that you threw a small sum of money at a problem in the hope that it would go away. Really, you would expect an extensive collaboration between the top talent in British pop to come up with something considerably less limp than this. (Although come to think of it, would you? I suppose not.)
Don't get me wrong. What happened in Ethiopia in the early 80s was appalling and people were right to be concerned about it. But this representation of Africa as the land of the impoverished other, as endorsed by Geldof and his cronies, is a shameless display of Western prejudice, one which I've long suspected ultimately promotes more distance than it does unity. I went to school at a time when it was still fashionable for teachers to play Band Aid during assemblies (irrespective of whether it was Christmas or not) and get us to contemplate what a mud hole of eternal misery and starvation Africa was and how fortunate we were to be far-removed from it. We seldom, if ever, got any broader perspective of Africa, a diverse continent as rich in culture and heritage as any other.
To my mind, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is an easy contender for the worst record of all time. Regrettably, the song has racked up quite a gargantuan legacy, for not only does Geldof have an established pattern of resurrecting Band Aid every decade (though the tepid response to Band Aid 30 in 2014 did at least suggest that the public are tiring of being presented with the same repackaged, hopelessly outdated nonsense every ten years), it inspired a whole sub-genre of supergroup charity records that was set to plague the world for the rest of the 80s. Every time a new fashionable cause came about, you could bet there'd be a bunch of celebrities linking arms and singing some generic fluff about caring and togetherness. One of the more successful of these was "We Are The World" by USA For Africa, an American answer to Band Aid penned by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie that was released in March 1985. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if I've ever heard "We Are The World", although I'm certain I've seen the thumbnail pop up a few times while binging Hall & Oates videos on YouTube. If it's even a fraction as terrible as its British counterpart, then I don't want anywhere near it (sorry Daryl, but I'm only prepared to follow you so far).
The Simpsons: A Complete Guide To Our Favorite Family specifies that Krusty's collaboration is a send-up of "We Are The World" and certainly, of the two I suspect that "We Are The World" would be the recording with which American audiences were more familiar, but the presence of original Band Aid member Sting would also appear to link it to its predecessor across the pond. Still, if you listen to the episode's DVD commentary, then you'll learn two very interesting facts about the inception of "We're Sending Our Love Down The Well". Firstly, Sting was not the guest celebrity in the original script, USA For Africa alumni Bruce Springsteen having been the writers' first choice, only he turned them down (Stevie Wonder was also considered before Sting came on board). Secondly, the actual inspiration for "We're Sending Our Love Down The Well" was not Band Aid or USA For Africa, but a more recent celebrity collaboration, "Voices That Care", which was recorded in 1991 to give moral support to US troops in Operation Desert Storm. "Voices That Care" is widely derided as being a bit of a fiasco, not least because by the time it aired on Fox on February 28, 1991, Desert Storm was over. Also, it sounded like this:
I know I just made a point about refusing to listen to "We Are The World", but in this case I actually sat and watched the whole thing. All seven minutes of it. My morbid curiosity was just too overwhelming. And goddamn. As much as I've ragged on Band Aid and will never forgive Bob Geldof for penning such a witless and grossly condescending piece of trash, I will credit him with this much: when Band Aid was first assembled back in 1984, this kind of charity supergroup was a relatively new innovation and nobody could have known how it was going to work out. There might have been something bold, refreshing and genuinely exciting about the opportunity. By 1991 I'm sure this just looked dated and naff, a bunch of flavour-of-the-month celebrities (remember when Kevin Costner was the hottest leading man of his day? Remember when we all thought James Woods was cool?) clambering aboard the bandwagon to have their egos petted (notice how the emphasis in the above video is clearly on the awesomeness of the celebs involved as opposed to the stories of the people they were supposedly helping). The Simpsons were right to show it no mercy.
Right from the start, the futility of Krusty's venture is made woefully plain. Everything about the enterprise comes of as so hilariously ill-fated and wrong-headed, from the sheer banality of Krusty's non-anecdote about arranging a meeting with Sting, Sting's professedly vague understanding as to what the cause he's supporting is even about, Sideshow Mel and Rainier Wolfcastle's delectable exchange within the song ("Though we can't get him out we'll do the next best thing..." "...and go on TV and sing, sing, sing!") and finally Krusty's hazy explanation as to what he's planning to do with the royalties: "We gotta pay for promotion, shipping, distribution...you know those limos out back, they aren't free. Whatever's left we throw down the well." On top of everything else, it's not entirely clear how this leftover money is intended to help Timmy, for nobody in Springfield can produce any half-way practical ideas about how to retrieve the unfortunate kid from the well. By the time we get onto Krusty's bit, the response to Timmy's plight has degenerated into a grotesque farce of empty posturing, with nobody wanting to help Timmy so much as make an extravagant display about how much they'd like to be able to help Timmy, if that were possible. From what little we hear of "We're Sending Our Love Down The Well", it's at least an infinitely better song than "Do They Know It's Christmas?", but then it had a really low bar to clear in that regard.
(Anyway, fun fact - the "We're Sending Our Love Down The Well" sequence provided Sideshow Mel with his first ever speaking role. Mel was introduced in the Season 2 episode "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge" but had remained completely silent up until now. I've mentioned this before, but Mel's voice is apparently Dan Castellaneta's attempt at a Kelsey Grammer impersonation.)
