I know in my head that The Simpsons is a funny show. A classic even. I even tune into an episode every once in a while and, more often than not, laugh at one or more of the gags ("I was saying Boo-urns...") Yet, in my heart, I've got very little love for the show. Perhaps it all goes back to the beginning, when I found out the voice of Bart Simpson was a woman (yeah, I hold grudges). Or the fact that Marge's voice drive's me up a wall. Or the fact that Homer has, over the run of the show, devolved from a simple dim-witted Dad into a moronic caricature of himself. If you think about it, the Simpsons' Springfield is really just an animated, and slightly more manic, homage to Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon stories, with the heart, humor, and eccentricity well intact. The difference, I guess, is that somehow the writers and cast of the Simpsons know how great they are, and that crass, self-aware confidence somehow translates to the small screen in a way that has always irked me. The residents of Lake Wobegon, on the other hand, are just living their fictional lives, completely oblivious to the fact that we're peeking in their windows.