Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

The Simpsons is one of the best, if not the best animated television series to exist. This episode, "The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" is a great pilot. Since this is the pilot, the animation is a little rough and the voices are not as coherent, but would you expect on such a cheap budget? This episode is pretty funny, but not hilarious. However, this episode features heartwarming, earnest moments from the Simpson family.

This first episode is set at Christmas time. Homer does not receive his Christmas bonus this year, so he thinks he will ruin Christmas because Marge had to use her money to remove Bart's tattoo. But he gets a job as Santa thinking this will help his family out. But will it? Overall, this is a great start to a long-running series.

This is one of the heartwarming episodes you will encounter in this series. I rate this episode 9/10.

When you mention Christmas specials one would normally think of Charlie Brown, The Smurfs, He-Man/She-Ra or any other franchise that 'saves Christmas'. No one really remembers that the Simpsons began with their very own Christmas special.

Already a hit as an animated short series on the Tracey Ullman show, The Simpsons kicked off their 17-year plus career as a prime-time family with this festive episode.

Excited and filled with yuletide cheer The Simpsons come face to face with disaster when Marge's savings need to be blown on tattoo-removal surgery for Bart. And Mr. Burns cancels bonuses for all his semi-skilled employees. Flanders is already throwing his family the best Christmas ever and to make matters worse Patty and Selma show up and cast their judging eyes upon Homer in a more evil way than usual. He can't let them all down so he humiliates himself with a job as a mall Santa Claus.

The job pays poorly so he gambles it at the track, expecting a miracle to happen. Do you think it will? Since this was way back at the very beginning of The Simpsons the animation looks pretty rough and the voice acting (especially from some of the children) sounds a lot like the Charlie Brown phonetic acting. And since this is an older episode Homer isn't the machine he became in 1998+ seasons. He's still a human being with feelings who tries to be a good dad. Bart is still a kid who gets in trouble and Marge is still a devoted mum. You know what I mean when I say that none of this is really relevant in The Simpsons anymore since every new season just gets worse and worse as the writers get more and more cynical.

This one Christmas Special represents the exact opposite of all that. It was made to make a difference to your Christmas. And if your tired of the awful bore that it's become now then perhaps you should check it out.

I've never seen the show before, so this this be my first time going through it. This is a decent enough pilot, but I've only heard the show gets better after the first season. The second episode, Bart the Genous, is much better and I hope the show is more like that than this, but this is still good enough. The voice acting is pretty good, the animation still sort of sketchy right now, as is to be expected. It gives us a good insight into what the characters will be like, and overall I very much look forward to watching the show and seeing all the reasons why it's so acclaimed and considered so highly (well, the first 10 seasons or so). Recommended.

It all begins with a school pageant: all the students make some kind of contribution since Christmas is coming, and in the audience one notices Homer (Dan Castellaneta) and Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner), eager to see their kids Bart (Nancy Cartwright) and Lisa (Yeardley Smith) perform. Inevitably, Bart screws everything up with his rendition of "Jingle Bells", prompting Principal Skinner (Harry Shearer) to throw him out. It's funny. It's the last thing one would expect from a Christmas special. And that's just the start of what became an American TV institution (some even consider it THE ultimate US series).

Following the school incident, further trouble awaits Homer when he learns he won't receive a Christmas bonus that year. Knowing he'll otherwise disappoint his family and be taunted by Marge's unbearable sisters, he accepts the humiliation of dressing up as Santa Claus at the local mall. Naturally, Bart decides to have fun at his expense once again. Yes, it's not gonna be a normal holiday in the Simpson family.

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire was actually the eighth episode made for the series, but since the show was scheduled to begin airing just before Christmas (the precise date is December 17th, 1989), it became the series premiere, which resulted in at least one blatant plot hole (Santa's Little Helper, introduced here, is an absentee for most of Season One). On a technical level, the episode is also less polished than later efforts, still baring a resemblance to the original Tracey Ullman Show shorts (the same goes for Castellaneta's vocal characterization of Homer, which started out as a Walter Matthau impression).

The dodgy animation does not, however, detract from The Simpsons' primary quality: it's really, really funny, in a bold, merciless way. In fact, it should be noted that from the very beginning (as relative a concept as that is), Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and the others knew exactly what would get the most laughs: any scene featuring Homer and Bart together. Proof? Two lines spoken by the kid: "Dad, there's one fat guy who gives us presents for Christmas, and his name ain't Santa Claus.", and, when he sees his father doing the Santa job, "Hi, I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?". That and so much more made this the ideal Christmas gift for TV audiences in 1989.

The most interesting thing for any contemporary Simpsons fans to notice in this first episode is how much everything has changed over the years.

The early Simpsons shows were created on a much smaller budget, necessitating a smaller, less experienced, and in some ways, less skilled team. As a result, the animation style here is much rougher. There are far fewer people doing voices. The voice work isn't nearly as smooth as it would become. The personalities of the characters hadn't settled into norms. There aren't as many layers of jokes zipping frantically by.

The feel, overall, isn't that removed from, say, a Beavis and Butthead episode. Not that that's a bad thing. I happen to love Beavis and Butthead, too. It's just a much rougher style than we've come to expect from The Simpsons.

Aside from all of that, though, this is a charming Christmas episode, almost a Simpsons version of A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). Like that famous work, an elementary school pageant is featured prominently, there are problems procuring a Christmas tree, and the "true meaning of Christmas", aside from commercialism, is explored, although here it is done so unwillingly, and there are no religious-tinged speeches to accompany the proceedings--The Simpsons is known for its irreverence, after all. But at its heart, while humorously introducing us to the main characters, this really is a sweet Christmas story and worth watching for that purpose, which is what I plan to save future viewings for.