On March 23, 2001, The Simpsons had just premiered the episode “So Long, Sucker,” from season 12. It may not be one of the most remembered in the history of the series, and one could even argue that its golden age had already ended, but if you see a drawing of Francine, the school bully, you will still remember her. There was still a long way to go before the series fell into absolute disgrace and was forced to rise with meta references and millennial comedy. And it was that day, at the height of its fame, with episodes watched by almost twenty million Americans each week, when they really messed up by creating a hellish abomination that many remember as the lowest point in the history of the series: The Simpsons Wrestling.
Multiply by zero, PS1!
It’s not that all the Simpsons video games had been good up to that point, far from it: most were little more than a disaster, boring platforms with not much to contribute to the genre or generic beat’em’ups (with the exception of their first and fabulous title). Why wouldn’t they try to stir the hornet’s nest and have the world’s favorite yellow family fight each other? When The Simpsons Wrestling was released, the audience couldn’t believe it: every decision that had been made was wrong. The animations were cheap, the fights simplistic, the humor didn’t work, and overall, it felt like something easy created by a producer who had never seen the show. But, surprisingly, that wasn’t the case… And its story makes it very clear what happened to fall so low.
At Big Ape Productions, they already had experience with PS1, and they had more than enough capability to make a good wrestling game and a Simpsons game. In fact, their initial idea was much clearer: they wanted to bring together a group of celebrities to fight each other, but they ended up thinking “Hey, why not include The Simpsons, since we have the franchise?”. It was, immediately, their worst mistake.
To begin with, due to their strange decision to limit it to PS1 when PS2 and Dreamcast were already on the market: the explanation given by the producers is that these two consoles still had a small player base, and the marketing department thought that The Simpsons Wrestling would mainly be played by children, so they stuck with PS1, since PS2 had an audience that was primarily older. Apparently, the show’s writers did not receive the report.
Because yes, The Simpsons Wrestling used both the writers and the original voices of the series, who were supposed to say four little jokes without major consequences. However, according to those involved in this disaster, what they ended up doing was totally inappropriate not only for a video game but also for a television show. Moreover, they have hinted that if they had recorded and included those jokes in the game, they would have faced legal, marketing, and even public issues due to several offensive jokes. In reality, it is just a testament to how poorly everything was managed.
Because alongside the creative freedom of the screenwriters was the imposition of the executives, who kept demanding absolute nonsense. For example, upon seeing the character selection screen, where they would stick to the screen and throw indirect insults and jabs, someone decided it was a better idea to simply replace it with static 2D images that didn’t speak. Spoiler: it wasn’t a better idea, and the final result was, at the very least, strange and reminiscent of an earlier time.
In total, there were 18 playable characters, some of them in pairs: besides the family (Maggie fought alongside Marge), we had Krusty, Barney, Apu, Willie, Bumblebee Man, Scratchy, Itchy, Moe, Ned Flanders, Frink, Mr. Burns, Smithers, and Kang alongside Kodos. When Fox saw the Alpha version, they were shocked and forced a complete overhaul of the game because they couldn’t allow the characters to attack each other. For example, isn’t it curious that Maggie is the only family member who doesn’t fight for herself? The reason should be obvious.
In the end, the game lacks enough wrestling and The Simpsons, and it received criticism from all sides. It’s not surprising: just before the release, they were forced to go back to the drawing board and erase entire screens that took place at school for fear of being associated… with the Columbine massacre. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. No one came away very happy from the experience, but undeniably, The Simpsons Wrestling was a real hit and sold hundreds of thousands of units worldwide. However, if a remake or a sequel has never been made, there’s a reason: indeed, the idea was anything but good, and the quality of the project could only have worked once, and purely by chance. In other words: it ended up multiplying by zero.