A Star Is Burns (aka Why I Really Am Saying Boo-Urns)

Every so often, I keep threatening to take a closer look at The Critic, the short-lived but fabulously sharp primetime animated sitcom that aimed high and went down in a fiery blaze not once, but twice back in the mid-1990s. And now, finally, I am genuinely serious about making good on that threat. There's a review of the first episode coming shortly. First, though, we're obligated to cover that peculiar time in the spring of '95 when titular critic Jay Sherman temporarily left his New York abode to drop in on the Simpsons household and host the first Springfield Film Festival. I speak of course of Simpsons episode 2F31, "A Star Is Burns" of Season 6, and what an earth-shattering event it was. This was the first occasion on which The Simpsons had attempted any kind of full-on crossover with another show (obviously, I'm not counting cameo appearances for the purposes of a single scene or gag, such as when the entire cast of Cheers showed up in "Fear of Flying"), and The Critic doesn't seem like too left of field a series for them to extend a token of kinship to. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had previously worked as showrunners on The Simpsons for Seasons 3 and 4. Jon Lovitz, who voices Jay, was likewise no stranger to the Simpsons universe, having made numerous guest appearances throughout its second and third seasons, where he played various characters of the week, most notably Marge's high school sweetheart Artie Ziff. In order to fit in with the Simpsons universe, Jay was forced to undergo a slight assimilation process, so that he was given yellow skin and equipped with the characteristic Simpsons overbite. If only the rest of his transition could have gone so smoothly, for Jay was in for one hell of a bumpy ride as he made his way over to Springfield. Prior to "The Principal and The Pauper" of Season 9, this was probably the single most controversial episode of the series (both episodes were written by Ken Keeler, coincidentally). As with "The Principal and The Pauper", a lot of that controversy went on behind the scenes as well as in front of it - in fact, in this case the backstage drama easily overshadows the fan reaction. To this day, "A Star Is Burns" remains a divisive episode, but no viewer negativity would appear to match that of series creator Matt Groening, who jammed every button at his disposal in an effort to get the episode pulled. Groening later went on record as saying that he was "nervous and opposed" to "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" of Season 8, which he felt upset the reality of the series, but that's small potatoes compared to what "A Star Is Burns" brought out in him back in 1995. This particular episode was the brainchild of James L. Brooks, who worked as executive producer on both series, and we know that he and Groening didn't always see eye-to-eye when it came to handling the Simpsons brand.

So, what's the deal with The Critic, and how did it end up encroaching on Simpsons territory? Premiering on ABC in January 1994, the series followed the misadventures of Jay Sherman (Lovitz), a New York film critic and host of cable TV show Coming Attractions. Jay has a low opinion of contemporary film-making standards, and endeavors to maintain his discerning sensibilities in face of the endless slew of sequels, remakes and blockbuster decadence that characterised mainstream film-making back in the 1990s (the guy would certainly have a lot to say about the current state of Hollywood cinema); his audacious tendency to pan anything popular makes him a frequent target of public scorn. His personal life isn't much to speak of; women tend to give him a wide berth, and he's still feeling the aftershocks of his acrimonious divorce from his ex-wife Ardeth (Brenda Vaccaro/Rhea Perlman). Jay never knew his biological parents, having been given up for adoption at birth, and his adoptive family are well-to-do but exceedingly eccentric. Other characters include his best friend, Australian leading man Jeremy Hawke (Maurice LaMarche), his chain-smoking make-up lady Doris (Doris Grau) and his eventual long-term girlfriend Alice Tompkins (Park Overall) who was introduced at the start of the second season that nearly never was. The Critic bombed on ABC and was cancelled mid-season, but strings were pulled and the series was granted a second chance on Fox the following spring. The new season premiered - what do you know - on my 10th birthday, in a time slot right after The Simpsons, and Brooks thought that a great way to boost publicity for the event would be to precede it with a special crossover episode in which Jay came to Springfield and rubbed shoulders with America's most popular cartoon family (well, it's as Patty and Selma say in this very episode - the easiest way to be popular is to leech off the popularity of others). Brooks, along with Jean and Reiss, had enough clout to get the episode made, but Groening resisted every step of the way and ultimately made his displeasure public when he went to the press about it shortly before the episode debuted. Brooks in turn called Groening a "gifted, cuddly ingrate" and argued that for all the hard work they had put into The Simpsons over the years, Jean and Reiss had earned the right to a little support.

