ABSTRACT
So far, i have shown how my interviewees responded to the show only as smart. Earlier, though, I noted that many of them talked of The Simpsons as ‘funny but smart’ or ‘smart but funny,’ and so in this chapter, I will turn to its funniness; importantly, to that conjunction ‘but;’ and to examining how ‘funny’ and ‘smart’ were seen to be concepts that must be delicately balanced, rather than simply conjoined in any available quantity. The almost-interchangeability of the explanations that The Simpsons is ‘funny but smart’ or ‘smart but funny’ suggests that being either too smart or too funny could be a liability, but I also heard suggestions that the nature of parody can allow it to rise above these dangers. In short, while I quoted Laura talking of ‘a Simpsons attitude,’ I now wish to study precisely what that attitude entails, and what it might tell us of parody’s prospects for success beyond the television screen, in the lived realities of its viewers.
