History Flanderization / TheSimpsons

* Power plant magnate [[Characters/TheSimpsonsCharlesMontgomeryBurns Mr. Burns]] and his loyal assistant Smithers were not only Flanderized, they stopped being independent characters, and would only be portrayed with each other. Most later episodes portray Burns as unable to ''function'' without Smithers's assistance.

** In the Ullman shorts and the first season, [[Characters/TheSimpsonsMargeSimpson Marge]] was the stereotypical nagging housewife (although the episode "No Disgrace Like Home" featured her as an irresponsible Peg Bundy-esque matriarch), while Seasons 2 and 3 had her as a particularly intransigent (if not belligerent) {{Moral Guardian|s}}, constantly picking on Homer for his stupidity and boorishness as well as Bart for his recklessness. By the fourth season, she evolved into a [[WomenAreWiser wiser]], no-nonsense, [[CloserToEarth level-headed]] mother [[IncrediblyLameFun with a quirky idea of fun]][[note]]To some extent, this was a side effect of Homer's Flanderization (as well as the show's overall shift into out-and-out comedy)--As his negative aspects became overwhelming, it would be boring to have Marge chastising him all the time (or perhaps unrealistic that she didn't do something more extreme, like leaving him outright)[[/note]]. Beginning in the fourteenth season however, Marge gradually turned into a stodgy, [[HelicopterParents overprotective]] StepfordSmiler, also picking up a hypocritical streak that allowed her to [[NotSoAboveItAll engage in some of her family's increasingly reckless hijinks]] despite her increased moralizing.

** [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson Lisa]] has gone all over the place. In the Ullman shorts, she was Bart's {{foil}}, acting as his more level-headed partner in crime. By the time the series began, she was made the smartest and best-behaved member of the family to stand in contrast to Bart, but she was still a little girl at heart (believing in Santa Claus and liking a cartoon suspiciously similar to ''WesternAnimation/{{The Smurfs|1981}}''). Then they took her intelligence up to eleven, showing her badly outclassing her peers; at the same time, she became a SoapboxSadie who was the only one to protest against the injustices she perceived around her.[[note]]In some respects, this was a consequence of Marge's Flanderization, as when she stopped being the family's voice of reason and moral authority, that role had to shift to Lisa.[[/note]] From there, she became a hardcore activist bordering on [[WellIntentionedExtremist extremism]], her sardonic view of [[SurroundedByIdiots the idiots around her]] became a HolierThanThou superiority complex, and her quirkiness and nerdy interests became a patronizing enthusiasm for the most pretentious of vocations, her pursuits being hated by everybody in town (''even'' her family). At the same time, she became horrendously uncool (being unanimously voted as the school's least popular student) and lost most of the friends she had in the early seasons (It should say something that Janey, who was shown to be Lisa's best friend in early seasons, joins other kids in teasing Lisa in later seasons).

** When Ned was Flanderized a second time, his devotion to Christianity became fanatical, tinged by hardcore right-wing bigotry, with his nice-guy attitude stripped away so that he could mock people he thinks are going to hell (''e.g.'' his treatment of Apu and his Hinduism in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E6MidnightRx "Midnight Rx"]]). Ned also became an avid teetotaler, whereas he could occasionally be seen drinking beer or smoking a pipe beforehand and even having a bar in his basement. Furthermore, several gags in later seasons have him call the police on Homer for petty reasons (such as having sex in Bart's treehouse while he was at camp in "Kamp Krustier"). Interestingly, Ned's second Flanderization was foreshadowed as far back as Season 4 in the episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E3HomertheHeretic "Homer the Heretic"]], when he attempts to convert the newly-agnostic Homer back to Christianity by following him everywhere he goes singing a childish Bible song with his family about Noah's Ark. However, this episode still makes it clear that he genuinely cares about Homer and is trying to help him, albeit misguidedly, whereas, later episodes would imply much less benign intent.