"A Star Is Burns" made it to air, despite Groening's objections, but so determined was Groening to be seen to have washed his hands of the episode that he had his name removed from the credits. As David Sims points out in his review of the episode on the AV Club, whoever was responsible for removing Groening's name from the opening credits did a really conspicuous job of it too. I appreciate that this was likely Groening's last ditch, eleventh hour howl of protest when he realised that he couldn't get the episode pulled, and they were probably obligated to to carry out the edit very hastily, but look - not only has Groening's name been messily scrubbed from the chattering cyclops (squint, and you can make out the blue patch where it's been painted out), poor Sam Simon has had his credit semi-kamikazed in the process.

The first time I saw "A Star Is Burns", I had never even heard of The Critic (to this day, I still have no idea which channel, if any, aired the series in the UK, but they clearly gave it zero fanfare), and naively assumed that Jay was an original character created for the purposes of this story (in the same vein as other Lovitzians Llewellyn Sinclair and Professor Lombardo). I'll say this, though - I did think it a little odd when he randomly reappeared in "Hurricane Neddy" of Season 8. The second time I saw "A Star Is Burns", I went in none the wiser, but my brother was a little more perceptive - he picked up on that comment Bart makes about detecting a cheap cartoon crossover and noted, "Oh, that Jay character must be from another cartoon." Well, that just blew my mind then and there. I had to know more, so I did the research and that's how I discovered The Critic.

Strangely enough, I think that "A Star Is Burns" works a whole lot better as an episode if you're NOT familiar with The Critic. If you can forget that this is a crossover and accept Jay as another of those one-off creations that Lovitz would intermittently voice, there doesn't seem to be anything especially off or out-of-step about this one. Problem is that having watched every episode of The Critic, and knowing exactly what kind of character Jay is in context, I now find it damned near impossible to see past the overwhelming hokeyness of the scenario. Partly, it's because it's hard to imagine the circumstances under which Jay would conceivably become this tight with the Simpsons. Groening protested that "The Critic has nothing to do with the Simpsons' world", and while I suspect he was getting more at the fact that the two shows were conceived independently and never intended to be part of the same narrative universe, he's also correct in the sense that Jay and the Simpsons hail from very different walks of life and are not exactly a natural fit when it comes to palling around under the same roof. I'm pretty sure Jay would regard the Simpsons, and Springfield in general, as the kind of uncultured, blockbuster-guzzling degenerates he deplores on his show week after week, and Springfield in return would regard Jay as much the same elitist killjoy as his viewership on his own turf. It's as if Jay knows, the second he walks through the Simpsons' front door, that it's within his interests to cozy up to these small-town plebeians, no matter how much they repulse him, and the Simpsons likewise understand that the onus is on them to extol the praises of their brand new neighbour, thus appeasing the higher powers that be. There's a thick layer of phoniness that pervades each and every moment of interaction between these uneasy bedfellows. Is there a chance it could possibly be deliberate, I wonder? Is the phoniness itself part of the joke, as a dig at cheap cartoon crosses that bring characters who would logically be incompatible together, purely for the purposes of promoting two brands for the price of one? After all, we do get a smattering of obvious meta commentary on the underlying tackiness of the enterprise, all of it from Bart, who acts as an outlet for the show's self-consciousness throughout. There's that aforementioned moment where Jay's arrival is heralded by a TV announcement for The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons (an actual feature film from Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10 era - shall we go over that some time?), which prompts to Bart to observe, apprehensively, that a cheap cartoon crossover is close at hand. Jay enters in, and Bart obediently informs him that, "I really love your show; I think all kids should watch it," before shuddering and admitting under his breath that he feels so dirty. Later, at the end of the episode, Jay thanks the Simpsons for their hospitality, and suggests that they might like to visit his show sometime, which Bart promptly dismisses: "Nah, we're not gonna be doing that." Ostensibly, the "show" to which they each refer is Coming Attractions, but knowing who Jay actually is, and the real raison d'être of his visit to Springfield, we're unlikely to miss out on the implicit exchange between Jay and Bart, with Bart insincerely endorsing The Critic and then reflecting on how compromised he feels. In his final scene, Jay begins laying the ground for another possible crossover in which the Simpsons would appear on The Critic; Bart's instant rejection of the invitation is both an acknowledgement of The Simpsons' superior status in the pop culture hierarchy, and a reassertion of the series' commitment to the integrity that made it so superior in the first place. (Incidentally, it is slightly ironic that Bart, of all characters, would be the one to provide this commentary, seeing how Nancy Cartwright was the only core member of the Simpsons cast to also voice a recurring character on The Critic - there, she was Margo, Jay's adoptive sister.)

