Dressed for Distress

The Show: “The Simpsons,� Channel 11, 8:30 p.m. Sundays.

The Set Up: A “normal American family in all its beauty and all its horror,� to quote the show’s producer, James L. Brooks. Homer, a nuclear power plant employee, heads the family. Mom, Marge, is a sometime roller-skating car hop. Two of the three kids are grade-school age. There’s Bart, the rebel without a pause, and Lisa, the smart-and-quiet type (for a Simpson). Maggie, the baby, communicates moods with her pacifier. She sucks slowly to indicate tranquility, faster to say she’s getting nervous.

The Look: The typical family next door--bug eyes, star-tipped heads and voices that carry for a mile. Homer favors short-sleeve white shirts and cuffed trousers in various shades of drab. Sometimes he goes into a retro trip and adds a clip-on tie. He makes an early-’80s, GQ magazine statement with his 5 o’clock shadow, not exactly a Don Johnson look alike. Marge sports a ruffle-edge, blue beehive, tall enough to attract Donald Trump’s attention. She’s the fashion risk-taker with her strapless housedresses and big, beaded chokers. Bart is grade-school cool in shorts, T’s and rolled down socks. His serrated head (don’t try this ‘do at home, kids) is a post-techno-industrial crew cut for the ‘90s. Lisa’s following in her mother’s footsteps--going for the strapless look in her Madonna-esque rag bottom dress and Mary Janes. Maggie stays in an oversize sleep suit that’s somewhat detrimental to her tentative first steps (every family has a fashion victim). To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, they’re not taste-free, they’re just drawn that way.

The Labels: Come on, folks, they’re ‘Toons.