I didn't leave NOT BRAND ECHH. BRECHH left me.
Not that this is an essay about NBE. I just wanted to say that by way of intro to some thoughts I'd been having about MAD and The Simpsons and things that remind me of them in the following ways.
Reading about Bill Gaines, the publisher of MAD from its inception to his own death, I found a statement by Gaines (or perhaps by Al Feldstein, longtime editor after Harvey Kurtzman was fired by Bill) that said that they usually had readers for ten years, and after that they move on to something else and feel that they have 'outgrown' the magazine.
It wasn't that the magazine had changed necessarily, but there was some sort of cycle out there, and that was how long it went, and changing it didn't seem to be an option.
Looking back, I was a little stubborn, but lasted just a bit over ten years from the time I didn't get it but read anyway to the time I begrudged my coins in favor of NATIONAL LAMPOON, which lasted fewer than ten years because of a verifiable dropoff of the magazine's quality.
With the Simps, I extended the ten years to a couple of decades before losing track of the show on a week-to-week basis (which coincided with an era in which "week to week" was losing its meaning due to advanced cable options and streaming), and now I watch an episode when I remember and am in the mood. I'm rarely disappointed. Minute for minute, it's a darn funny franchise. I don't think they ever jumped the shark.
Plenty of folks disagree with me, vehemently, but this is my blog. According to my first two paragraphs, though, I feel like perhaps they wore out on it in the natural progress of time but feel the need to post a reason. There's not always a reason.
Sometimes time itself changes things. (Points at unread VIZ issues from a subscription I've had since we lived in Virginia.) I really AM going to read all these. Not ready to let go yet. See? I'm reading this one.
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