The episode does know, then, just how crummy its whole set-up is, and in that sense, it's reminiscent of  "So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show", which also threw in a few self-aware digs at the expense of its own dubious premise. As with "So It's Come To This", though, the self-awareness makes up only a tiny percentage of the episode overall, and when it's not being self-aware it seems to be playing its dubious premise more-or-less straight. When the family talk about how great Jay is, laugh at his jokes and hang upon his every word, they are apparently being completely serious. There's something about Lisa's immediate reaction to Jay - "I like him. He's smart, he's sensitive, he's clearly not obsessed with his physical appearance - that doesn't seem altogether different from what she would later say to Wiggum in "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase", only minus the acerbic irony. In spite of his initial and parting wariness toward Jay, Bart seems to take a genuine shine to the family's latest house guest, trailing him adoringly as he sings one of two hot dog advertising jingles I would probably never have heard of if not for this show. As for Marge, she develops something resembling a school girl crush on Jay, giggling at the mention of his name, and Patty and Selma likewise seem pretty taken with him (until he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like "MacGyver's gay") - which is really odd, when you consider that one of the running gags of The Critic had to do with Jay's total lack of charisma with the fairer sex (although this was something they were attempting to tone down in the second season, hence the introduction of Alice).

As strange and jarring as all of this Jay worship is, it thankfully does serve more of an immediate story purpose than to simply hammer home the impression that Jay is this awesome guy who you should totally want to hang with. The only member of the Simpson household who isn't thrilled to pieces to have Jay bedding down on their terrain is Homer, who quickly starts to feel threatened when he observes how much more revered Jay is than him. This, honestly, is the one aspect of the crossover that I think really works, in part because it's the only aspect that seems interested in exploring any kind of culture cash between the family and this uncanny outsider. The episode does a nifty job of highlighting the similarities between Homer and Jay, but also their fundamental differences. After watching Jay brandish his vast assortment of Pulitzer Prizes, Golden Globes and People's Choice Awards at the family table, Homer counters by producing a trophy of his own, which he won for a belching contest at work. It may not be as esteemed as a Pulitzer Prize, but to Homer it's as good and valid a symbol of his personal worth as any. Only Jay proceeds to let rip the most unnaturally awe-inspiring belch imaginable, and Bart dutifully pushes Homer's trophy into his collection. Jay may be articulate and intellectual, but he shares in Homer's vulgar appetites. He presents as the perfect foil to Homer, being Homer and the anti-Homer all in one. He embodies many of the defining characteristics that make Homer who he is - they're both gluttonous, balding, and prone to physical mishaps - while being smarter and more successful in every way. This works, because arguably there is a clever subtext in Homer's insecurity about having to his share his territory with another prime-time animated protagonist who potentially could upstage and supplant him. Despite the false unity between the two shows on display in this episode, The Simpsons knew that The Critic was competition, and that as such it was to be regarded with suspicion. At this point in the series' run, The Simpsons was still enjoying its status as the only primetime animated sitcom to have made any kind of significant cultural splash, and any success on the part of The Critic inevitably posed a threat to that status. Moreover, there is perhaps the slight fear, communicated through Homer, that The Critic, if it succeeded, could potentially end up outclassing The Simpsons as the go-to "thinking man's cartoon", not least because it boasted a protagonist who was discerning and educated and championed those values (whereas in The Simpsons, the character who most obviously does that - though he doesn't feature in this episode - is the villain). There is a joke in a Season 1 episode of The Critic in which a disgruntled viewer is watching Jay on TV and groans, "They curb violence, but they allow this." He then switches over to The Simpsons, where we see Homer injure himself by stepping on a rake and Bart yelling, "Ay caramba!", and contentedly muses that, "This I understand!" This playful dig at the series where Jean and Reiss had earned their stripes carries the implicit accusations that The Simpsons spoke to the masses because it was, at heart, a crude cartoon stuffed with lowbrow characters and noisy pratfalls. In "A Star Is Burns" we see The Simpsons basically continue this gag with the implication that The Critic puts them in the shade, and that suddenly has them feeling a little shame-faced. (If you ask me, though, they didn't have anything to worry about - for as witty and cleverly-written as The Critic was, I would argue that The Simpsons is definitely the smarter and more highbrow of the two.*)

