What’s the Biggest Reason The Critic Failed?
Al and I were the first Simpsons alumni to create our own animated series. We didn’t want to encroach on their territory, so we decided to make The Critic as different from The Simpsons as possible:
They were suburban; we were urban.
They featured a married couple; we had a divorced dad.
They were middle-class; we were wealthy.
Homer was dumb; Jay Sherman was too smart for his own good.
All this deliberate distancing resulted in another difference: they were a hit; we were a dud.
Nowadays, television is much more experimental, audiences more fractured, and people more in need of novelty. But back in the nineties, the way you created a hit show was to take an existing hit and change one thing about it:
Seinfeld’s a hit? Give him a wife, you’ve got Mad About You. Throw in some kids—it’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Make it suck—and it’s Home Improvement.
But there’s an even more fundamental reason The Critic failed, and it’s so obvious, no one’s ever noticed: Every animated series that’s succeeded on the big four networks has been about a family. Every single one: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy, American Dad, Bob’s Burgers.
This doesn’t just hold for animation, either. For decades, TV’s top-rated sitcom was about a family. The torch would be passed from show to show: The Beverly Hillbillies to All in the Family to The Cosby Show to Roseanne. People, it seems, would rather watch a family than spend time with their own.
It even helps to have “family” in the title: Family Ties, Family Affair, Family Guy, Family Matters. Mike Nichols even produced a series that was just called Family.
But that last one was a flop. I trust the stupid copyeditor will remember to take that out.