The Simpsons 20 years

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/01/2010 (6062 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 "MY goal, from the very beginning, was to invade pop culture.”

Uh, mission accomplished, Matt Groening. And then some.

In truth, on the day he scrawled out a few rough, rushed doodles before a 1986 meeting with TV producer James L. Brooks, the cartoonist behind the underground hit comic strip Life in Hell was more concerned with protecting ownership of his favoured bug-eyed-bunny characters than worrying about the long-term creative and commercial potential of the hastily conceived "nuclear" family that included Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and Bart.

Of course, Groening’s last-minute doodles provided the inspiration for television’s most enduring sitcom family; two decades and an unprecedented prime-time marathon later, The Simpsons is celebrating a double-header milestone with a special evening that includes the show’s 450th instalment, Once Upon a Time in Springfield, and the globetrotting hour-long tribute The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!, produced, directed and presented by Super Size Me guy Morgan Spurlock.

The anniversary special, which airs Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on Fox and Global, finds Spurlock applying his docu-investigational skills to a pursuit of all things Simpson, tracing the animated series’ roots (through reminiscences by Groening and Brooks), measuring its cultural impact ("The Simpsons MADE my career," offers former Police frontman and one-time Springfield visitor Sting), and tracking down its most fervent fans (one Brit collector shows Spurlock more than 30,000 pieces of Simpsons memorabilia) and most vocal foes (hello, Catholic League president Bill Donahue, and the entire offended-by-Bart nation of Brazil).

Spurlock points out how The Simpsons now ranks as the longest-running scripted show on U.S. prime-time television, having eclipsed the records for longevity established by black-and-white-era stalwarts Gunsmoke (20 seasons) and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (435 episodes).

The Simpsons also boasts 24 Emmy Awards, holds the title of most-searched-for TV show on the Internet, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the television series with the most extensive guest-star list — a roster that now includes big-screen attraction Anne Hathaway, who co-stars in Once Upon a Time in Springfield (7 p.m., Fox and Global) as Princess Penelope, the girl-friendly co-star inserted into Krusty the Clown’s TV show after his ratings begin to sag.

All in all, it promises to be one great big Homer-riffic evening for a show that started as a scrawl and became the pop-culture phenomenon of the 1990s.

"I think it’s been the most successful spinoff ever," says anniversary-show contributor Tracey Ullman, whose late-’80s sketch-comedy show provided the first home for Groening’s Simpson-ic cartoon vignettes.

Amen to that, sister.

Simpsons timeline

 

April 19, 1987 — The Simpsons make their first TV appearance, in a series of short vignettes on The Tracey Ullman Show.

Dec. 17, 1989 — The 30-minute festive special Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire airs.

Jan. 14, 1990 — The Simpsons has its series premiere with the episode Bart the Genius.

Aug., 1990 — The Simpsons receives its first Emmy Award for outstanding animated program.

Aug. 23, 1990 — Fox moves The Simpsons to Thursday nights, into head-to-head competition with The Cosby Show.

Nov. 20, 1990 — Do the Bartman, a single from the album release The Simpsons Sing the Blues, airs on U.S. radio stations for the first time.

January, 1991 — Bart and Homer appear on the cover of Life magazine’s The Year in Pictures 1990.

Jan. 27, 1992 — U.S. President George Bush says he wants to "make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons."

March 17, 1992 — The Simpsons receives the People’s Choice Award for favourite television program.

Sept. 19, 1993 — The series becomes available as a syndicated-rerun property.

April 28, 1994 — The 100th episode, Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadassss Song, airs.

Feb. 9, 1997 — The Simpsons surpasses The Flintstones to become the longest-running prime-time animated series in TV history.

Feb. 19, 1999 — Entertainment Weekly ranks The Simpsons as best TV sitcom in its 100 Greatest Moments in Television.

Dec. 31, 1999 — Time magazine’s Millennium Issue calls The Simpsons the best TV show of the 20th century.

Jan. 14, 2000 — The Simpsons receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

June, 2001 — "D’oh!" is accepted as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Feb. 15, 2002 — Officially declared Simpsons Day in Toronto.

Feb. 16, 2003 — The series’ 300th episode, Barting Over, with guest stars Tony Hawk and Blink 182, airs.

May 20, 2007 — The 400th episode, You Kent Always Say What You Want, airs.

July 27, 2007 — The Simpsons Movie is released.

Jan. 10, 2010 — The Simpsons’ 450th episode airs; in the opening credits, Bart’s blackboard lines read, "The world may end in 2012, but this show won’t."

 

Guest-star trivia

 

1. Who provided the voice for Lurleen Lumpkin, the country singer who sets Homer’s world spinning?

2. Who guest-starred as Krusty the Clown’s father, Rabbi Krustofski?

3. Name the musicians who taught classes when Homer attended Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp.

4. Which famous actor opened Lisa’s eyes to the wonders of Buddhism?

5. Who provided the voice of B-movie actor turned infomercial pitchman Troy McClure?

6. Who guest-starred as the burly Caucasian mental-hospital patient who claimed to be Michael Jackson?

7. Who plays the recurring role of Springfield’s top mobster, Fat Tony?

8. Who guested as Homer’s multimillionaire half-brother, Herb Powell?

9. Who provided the voice of celebrity trainer Lyle McCarthy, hired to whip Homer into shape for a movie role?

10. Name the 450th-episode guest star who plays Krusty’s co-star and love interest, Princess Penelope.

 

ANSWERS:

1. Beverly D’Angelo

2. Jackie Mason

3. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Setzer, Tom Petty, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello

4. Richard Gere

5. Phil Hartman

6. Michael Jackson

7. Joe Mantegna

8. Danny DeVito

9. Seth Rogen

10. Anne Hathaway

 

GUEST STARS A TO Z (almost):

 

Agassi, Andre

Bachman Turner Overdrive

Carson, Johnny

Douglas, Kirk

Englund, Robert

Frazier, Joe

Gibson, Mel

Hefner, Hugh

Idle, Eric

Jones, Tom

King, Larry and Stephen

Lemmon, Jack

McCartney, Paul

Namath, Joe

O’Brien, Conan

Parton, Dolly

REM

Sarandon, Susan

Tap, Spinal

U2

Varney, Jim

White, Betty and Barry