Jay himself doesn't really have much of an arc - the emotional stakes of the episode, as far as the family are concerned, have to do with Homer's desire to demonstrate that he can be as discerning as Jay, which he fulfils by persuading Marge to let him join the festival jury. Meanwhile, Jay mainly just shows up, shows up Homer, fulfils his duties as festival judge and leaves, with no indication that he's learned or grown from any of the experiences therein. Ultimately, what enables Homer to overcome his differences with Jay is their unity against a common enemy in the form of Mr Burns, who sees the festival as an opportunity to salvage his own self-image and orders the production of a ridiculously lavish biopic about and starring himself; in the process he ends up becoming the Springfieldian analogue to the kind of self-serving Hollywood excess to which Sherman is diametrically opposed. And yet what's driving Burns throughout "A Star Is Burns" is not altogether different from what's driving Homer internally or Jay externally - all three characters just want to be liked and admired. In fact, this is exactly what motivates Springfield to hold the film festival in the first place. The desire to radically alter one's public profile ends up being the prevailing theme of "A Star Is Burns", and I don't think the episode ever escapes the irony that while we have all these Simpsons characters (Homer, Burns and everybody else in town) bending over backwards to change how the world perceives them, the entire episode was conceived to convince you to like and pay attention to this overlooked show that had already failed on ABC. Homer and the rest of Springfield may be the uncultured degenerates in this scenario, but it's by hanging with them that Jay seeks to increase his credibility as a character and entice you into following him over to his show. As Jay bids his farewells to the Simpsons at the Springfield airport, the implicit suggestion accompanying the sequence is "Wouldn't you just love to tag along with Jay and see what wacky adventures he gets up to in New York?"

Did the stunt pay off? Yes...in the short term. The Critic received better ratings after moving to Fox and hitching itself to the Simpsons bandwagon...until it was moved to another time slot, and its luck once again ran out. On the DVD commentary for the episode "Sherman, Woman and Child", Jean and Reiss state that the two problems facing The Critic were thus - a) the then-current president of Fox, who was not in charge when the show got picked up, was not a fan and b) The Critic was not a 20th Century Fox production, so Fox had less of a vested interest in making it succeed. They reflect that as painful as their story is, it is in no way unique, and that countless series (among them, other primetime animations like Futurama and The PJs) have been sunk in much the same fashion. "Television is the only medium that eats its young", laments LaMarche in Johnny Carson's voice. The DVD commentaries for The Critic (which, unlike The Simpsons, were only recorded for select episodes) can be a difficult listen, as there's no doubt in my mind that the series was a real labour of love on Jean and Reiss's part and, for much as they try to laugh the whole thing off, you can tell they're still hurt and bewildered by the experience.