* Springfield Elementary School followed this path. Initially, it was shown as a rather typical American elementary school with typical problems (poor funding, underachieving problem students, jaded and disciplinary teachers). Later episodes showed a caricatured SuckySchool with problems that were due to outright criminal negligence and malice: the school building itself violated every building code on the books, the school playground and field trips resulted in serious injuries or even deaths of students, the school cafeteria served food waste (and in some cases, inedible items), and the school teachers and administrators engaged in felony-grade corruption to cut corners or embezzle funds.

** Smithers started out as an exaggerated YesMan who shamelessly sucked up to Mr. Burns and became bitterly jealous whenever Homer (or anyone else) was able to make good impression with his boss. Around Season 3 he was Flanderized into being a massive wuss who was literally [[SingleTargetSexuality in love with Mr. Burns]] and incapable of being without him. Starting around Seasons 5 and 6 he became unambiguously gay and attracted to other men as well, and starting around Seasons 8 and 9 his gayness increasingly became more central to his character than his specific feelings for Burns. His relationship with Mr. Burns has almost become oedipal, as it was implied that Mr. Burns was a father figure to him.

** Martin Prince used to be a natural leader, Straw Winner and a proud, no-nonsense kid student, with brains that were equally fit for science, sports or arts. Bullies picked on him but really no more so than they picked on everybody. In the first two seasons he even had occasional moments of being as mischievous as the other kids. However, as the seasons advanced, his interests in the arts mushroomed into a plain effeminate personality, until he was practically turned into a flamboyant, socially inept sissy and also another of the default nerdish {{Butt Monkey}}s of Springfield's Elementary.

** Smithers started out as an exaggerated YesMan who shamelessly sucked up to Mr. Burns and became bitterly jealous whenever Homer (or anyone else) was able to make good impression with his boss. Around Season 3 he was Flanderized into being a massive wuss who was literally [[SingleTargetSexuality in love with Mr. Burns]] and incapable of being without him. Starting around Seasons 5 and 6 he became unambiguously gay and attracted to other men as well, and starting around Seasons 8 and 9 his gayness increasingly became more central to his character than his specific feelings for Burns. His relationship with Mr. Burns has almost become oedipal, as it was established that Mr. Burns is his surrogate father.

''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', being the series which [[TropeNamers spawned this trope's very name]], has suffered from {{Flanderization}} almost across the board. In some sense, it was inevitable, as the show is a ''very'' {{Long Runner|s}}. Interestingly, most main characters have been Flanderized ''twice'' -- the first in the so-called "Golden Age" (seasons 2 and 3), when the characters evolved into their most popular incarnations, and the second in the so-called "Zombie Age" (season 9), when Mike Scully became the showrunner and all the subtler character jokes had long been exhausted.

*** As the central focus of a very long running show Homer has more opportunities to be Flanderized than most characters. Nearly every aspect of him has been Flanderized. One example that combines with Society Marching On is Homer's weight. While by the late 80s obesity in the US had become a concern, only 23% of the adult population was overweight. Homer being 6 feet and 239 pounds marked him as obese from the start, but not extremely so. It was clear it was his sedentary lifestyle and normal enough love for junk food and fatty foods: infamously donuts, beer, and pork chops, that gave him a bumbling dad beer belly. Soon Homer, against Matt Groening's protests, became a "food monster", eating 64 slices of American cheese in a sitting for a "midnight snack", single handedly shutting down an all you can eat restaurant and then suing them, and consuming a gigantic sandwich over the course of a week even as it became rancid. Similarly, Homer's consumption of beer became Flanderized, from being simply a stereotypical suburban dad beer drinker, sharing one with Ned Flanders in his rumpus room in season 2, to a full blown alcoholic. Both his weight and alcoholism have become major plot points in numerous episodes, though he's always returned to his status quo. With Society Marching On since the late 80s, and a far greater portion of the US being obese, with half predicted to be obese by 2030, Homer actually seems quite underweight for his antics and height, and should be well over 300 pounds normally.

