Op-Ed: “The Simpsons” On Monday Night Football Was A Chore To Watch

I turn forty-years old next month. I can tell you that I am old enough to admit to a few things as it pertains to my age. For starters, I have been a die-hard fan of The Simpsons since the series premiered on FOX 36 years ago and that isn’t changing anytime soon. Even with the show’s warts and blemishes over the years, the series still manages to entertain me to no avail and I’m loving the fact that Disney is whoring out the brand as much as possible because I know I’ll be there to be on the receiving end of whatever it is they are selling as it pertains to the longest-running animated sitcom in primetime.

I have also been a die-hard fan of the Dallas Cowboys for the same amount of time, certainly by the time Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin were drafted and when on a three Super Bowl run. Since then, owner/GM Jerry Jones has sank the franchise into the bottom of the ocean in terms of having any chance of being an actual Super Bowl contender and I’ve acknowledged that this will likely be the case until JJ is good and dead and probably even longer. Having said all of this, I still watch the games because I’m a fan first and that’s what I do.

I thought I was going to love the idea of animated technologies being overlayed over NFL action and it featuring The Simpsons and the Dallas Cowboys in the same game when it was announced and now that I’ve had 48-hours to soak in what happened I have come to the conclusion that I hope this never happens again. For starters, the worst part was the announcers attempting to volley into interviews featuring the animated characters from The Simpsons. Had it been Joe Buck doing the play-by-play and then sending over to the show’s characters maybe I would’ve been okay with it because Joe has decades of experience in talking about The Simpsons from his days working as a commentator on FOX TV and was even interviewed on Springfield of Dreams: The Legend of Homer Simpson, the story of the “Homer at the Bat” classic episode. For me, Drew Carter and Dan Orlovsky were a mess and I didn’t really care for Mina Kimes’ input either, and the way they all lobbed over to the pre-recorded bits from The Simpsons characters was irritating and took away from the game.

The VR technology being used is still very much in it’s infancy and I have too much respect for tech to really come down on the aesthetic, but I could’ve done without having characters from The Simpsons actually IN the game. Marge in the stands or Mr. Burns chilling with his real-life doppelganger I can go for but straight up inclusion in the game of characters from the show got a bit too ridiculous for my taste. I would have also preferred not having the game in Atoms Stadium and instead would’ve liked to have seen what the animators could have done with JerryWorld if given the time to account for when/if Jerry wanted the roof open or not.

The segments written by The Simpsons writers were fun and I truly enjoyed seeing the likes of Stephen A. Smith and the Manning brothers getting “Simpson-ized”, that’s kinda what I thought this would be, more parody than anything else, but alas it was largely a commercial for the fact that The Simpsons is on Disney+.

Overall, I wasn’t a fan of the crossover, it just felt a bit more pedantic than anything else and Hank Azaria’s already teasing about an MLB thing which I would only get behind if Hank Azaria calls the game as Apu.