Don’t be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knockoffs.” – Bart Simpson
“Pfft. I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there’s Magnetbox and Sorny.” – Homer Simpson

Zombie Simpsons is a show on the FOX Network that’s been airing on Sundays at 8pm since roughly the year 2000. Like most half hour comedy shows, it has its ups and downs, but it’s usually blandly forgettable. Its viewership has been steadily declining for years, but new episodes still routinely draw between five and eight million viewers. It grinds out a steady profit one commercial break at a time, directly and indirectly employing a few hundred people, most of whom are neither rich nor famous. In all but one respect it is a middling, unexceptional television show . . . and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It is the sacred right of everyone to veg out in front of a screen. On American television at any given time there are scripted and unscripted dramas and comedies, political gossip programs, science shows, pathetically fraudulent docu-dramas, movies, travel narratives, and game shows that pay varying levels of money for varying levels of contestant humiliation. These almost uncountable offerings are geared to appeal to every conceivable niche and demographic, and Zombie Simpsons has carved out its own cozy corner among them. The only thing that makes Zombie Simpsons exceptional is its illustrious predecessor, The Simpsons.

That show is arguably the most renowned and celebrated program to ever grace the airwaves. No other television program in history can match its levels of critical adoration, popular acclaim, global reach, longevity, and cultural impact. And, given the increasingly segmented and fractured media environment of the twenty-first century, it is difficult to conceive of something in the future even coming close. Zombie Simpsons is just another television show. The Simpsons was unique.

To be sure, Zombie Simpsons does bear a cosmetic resemblance to The Simpsons. After all, the two shows share a great deal of their casts, as well as a few writers, producers, directors and artists. Even the surface similarities are fading with time, though. The fluid and vibrant hand drawn animation has been replaced by militarily rigid computer templates. The exquisitely talented cast members can’t resist a quarter-century of wear and tear on their vocal chords, and many characters now sound only vaguely like they once did.

Things have changed even more beneath the surface. The two have polar opposite senses of humor. The Simpsons trafficked in tightly plotted stories that were cynical, anti-authority social satires that often bordered on nihilism. They managed to get away with it thanks to a clever veneer of sweetness and slapstick. Zombie Simpsons reverses those priorities. It leans heavily on sweetness and slapstick, leaves plot threads all over the place, and only rarely musters even a fraction of the hilariously bleak cynicism that was a big part of what made The Simpsons what it was.

Broadly speaking then, “Zombie Simpsons” is the regular television show that remained when The Simpsons stopped being The Simpsons. There is much argument among fans over when precisely the change took place, but there is wide consensus that such a change has indeed occurred.

As for what’s left, some people still like to watch it; most others don’t, including some of its original creators. After conducting dozens of interviews with Simpsons veterans for his oral history of the show, John Ortved reported that few of them bother to watch the new episodes.i They aren’t alone. The ratings have plummeted from where they were in the 1990s, even accounting for the general decline in network viewership. Despite the fact that FOX was only available in about 80% of households during the show’s early years, The Simpsons was twice in the top thirty of all television shows (1989-90 and 1992-93). FOX wouldn’t put another show on that rarified list until The X-Files in 1996-97.ii By contrast, Zombie Simpsons can’t crack the top fifty on a FOX network that is fully established. New episodes routinely break the record for the least viewed in the show’s history.

Popular apathy persists after the original broadcasts and into the home video market. Seasons 1-14 and Season 20 have so far been released on DVD, and all of them are available on Amazon.com. The average customer reviews tell the tale:iii