** In the Ullman shorts and the first season, [[Characters/TheSimpsonsMargeSimpson Marge]] was the stereotypical nagging housewife (although the episode "No Disgrace Like Home" featured her as an irresponsible Peg Bundy-esque matriarch), while seasons two and three had her as a particularly intransigent (if not belligerent) {{Moral Guardian|s}}, constantly picking on Homer for his stupidity and boorishness as well as Bart for his recklessness. By the fourth season, she evolved into a [[WomenAreWiser wiser]], no-nonsense, [[CloserToEarth level-headed]] mother [[IncrediblyLameFun with a quirky idea of fun]][[note]]To some extent, this was a side effect of Homer's Flanderization (as well as the show's overall shift into out-and-out comedy)--As his negative aspects became overwhelming, it would be boring to have Marge chastising him all the time (or perhaps unrealistic that she didn't do something more extreme, like leaving him outright)[[/note]]. Beginning in the 14th season however, Marge gradually turned into a stodgy, [[HelicopterParents overprotective]] StepfordSmiler, also picking up a hypocritical streak that allowed her to [[NotSoAboveItAll engage in some of her family's increasingly reckless hijinks]] despite her increased moralizing.

** Burns underwent a third flanderization. While always very rich, Burns had a fancy but still normal enough office with a stuffed polar bear, then went from blinds to curtains and his office expanded enormously and became filled with hidden doors and various traps to snuff out his enemies. Burns also gets drunk and cries over bringing up the plant to code in Season 2 as though $56 million dollars will bankrupt him. In season 3's Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk Burns sells the nuclear plant, his source of income and greatest asset, for $150 million. In season 4's Marge vs the Monorail he is fined $3 million dollars which is fished out of his pocket. By season 5 his birthday party is lavish enough to have all of Australia spell out a birthday greeting to him, his house is piled with priceless treasures, and virtually has a limitless bank account. Though the writers seem uncertain of his wealth, as in "The Old Man and the Lisa" he states his fortune is $200 million dollars. Now he is certainly in the billionaire club, even though him falling out of this club is a plot point in an the Season 20 episode "The Burns and the Bees".

* Seymour Skinner has been Flanderized in many occasions. Early appearances had him mainly as a reasonably competent, no-nonsense principal who was liable to be somewhat cruel, especially with Bart. His Vietnam War background became more pronounced by season five, even managing to make him pretty badass in a few episodes (''e.g.'' "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E20TheBoyWhoKnewTooMuch The Boy Who Knew Too Much]]"), although at times it also veered into making him a borderline SociopathicSoldier, and his competence began to slip. A few seasons later, though, he was Flanderized into a pathological and pathetic MommasBoy who was able to believably convince the town he was still a virgin in his 40s (though this was a lie to deflect from accusations of improper conduct with Edna Krabappel). He still was competent at his job and had his share of badass moments until around Season 15, after which point he merely embarrassed himself whenever he tried to assert authority over Bart or any other students, although in the few times he tried to straighten up Bart in later seasons, he came off as rather heavy-handed.
** In part, the de-emphasizing of Skinner’s Vietnam War service may simply be due to the passage of time. In the early years of the show, the war had only been over for twenty years or so, making it entirely plausible that a man in his 40s could have fought in it. Now, however, a Skinner who was also a Vietnam vet would have to be in his late 60s at the youngest.

* Doctor Hibbert was originally one of the few characters in Springfield who was unquestionably competent at his job, even if it came at a high price, with his central flaw being his lack of bedside manner. Notably, he refused to advise Homer on his work-from-home obesity scheme in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer King Size Homer]]. In later seasons, it seems as though his competence and integrity has been tinkered with in order to keep up with the rest of Springfield's wackiness, as it's been implied that he's practicing without a license and is addicted to morphine, while his horndog tendencies have been exaggerated as well (considering that he was conceived as a parody of the now-disgraced Bill Cosby, ItMakesSenseInContext). After about season 17, he goes OutOfFocus and gets a speaking role once every few seasons, if at all.

