This Week In Retro: The Simpsons [1991] (Patreon)

March 4, 1991: "I heartily endorse this event or product"

by Diamond Feit

Adapting works from one medium into another is, as history has proven time and again, extremely difficult to accomplish with any consistent rate of success. Taking a popular thing and trying to sell it to a new audience can be a lucrative venture: Many beloved films—including a few celebrated as the all-time best—were themselves based on books. Yet many more fumble the source material to the point that "the book was better" is a common refrain in media criticism. Even with the recent success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, comic book movies have a shockingly low batting average, and the results for video game movies are a fair sight worse.

Video games based on other works, however, have come a long way as the medium has advanced technologically and philosophically. 40 years ago, when graphics and sounds were primitive, digitally recreating popular characters or stories was notoriously difficult. I am still amazed that Howard Scott Warshaw managed to create a video game based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (in five weeks no less), even if the results were legendarily poor.

By the late ’80s/early ’90s games had become big enough in the zeitgeist that even media not explicitly made for children would often be adapted into an interactive format. The problem was that too many of these interpretations tried to imitate video games' number-one icon: Mario. Hence popular movies and TV sitcoms alike would have their premise stretched to the breaking point in order to have cartoon-versions of their characters running and jumping from platform to platform.

30 years ago this week, however, we saw a rare near-perfect match of media property and game genre. On paper, it should not have clicked: Why would a situation comedy, even an animated one, make sense as a beat-em-up? Yet it did, and I would argue that in this one case, the video game adaptation holds up better today than its inspiration. If you gave me a choice of playing the 1991 arcade game version of The Simpsons, or watching a 2021 TV episode of The Simpsons, I'd choose the former faster than Lisa choosing her mom over her dad at the end of the Earth.

While I am confident everyone reading this has at least heard of The Simpsons (if not committed multiple seasons of the animated program to memory), it's worth remembering that in 1989, the show was an extraordinary anomaly. Cartoons were made for kids, presumably to sell toys, and they aired on Saturday mornings or on weekdays right after school ended. They were not necessarily "bad," but they were generally mass-produced and cheaply made.

The Simpsons was different by virtue of its pedigree: Creator Matt Groening already had multiple books on the market based on his Life in Hell comic strips, which attracted the attention of producer James L. Brooks. Brooks was well-established in Hollywood as the creator of multiple television shows and as a director of feature films. When The Simpsons made the transition from short interstitials on The Tracey Ullman Show to starring in their own Christmas special in 1989, the family became instant stars.

While The Simpsons was popular with children, it was hardly a "kids' show." Eldest son Bart became the breakout character of the series, but the "star" was always his father, Homer. This focus of attention often led to mature, even dark storylines by American cartoon standards. The pilot episode is about Homer's attempts to provide for his family despite his limited means; two episodes later, he loses his job and nearly commits suicide.

So I cannot stress enough how, despite The Simpsons' status as a merchandising machine, I was shocked when I discovered a 4-player arcade cabinet branded with my favorite TV show in 1991. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made perfect sense as a beat-em-up; all four eponymous stars carried weapons and fought ninjas. But The Simpsons...was a family comedy. I watched it with my parents. How would that work? Who would they fight?

The answer, as it turned out, was obvious: Mr. Burns, the young series' only real villain. He controlled the nuclear power plant, possessed a vast fortune, and sneered constantly. Years later he would become an actual supervillain in a major two-part episode on the show, but even in 1991, he was the closest thing the Simpson family had to an enemy. He even had a faithful assistant in Mr. Smithers who did his dirty work. From a game development standpoint, all that remained was to conjure an excuse to pit the Simpsons against Burns and then produce an army of foes to fight along the way.

In the opening seconds of The Simpsons game, the family stumbles into Mr. Smithers engaging in an act of classic cartoon villainy: He robs a jewelry store. In his haste to escape he bumps into Homer and drops a diamond right into the waiting mouth of Maggie Simpson. Rather than steal the gem (again), Smithers opts to baby-nap Maggie, and thus the game begins. Players control the four remaining members of the family as they pursue Smithers across town.

Gameplay in The Simpsons is purposely simple, closely mirroring the controls of the aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (both games were developed by Konami). One button attacks, one jumps, and both buttons can be pressed together for a special attack. New in this game, however, are cooperative moves where two players stand together for a moment to temporarily unite. Bart and Lisa will hold hands and run amok, Homer and Marge will embrace and roll over bad guys, and either parent can pick up either child and carry them on their shoulders. It's a cute, simple way to remind the player (in case they were unaware) that these four characters are not superheroes, but a family.

Since The Simpsons game was released in March of 1991, the developers had very little source material to work with. The game arrived during the last stretch of the show's second season, and the first season was only 13 episodes long. Most of the enemies in the game are barely related to the show, like the grizzly bear from "The Call of the Simpsons" or a random background character from Moe's Bar. Instead, a majority of the enemies seemingly have no televised origin point. The primary opponents seen throughout the game are two unnamed guys, and bosses like the kabuki warrior or the Krusty balloon are just...odd choices.

However, these observations could only be made today in a world where nearly 700 episodes of The Simpsons exist. For a player putting a quarter into the game in 1991, even the oddest sights felt completely natural because of its consistent cartoonishness. Everyone and everything looks plausibly ripped from The Simpsons' universe, as more than a few established characters make background cameos. Players can even spot nods to Matt Groening's pre-Simpsons works in periodic appearances by Bongo and Binky, rabbit characters taken straight from Life in Hell. 1991-me saw that easter egg as a sign the developers had truly done their homework.

The Simpsons would go on to inspire dozens of subsequent video games, many of which have been covered on Retronauts in the past, but few of which sound appealing to me. The 1991 arcade game hit the sweet spot by being visibly faithful to the source material yet weird enough to surprise even the biggest fans. It's a difficult game to clear by design— but it is a beat-em-up, so anyone with a pocketful of change should be able to pay their way through the final battle.

As the show that spawned it continues onwards towards its 34th season, it is a shame that The Simpsons remains commercially unavailable today. The arcade game was ported to consoles as a downloadable title in 2012, but it was delisted the following year. Given the large corporate structure now in charge of the brand, it seems unlikely to reappear on digital storefronts.

After all, 2012 was also the year The Simpsons: Tapped Out appeared on mobile devices; a free-to-play game, it lets players build their own version of Springfield. There is no winning or losing in Tapped Out, and players looking to improve their town in a hurry can cough up more than a pocketful of change buying premium in-game currency. Tapped Out is continuously updated and has reportedly made EA hundreds of millions of dollars since its release; something tells me a 30-year-old arcade port just can't compete with that.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan, is an active Twitter user, and has been a Patreon supporter of Talking Simpsons since its launch.