This was the era when the show Roseanne was going full-blast, and I loved it because we finally had a working-class comedy where the characters dealt with real-life problems (not being able to pay bills), weren’t the butt of the show’s jokes (instead, they made the jokes), and didn’t fit known stereotypes (one daughter, Darlene, was a comic book geek).

On The Simpsons, however, the characters are nothing but stereotype. They’re practically Pyncheonesque in their emptiness — not people, but objects who get driven through various pastiches in order to become the butt of the audience’s arch, ironic jokes. I didn’t give a shit about any of them. The only way I could enjoy these characters was to say, “Haha look at the funny dumb poor people who are so incredibly stupid that they actually work at nuclear power plants.”