** [[Characters/TheSimpsonsHomerSimpson Homer]] started out as a strict disciplinarian in the shorts and the first season (although he was depicted in a couple of episodes as an animated clone of [[Series/MarriedWithChildren Al Bundy]]), turning into a grouchy and bad-mannered BumblingDad of normal (or at worst slightly below average) intelligence in the second season and then completing his transformation into the crass, lazy and dim-witted but lovable ManChild that most fans know him as by the third season. His oafish but iconic personality stayed roughly the same for the next few seasons, but his flagrant stupidity neared its peak in the eighth season episode [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy "Homer's Enemy"]], where he was depicted as almost intolerably bad-mannered and moronic (driving the titular "enemy" of that episode to insanity). By the ninth and tenth seasons, he started to become a {{Jerkass}}, and by the eleventh season he lost whatever impulse control he had left, TookALevelInDumbass and became a dangerously imbecilic, aggressive [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] with no emotional control, bursting into tears and throwing a temper tantrum on a regular basis. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E10TheSimpsons138thEpisodeSpectacular "The Simpsons' 138th Episode Spectacular"]]:

** A common side effect of Flanderization is that other personality traits are dropped as another is focused on. For example, one of the core aspects of Ned Flanders was that we was hipper and more with it, in contrast to Homer Simpson, introducing Homer in the early seasons to the idea of credit when he shows off his new RV, and the internet, on which Flanders already had a home business. Now Flanders' responses to new, and even old technology, are much closer to militaristic Amish than the early adopter he was in earlier seasons.

** Mr. Burns underwent two Flanderizations. Initially, he was just Homer's stern and nasty boss, and head of Springfield's dangerous nuclear power plant. As the first few seasons progressed, Burns' stature as a CorruptCorporateExecutive became more and more exaggerated, to the point where he was depicted physically torturing his employees for fun, making arms for the Nazis, and of course, attempting to block out the sun. One episode implied he was literally ''Satan'' while another one showed him as being ''even worse'' than Satan. Then, in the second Flanderization, his competence as a sadistic supervillian began to decline, and he became increasingly depicted as a doddering old man with a skewed, quasi-Victorian conception of society. While he's still a nominal villain, most jokes about him now center on his incalculable age, increasing senility, and pronounced frailty. Notably, one 1996 episode established that he fought in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII alongside Abe Simpson, implying that he was around 70 years old at most; in a later episode, he's shown to be unaware that World War II (or UsefulNotes/WorldWarI for that matter) even ''happened''. Other episodes [[RuleOfFunny humorously]] imply that he's the oldest man on Earth, and possibly older than the entire ''human race''.[[note]] In one episode, he gives his birthplace as "Pangaea".[[/note]]

* Krusty the Clown went from being a cheery and fun-loving children's entertainer who loved having the camera on him (even though he was illiterate and tried to hide his Jewish heritage), to [[HatesTheJobLovesTheLimelight a weary and cynical old showbiz figure]] with [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold a heart of gold]] starting around Season 3, to a greedy and shameless SellOut by the sixth season or so. Some of this might be chalked up to an AbortedArc from very early in the show where he would be revealed to be Homer in disguise (they do look surprisingly similar).

* Doctor Hibbert was originally one of the few characters in Springfield who was unquestionably competent at his job, even if it came at a high price, with his central flaw being his lack of bedside manner. Notably, he refused to advise Homer on his work-from-home obesity scheme in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer King Size Homer]]. In later seasons, it seems as though his competence and integrity has been tinkered with in order to keep up with the rest of Springfield's wackiness, as it's been implied that he's practicing without a license and is addicted to morphine, while his horndog tendencies have been exaggerated as well (considering that he was conceived as a parody of the now-disgraced Bill Cosby, ItMakesSenseInContext).