Simpsons Shouldn't Have Done It

I've always kicked around the idea of doing a post about how the Simpsons of the past decade or so is nowhere near the level of the show at it's height in the 90's. It's a daunting task, mostly because I grew up loving the Simpsons. While I ahven't quite gotten to it yet, I did catch an episode last night, The Heartbroke Kid,which is one of those newer Simpsons episodes that seems to encompass everything wrong with what the show has become.

In the The Heartbroke Kid, Bart gets fat after chowing down on junk food from the school's new corporate sponsored snack machines. He gets so fat that he has a heart attack and is sent to fat camp. The Simpsons I remember was subtle in it's commentary, never preachy, but the new Simpsons tend to wield their p.c. politics like a blunt instrument. I mean come on, kids as mindless zombies in the wake of advertising, snack food machines making our kids fat. It's just not the sort of thing that makes for clever and entertaining tv. The most concise indictment I could come up with? Just imagine what the South Park episode would be like.