D'oh! 'The Simpsons' heads to big screen

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Eighteen years after Homer's first anguished 'D'oh!' and Bart's first invitation to eat his shorts, America's most dysfunctional cartoon family are heading to Hollywood.

But will the big-screen incarnation of "The Simpsons," which arrives in US cinemas on Friday, be worth the wait?

Initially appearing as an animated segment on comedian Tracey Ullman's prime-time television show, "The Simpsons" then became a half-hour sitcom in its own right in 1988.

Since then the series has become part of the American pop-cultural landscape, spanning more than 400 episodes, 23 Emmy awards and being acclaimed by Time Magazine as the "best television show of the 20th century."

With "The Simpsons" making a lot of people very rich, it seemed only a matter of time before the franchise arrived in cinemas.

Yet for its creator Matt Groening, a straightforward attempt to try and cash in on the popularity of his brainchild was never an option.

"It's taken 18 years to make the film because we're lazy," Groening said. "We've been asked that question quite a bit and we don't have a good answer.

"On the TV show we're working quickly on a tight schedule and tight budget and on the movie we were able to work on the script until we got it right.

"So we took a long time writing the script and then we went into production, and we tried animation that is far more ambitious than anything we've ever done in the past."

Al Jean, the film's executive producer, is adamant that the movie will not disappoint die-hard fans.

"We waited 18 years to make a film, because we didn't want to do it just because we could; we wanted to make a movie because it was right," Jean said. "The Simpsons movie is not three episodes of the show strung together. It has heart."

The "heart" of the movie sees the eternally clueless Homer battling to save the world from an environmental catastrophe of his own making.

The disaster that hits Springfield is caused by Homer's pet pig and a silo full of droppings, leaving his long-suffering wife Marge and the rest of the Simpson family on the run.

Whether the film will reach beyond the traditional "Simpsons" fan base remains to be seen. While the television series is still attracting healthy ratings, the numbers have dropped off significantly in recent years.

In 1989-90, the sitcom was attracting an average 27.2 million viewers per episode; last year the average was 8.8 million.

Fox studio chief Tom Rothman has denied suggestions that "The Simpsons" movie is a cash grab. "We accepted a long time ago they (the creators) were going to do this on our own time-frame," Rothman said in a recent interview.

"We weren't worried because Homer Simpson was going to be a fantastic character in 2007 or 2010."

Movies.com editor Lew Harris said that too often, studios were motivated by a desire to cash in on a captive audience when re-making successful television series as movies.

"They have made one disaster after another out of TV shows," said Harris, citing the recent examples of "The Dukes of Hazzard," "The X-Files" and "The Avengers."

"It's not the idea of taking a TV show and making a movie out of it, it's just that they don't seem to be interested to do anything good," Harris said.

"Too many times, and this is true with sequels as well, they often rely on the fan base to carry over a terrible movie. It doesn't work."

However there were several exceptions, Harris said, citing the example of the "South Park" and "Star Trek" movies.

"When they're thought through with good care and conceived for the right reasons, they can be pulled off quite nicely," he said.