The death of classic Mr. Burns

One sign of the deterioration in quality of The Simpsons has been the changes (for the worse) that its characters have undergone: Homer goes from being a lazy but generally good-natured dolt to a bombastic loudmouth, Lisa goes from being a bright and creative but still flawed and vulnerable young girl to a shrill liberal mouthpiece for the writers, Ralph Wiggum becomes a walking non-sequitur dispenser, Flanders goes from a sincere Christian and all-around good person to a religious nutcase, and so on.  In most characters, this is a gradually-occurring process, but with Mr. Burns this can be traced to a single moment: Mr Burns' appearance on the radio in Monty Can't Buy Me Love.

To begin with, it's worth taking the time to remember just who classic Mr. Burns was as a character: he was utterly evil, immoral (or at least amoral), ruthless, vicious, and tended to hold everyone and everything other than himself in utter contempt.  Furthermore, due to his extreme wealth and influence, he had all kinds of underlings on hand (human and animal) to carry out his bidding.

Offsetting this malevolence was his extreme physical frailty, which was often a source of humor on the show: for example, when he thought he was reenacting a notorious scene from The Untouchables, he's in reality only lightly tapping someone with a baseball bat.  At times, this aspect gives Mr. Burns a sympathetic side, such as when he asks Marge "Can you make me beautiful?" in Brush With Greatness, or when confronted with his own imminent mortality in Burns' Heir.  More often, however, it was used for comedic effect, such as when he thinks he's giving Smithers "the thrashing of a lifetime", or trying to bowl.

 

Anyway, onto the episode itself.  When Mr. Burns is upstaged at a megastore opening by Richard Branson-esque fun-loving billionaire Arthur Fortune, Mr. Burns is taken aback by the latter's mannerisms and becomes jealous of the public's adoration of Fortune, especially after watching a news segment that evening.  This seems out-of-character for Mr. Burns, given the massive amount of contempt that he holds everyone else in; a big part of what made Two Cars In Every Garage And Three Eyes On Every Fish such a good episode was Burns' need to curry favor with the same public that he despises.  Perhaps the writers could have thrown in an aspect that would make Mr. Burns actually care about this, such as mentioning that Mr. Burns is losing revenue to Arthur Fortune's company, or something similar.  

In any case, Mr. Burns tries to get the public to love him through various means (in a sequence that's mostly dead air) and then tries to make himself more popular by going on the radio, where Bart tricks him into going on-air with local shock jock Jerry Rude*.  When Rude begins asking Mr. Burns some rather ...personal questions, Mr. Burns simply reacts with shock, and when Jerry makes a bunch of farting sound effects, Mr. Burns collapses.  Classic Mr. Burns would have immediately threatened Jerry and/or ordered somebody to kill him, and in a classic-era episode there might have even been a sign that Mr. Burns had made good on his threat (perhaps as a freeze-frame bonus in a newspaper headline later in the episode, such as: Main Headline: Burns To Search For Loch Ness Monster/Secondary Headline: Jerry Rude's body found in Springfield Harbor).  It was at this point I knew I was no longer seeing the classic Mr. Burns on screen...

*Played by Michael McKean, Jerry Rude is basically "Howard Stern as his critics see him".  Apparently, Howard Stern was originally asked to appear on the show, but declined; it's interesting to think what the scene and episode might have been like had he agreed to appear.

Screencaps and animated Gifs are from the excellent (and highly addictive) Frinkiac.com