Bart's prank is not exactly harmless. At its genesis, he feeds the townspeople a malicious lie about Principal Skinner, in telling them that Timmy was denied a place in Springfield Elementary by Skinner because his clothes were too shabby (and Skinner momentarily becomes the voice of reason, in screaming out "HE'S A LIAR!" to a crowd that does not care to listen). Bart pulls this entire stunt because he's a hooligan who enjoys the sensation of having the entire town hanging on his every word, not because he has any kind of point to prove. Nevertheless, and even as we grow increasingly concerned as to just how far Bart can reasonably hope to extend this prank, the townspeople do not exactly command our sympathies. When Lisa gets wise to the deception and berates Bart about how "the thought of a boy trapped in a well brought out the kindness and love of the entire community," we are not going to see eye-to-eye with her. The community of Springfield might think that the non-existent boy's plight has brought out the best in them, but plainly it hasn't; if anything, their reaction has only revealed what a staggeringly incompetent and superficial bunch they are. In the end, the "kindness and love" that Lisa speaks of amounts to nothing more than a display of shallow conformity, with all of Springfield gathering around the well to profess their adoration for little Timmy (and ride the big wheel) while accomplishing effectively nothing.
Of course, this kind of mindless conformity has its dark side too, as Bart discovers when he returns to the well, having finally decided that the prank has gone too far (once he's remembered that there's incriminatory evidence on the radio that could potentially be linked back to him) only to become trapped down there himself. Bart confesses to everything, hoping that his honesty will inspire clemency, but...it doesn't. You can't blame Springfield for feeling peeved with Bart. And yet, the central narrative hasn't really changed. There's still a helpless kid trapped down a well, and common decency dictates that the right thing to do would be to help him out. But the townspeople willfully abandon Bart, angered that the perfect little orphan who served so obligingly as a sounding board to their own egos was just an illusion. Crucially, to help Bart would require them to put aside their egos, in overlooking the fact that he made such fools of them all, and nobody in Springfield is quite willing to swallow their pride to that extent. Hence, Bart becomes public enemy number one, and the townspeople gleefully rally around the narrative that Bart's miserable fate is nothing more than the natural conclusion to his life of misdeeds. Bart's grim prospects are reduced to the taunting schadenfreude expressed in a particularly cruel schoolyard skipping rhyme, while the adult set turns away in search of new and entirely vacuous distractions to occupy their minds, which they find in the latest pop fakery from Funky See Funky Do and a squirrel who bears an uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln (only to die for it...R.I.P. Lincoln Squirrel). The fickle world of popular consciousness has moved on, content for Bart to be literally and figuratively buried.
Ironically, it is another facet of this mindless Springfieldian conformity that ultimately saves the day, though it takes the resolve and fierce individualism of one denizen - Homer, who decides that he will dig Bart out single-handedly if need be - to set it into motion. As Homer toils away tirelessly, his efforts are observed by Groundskeeper Willie, who yields the punchline to the entire kid-down-a-well affair - "Why didn't I think of that?" - and rushes over to help. Suddenly, the entire town is flocking together with shovels to join the rescue effort. Have they finally forgiven Bart, or are they just falling in line with the latest turn in popular action? Or is it futile to even begin attempting to distinguish the two? Jasper's summation of events - "It's an old-fashioned hole-digging; by gar, it's been a while!" - would imply that the participants are less fussed about the particulars of what they hope to achieve than they are surrendering to the giddy thrills of being part of a major event. For as stirring as the episode's climactic sequence is, it's careful to keep itself tempered with a healthy dash of cynicism (even Bart's heartfelt display of remorse, which moves Homer into action, is a tad disconcerting - he recognises that he's done wrong, and yet what really distresses him is the thought of all the bad things in life that he'll now never get the chance to do). Before long, Sting is back in Springfield - his return is even heralded by the appearance of a canary in a coalmine - and getting his hands dirty for the sake of the fan whom he believes needs him (Marge begins to question the actual degree of Bart's devotion to Sting, but is advised otherwise by Homer). Sting often gets flak for being big-headed, but the fact that he participated in this episode suggests that he must have a really self-deprecating sense of humour. Sting is afforded essentially no glamor in this episode; even after achieving the heroic feat of finally breaking through the walls of the well and getting through to Bart, he is unceremoniously shoved aside by Homer, who is eager to be reunited with his son.
The episode ends with Homer assuring Bart that measures are being taken to ensure that nobody ever falls down the well again - namely, Groundskeeper Willie has erected a "Caution" sign beside the well, and we close on his satisfied grunts of "That should do it!" It is a risibly facile solution to the problem of this potential deathtrap lying right in the middle of a Springfield field. And yet there is something strangely reaffirming about the mere practicality of such a tiny, unassuming gesture - it isn't showy, it isn't glamorous, it simply wants to alert passers-by to the dangers of the well. It's not much, but it represents a small drop of enlightenment for a town whose hearts, up until now, have never quite seemed to be in the right place. We are content, much like Willie, to leave the well resigned to obscurity once again, hopeful that a marginally more optimistic future lies ahead.
Oh, and while researching for this piece I did actually look up the lyrics to "We Are The World". It is as hideously schmaltzy as I'd imagined, although to its credit it contains nothing about specifically about Africa being a world of dread and fear, or any lyrics as hopelessly on a par in crassness with "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you" (jeez, Geldof). I'm sure it's still a total chore to listen to, however. As for Sting, he was a part of Band Aid, so...he'll always have that riding against him. That being said, I will admit to being a fan of Sting, and while I really should have learned my lesson by now about making promises for the coming year that I'll potentially never keep, in 2019 I hope to finally tackle The Sweatbox, the feature documentary about the making of The Emperor's New Groove that Disney, for some inexplicable reason, tried to bury deeper than Bart in that well. You and your grandmas have all had the opportunity to see it by now, I assume?
* Those are bags of popcorn, right? I take it that guy isn't walking around selling bags of actual children's teeth?
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