Having not yet seen the new Simpsons movie, Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts on the TV series in general. Here's a sample:

I’ve been meaning to write a long essay on the death of “youth culture.” The Simpsons would be a good example of what I’m getting at. I started watching the show when I was in college. It was denounced as an example of cultural rot amongst the young — particularly when Bart, not Homer, was the star of the show. While I’m sure that its viewership skews youngish, it’s not really a show for young people anymore. In much the same way that South Park’s most public fans seem to be middle-aged and Family Guy is aimed at an even older demographic. The Simpsons, on the air for nearly two decades, demonstrates how the once hard-and-fast line between the young and edgy and the conventional and staid has been if not completely erased than largely redrawn.

That's actually a topic that Jonah touched upon a few years ago, to very good effect. He noted back in 2003 that The Simpsons and numerous other TV shows which date back to the 1990s are still on the air:

But the networks can't let go, because every time they cancel an established show, the viewers, particularly the younger ones, vanish. No one thinks it's worth investing in a new show. The rise in reality shows has been cited by many as a sign of creative exhaustion on the part of Hollywood. But I think a better sign is the absolute explosion in sexuality. I think by now most readers understand I'm not particularly Comstockish about sex, so I hope this won't be taken simply as the lament of a typical culture vulture. But the reliance on sex jokes on TV is really astounding. Because there's still an ever-thinning veneer of taboo to sex, jokes about it still have a chance at working. But the desperation of writers comes across in how deep, i.e. low, they have to dig. It reminds me of a Simpsons episode that takes place in the near future; Marge says to Homer, "Fox turned into a hardcore porn channel so gradually I didn't even notice."

Anyway, my last bit of evidence is purely anecdotal. I speak to college kids on occasion. And whenever I do, I tend to make references to TV shows and movies because, well, I'm me and that's what I do. At this point you would think that my references would be lost on many of them — and theirs on me. But that doesn't seem to be the case. What's also interesting is that these kids are quoting the same movies that my buddies and I quote, which might be a function of the fact that young men today would rather re-watch, say, Stripes or Roadhouse, than invest time in My Wife and Kids or some other drek. In effect, kids today are living off the entertainment capital of the previous generation.

That's even more true in music, as Live Earth, the celebrity encomium to America's former vice president demonstrated:

Andy Williams didn’t play at Woodstock. He was 41 that summer.

Ray Charles, then 38, wasn’t invited either.

And at age 52, Dean Martin certainly wasn’t.

So what were and Jon Bon Jovi at 45, Madonna at 48, and ex-Pink Floyd Roger Waters, 63, doing headlining a rock concert? None of their top hits were within a decade of the “Live Earth” concert. Williams, Charles and Martin each had released his signature recording within a few years of Woodstock.

In fact, Pink Floyd’s hit — “The Wall” — is as contemporary today as “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” was in 1969.

One reason “Live Earth” was dead last in the TV ratings is the music was irrelevant to the target audience. In fact, music itself is rather irrelevant. what with Video games and You Tube getting more action. There is a reason MTV shows so few videos: Nobody watches them.

The other reason is that Woodstock was not organized by Hubert Humphrey, the immediate past vice president of the United States at the time.

Live Earth? Well …

These trends demonstrate the enormous transition our media is undergoing. Relics of the days of Mass Media linger on, simply because of the name recognition they built up prior to the Internet's fracturing of the overculture. And examples such as the Simpsons movie and even older chestnuts being endlessly recycled will be occurring for quite sometime, as dinosaur media hope to stave off extinction for another day.