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In fact, people were far more shocked by the show in its early seasons than now. I think the current seasons of The Simpsons aren't shocking enough. Sure, they can say "penis" now, but when was the last time you saw an episode of The Simpsons stir up controversy?

Change isn't overrated, it's underexecuted. The shows (talking about sitcoms only, here) that are stagnant with their carefully prepared genesis dynamic for too long become boring and lose their flavor with too many mouthfuls. The last few seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond, one of my favorite television shows, were boring as hell because I simply couldn't laugh at the exact same jokes and relationship dynamics any more. The same thing happens with every long-running sitcom I can think of, including my all-time favorite: The Simpsons.

But I understand the reluctance surrounding change because it so rarely works. As with changes in real life, it's a big risk. It's very difficult to pull off a successful change because you must develop new dyanmics that differ from your bread and butter. Even worse, you must deal with audience expectations. Audiences don't like change because they've been trained by decades of stagnant sitcoms not to expect change.

Change has ruined the dynamic on many a fine television show. But that is not the problem. The problem is that the new dynamics that were conceived were not as successful as the original dynamic.

I, for one, would love to see shows about Bart living in Homer's garage or Lisa going through teenage troubles or Apu's octuplets in kindergarten or hell, could the Simpsons move to a different town? Seriously. I want to watch those shows, as long as they are as well written as much of the rest of the series has been. I'm very tired of the same old jokes and the same old characters. Why can't characters change and grow? Why can't environments change? Sure, Maude died, but that's about it. I want to see Bart grow up and Marge's faithfulness to Homer fail and a new principal at the school.

But I'm probably mostly alone on that and the ratings would plummet if they changed a thing. Too bad.

I agree with lukeprog in that I would also be much more interested in watching the Simpsons with episodes like Lisa going to college, Apu's kids going to kindergarten, etc. Often times, it's the big changes in our lives that can be the most surprising, embarrassing, shocking, etc. and those are the memories we tend to look back on and laugh at. When sitcom characters go through some of life's tense periods of change that we ourselves have experienced, we can laugh at it, because we see someone else going through what we went through. What fascinates us is how these characters act in these situations similarly or different from the way we acted.

As for getting a different spin by hiring better writers, as AJDaGreat indicated... I still think lasting change in the characters is more important. At this point, most of the characters seem cynical to the point of accepting the most blatant of Homer's trespasses. Nothing he does gets a reaction from the family anymore, they just accept it as another whacky Homer moment. Because the show doesn't change, the characters have no motivation to reach any goals because they all seem to realize that nothing ever changes in their lives.

Oh, but AJDaGreat, I very much agree with you that it would be fun to watch more episodes about the wealth of supporting characters on the show, as opposed to grinding out more stories about the Simpson family.