"The Simpsons" of today is certainly a different show than in its first season, when it was rendered in a handmade squiggly line and more narrowly played with the elements of classic family sitcoms. The ratio of domestic humor to pop-cultural or political satire to conceptual weirdness that makes up the mature series varies from episode to episode, to the delight or dismay of its followers, but the show has been remarkably consistent over the decades.
The current season has parodied "Mad Men," "The Social Network," the lachrymose punditry of Glenn Beck and young-adult literature (in the framework of a caper film). But it also has Bart reading "Little Women" to the school bullies, Marge discovering Ethiopian food (Lisa: "They're using pancakes as spoons!" Bart: "Let's see what else they do wrong!"), and a strangely lovely Christmas episode, "Holidays of Future Passed," that takes family into its imperfect but not hopeless future.