Now that The Critic is long gone and "A Star Is Burns" has lived out its original purpose to persuade you to watch the show that was coming RIGHT AFTER, in a way it stands as a nice little monument to the fact that The Critic existed. I'm sure that there are plenty of viewers out there who, like myself, were able to discover the show after the fact thanks to Jay's appearance here. But regardless of how you feel about the episode itself, it represents a pretty unfortunate chapter in the series' production history, and it's unlikely it will ever escape the shadow of that perfect storm of controversy hanging over it. It's hard to say if Groening's position on the episode has softened at all in the intervening quarter-century, although he is notably absent from the DVD commentary for "A Star Is Burns", suggesting that he retained his hard feelings well into the 00s - or, at the very least, he still found the matter too sore to talk about back then. Brooks is present, but he tactfully avoids any mention of his dispute with Groening. Some fans consider this whitewashing, but I suppose they just didn't want to be airing their dirty laundry in public all over again. Instead, we get a ton of jokes from Lovitz about how Jean and Reiss are gay, which, as per the DVD commentaries for The Critic, he was fond of making all through that series too. (While we're on the subject, there's a lovely tip of the hat to Harvey Feirstein in this episode too.)

As a crossover, I don''t think "A Star Is Burns" quite pulls it off - Jay's "friendship" with the Simpsons feels forced and unconvincing, despite the episode's attempts to throw in a little self-conscious commentary via Bart. And while Jay's rivalry with Homer provides scope for some interesting subtext, it's developed and resolved in a fairly perfunctory manner. The jury vote is ultimately split between two entries - Barney's sensitive, poetic piece about his struggles with alcoholism and Burns' ridiculously overwrought love letter to himself (fortunately for Burns, the system in Springfield is as corrupt as in Hollywood, and two of the jurors, Quimby and Krusty, are susceptible to bribery). Homer has the opportunity to break the tie, but votes with his viscera, for the most lowbrow entry of the lot (Hans Moleman's "Man Getting Hit By Football", which is what it says on the tin), because it's the one that best speaks to him, thus reaffirming his status as an uncultured plebeian. Homer cannot help being Homer, even when he's determined to prove otherwise. Jay persuades him to rethink his vote with a glib little sliver of imploration (although it does provide us with the sight of Jay being socked in the groin by a football, one of only two instances in the episode to accurately convey what a magnet for physical punishment Jay is on his own turf), Homer watches Barney's film again and changes his mind, and that's it.

The most successful aspect of the crossover has nothing to do with the family, it being the scene in which Rainier Wolfcastle appears on Coming Attractions to promote his new film, McBain: Let's Get Silly (this was from the era in which Arnold Schwarzenegger, on whom Wolfcastle is obviously based, was trying to broaden his horizons as a comic actor, after making a name for himself in R-rated action flicks like The Terminator, Predator and Total Recall). I have no qualms about how Jay is represented in this scene; he regards this interloper from the Simpsons verse with the all searing contempt I would expect, and it's a sequence that feels as if it would have worked just as aptly in an episode of The Critic. Another nice touch is the shot of the New York skyline shortly before Jay accepts Marge's invitation, which is a nod to the opening titles of The Critic. This is the only glimpse we get into Jay's world outside of Coming Attractions, and it is fascinating to see it reinterpreted in the Simpsons animation style.

The amenable (if awkward) alliance between the two shows is further underscored by the background music in this sequence - as Jay is strolling along the streets of Manhattan and reading Marge's letter, we hear the Simpsons theme filtered through the woozy clarinet tones of The Critic (fun fact: the theme for The Critic was composed by Hans Zimmer at the same time that he was working with Brooks on the music for I'll Do Anything), which recurs at the closing credits.

