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1994 Simpsons Set Tough Standard

Every fan of "The Simpsons" has favorite episodes. The more obsessive among them can even rank their favorite seasons. But what of the show's creators? Do they have their favorites (and least favorites) as well, and if so, can they admit even an iconic show like "The Simpsons" has its ups and downs?

"I really don't have a favorite episode from every season," says David Mirkin, longtime "Simpsons" writer and producer. "I think we're writing the 17th season now [premiering Sept. 11], so it's hard to remember even when episodes happen. I can certainly remember the seasons I was running and executive producing--I remember those.

"But beyond that time, where and when things happen blur together a little bit. You can only have so many favorites. If you have too many, they can't really be favorites, can they?"

Mirkin, a former aerospace engineer, served as "Simpsons" show runner--basically, the show's final word on what stays and what goes--on seasons five and six, the latter recently released on DVD (Fox, 1994, 575 minutes, NR, $49.98) in a typically indulgent, supplement-rich boxed set shaped like Homer's head ("If you're the kind of person who wants to store your DVDs inside a hollowed-out human head," quips Mirkin; everyone else can exchange the packaging for more traditional art at www.simpsonsbox.com). Mirkin came aboard after the exalted season four, which many "Simpsons" aficionados consider the series' early peak.

But many of the writers had moved on, and Mirkin had to start rebuilding the staff, which gave the series, he says, a particularly personal touch.

"When I ran the shows in the fifth and sixth season, that's really my point of view. You have the final say on everything. You're the head writer, you're making all the choices. You're choosing what stories to do, how to tell them, how to structure them. You're choosing what jokes are going to stay in and what jokes aren't going to stay in.

"Of course, you might have a little more propensity toward your own material," he notes with a chuckle.

"When I took over the show, it was a matter of getting back a little more into story and character," Mirkin explains. "The fourth season--which is one of my favorite, all-time seasons--got so fast-moving and so full of cutaways. I still did a lot of cutaways, and I was very surreal in my leanings, in terms of storytelling, but I wanted to bring it back to character and story. I explored the characters a little more, took them a little further. I had one of the first episodes where Homer was really tempted by another woman ("The Last Temptation of Homer" from season five and Bart having a girlfriend even nastier than himself ("Bart's Girlfriend," from season six), plus more of a focus on side characters. We did the first episode to really feature Apu as a main character ("Homer and Apu" from season five). Those were my goals."

Season six features such classic episodes as "Treehouse of Horror V" (with a great take on "The Shining"), "Homer: Bad Man" (in which Homer's accused of sexual harassment), "Lisa's Rival" (with another girl competing to be Springfield's top student) and "And Maggie Makes Three" (a sentimental look back at Maggie's birth).

Sometimes it seems that the show has strayed far from such highlights, long ago entering precarious hit-or-miss territory, but Mirkin isn't concerned.

"It is all perception, and the thing you learn when you do television is that everyone has different opinions," Mirkin says. "Season six, season four, season five--I just had someone say the show's as good as it's ever been!"

Mirkin himself sounds somewhat incredulous when he relates this, but he cautions against listening to the show's critics.

"If you ask the audience what they want, you get retreads because they're not creative," he points out. "It's not their job to be creative or tell you something new. The whole idea is to keep it fresh for the audience, so to do the exact same thing, I don't think the show would keep its longevity."

"I think you can't really compare the episodes we're doing now with the episodes we did then until there's the same distance in time," he stresses. "Old episodes become like members of the family, and they grow on you and take on mythic proportions. Maybe rightly so. But it's very possible that will happen with the episodes we're doing now, given that much time. We're trying to write timeless things. `The Simpsons' has so many jokes per square inch; it's about three times as dense as a regular sitcom."