What enables "A Star Is Burns" to function as an episode, though, has overall very little to do with Jay's input, but rather is implicit in the title. Burns' foray into the world of glossy, romanticised biopics stands out as by far the strongest thing about it, and I would argue that he's actually pretty sympathetic throughout, if only because he's such a flat-out underdog. In fact, try watching the episode from the perspective that Burns is really the misguided anti-hero of the story and the outcome becomes bitterly poignant in ways that not even Barney's oblique sign-off "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead," quite touches on. His conceited desire to influence the masses through the artful manipulation of his onscreen image is obviously deeply insidious (if not too far-removed from the episode's own objectives), yet he approaches the endeavor with such jaw-dropping naivety that I think you end up feeling for him in spite of it. And he seems to whole-heartedly believe in what he's doing. When he asks Smithers, on reviewing the hostile reaction to his masturbatory labour of (self) love, "Are they booing me?", it's as if he cannot wrap his head around the notion that people could perceive his work - and himself - as anything other than sheer excellence. As ludicrous as his picture is, one has to admire the grotesque extravagance of it all, particularly the opening titles, which boast an obscene number of writers (we also have Tommy Tune playing Smithers and Bumblebee Man playing...himself, I guess? This had all the makings to become the best movie ever). Perhaps there is an additional layer of irony in how the wrong-headed efforts that merely magnify the dissonance between how Burns wishes to be seen and how his fellow Springfieldians actually perceive him are what make him pitiable to the viewer, so that he ends up becoming something of a tragic figure the narrative he is actually living. Determined not to be outdone, Burns proceeds to take his battle all the way to the Academy Awards, desperately seeking affirmation of himself and his art (even if he has to pay for it), but discovers that the Academy are far more corrupt than even he could have anticipated. Either that, or they have all the sensibilities of Homer Simpson, for they award the Oscar Burns was in the running for to George C. Scott in Man Getting Hit By Football.

Then again, not getting what you want can be a tremendous stroke of luck. Success is what finally destroys Barney, after all. Unlike Burns, Barney doesn't appear to have made his entry because he felt that he had anything to prove, and seems to have stumbled into his talent in an entirely unassuming fashion. He alone has not set out to to convince the world see him differently, but his victory at the festival convinces him, however fleetingly, that he merits far greater respect than he's has afforded himself, and during his acceptance speech he vows to go sober so that he can truly realise his full potential. Unfortunately, his fate is sealed when he receives his prize, a lifetime of Duff Beer, and winds up being dragged ever deeper into the spiral of addiction. The emergence of the sensitive, artistic Barney who has supposedly been lying dormant all along leads not to liberation, but to the reaffirmation that the vulgar, disorientated Barney is the one that must ultimately prevail. Of all the participants, Barney is the most sincere about genuine self-improvement, but he ends up at the most damning endpoint - the realisation that, due to the nature of the series, a newly-opened door leads right back to where he came in.

As an epilogue, obviously there are multiple movie references throughout this episode, but I wanted to create a rundown of what each of the festival entries specifically is parodying:

• Bright Lights, Beef Jerky (Apu's film) - The title is a reference to Bright Lights, Big City (James Bridges, 1988), although the film itself appears to be a homage to Kevin Smith's then-recent indie favourite Clerks (1994).
• Moe Better Booze (Moe's film) - The title is derived from Mo' Better Blues (Spike Lee, 1990), while the musical number performed by Moe is based on "Money, Money" from Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972).
• Man Getting Hit By Football (Moleman's film) - The quaint title cards and piano intro hark back to the silent slapstick films of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, etc, although the film itself looks to be based on the kind of degrading camcorder footage one would expect to encounter in America's Funniest Home Videos, an allusion made explicit when Homer insists "This contest is over, give the man the $10,000!", in reference to the prize up for grabs on that series.
• Pukahontas (Barney's film) - The unfortunate title is a nod to Disney's then-upcoming animated feature Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg, 1995). The film itself largely seems to be an amalgamation of various student film cliches, although he time lapse photography of the clouds sweeping overhead and the music that plays during that sequence specifically recall Godfrey Reggio's 1982 arthouse classic Koyaanisqatsi and Philip Glass's score.
• A Burns For All Seasons (Burns' film) - The title alludes to A Man For All Seasons (1966), Fred Zinnemann's Best Picture-winning biopic about Sir Thomas Moore, although parts of the film have been closely extracted from ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982) and Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959).

And finally here's a fun game - spot the festival attendee on MDMA.

* Exhibit A: Apparently in The Critic they made it a general policy to only parody bigger Hollywood movies because that was all they expected their viewers to have seen. According to one of the DVD commentaries, in their first season there was a big debate as to whether The Piano, a New Zealand film which had recently won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, was too obscure a target for their viewers. Exhibit B: In the first season of The Simpsons, they had an episode where Bart goes to France and gets stuck at a vineyard with two characters from Jean de Florette.