D’oh! Homer’sodyssey begins as simpson shit the screen for first time
The Simpsons is so ingrained in popular culture it’s easy to forget how unlikely its success has been.
The everyday adventures of a bright yellow family wearing garish clothes started off as short sketches on another programme.
Since making their first on-screen appearance on The Tracey Ullman Show – which aired on April
18, 1987, The Simpsons went on to land their own sitcom which is now the most successful animated television show of all time.
It is the longest-running US cartoon series, longestrunning American sitcom, and the longest-running scripted prime-time television series, both in terms of seasons and number of episodes.
Not bad for what was originally planned as a short filler for Tracey Ullman’s programme to go along with the advert breaks.
That show’s producer, James L Brooks, needed an idea to take up a couple of moments of air time.
He was a fan of comic artist Matt Groening’s work Life In Hell and he asked the cartoonist if he’d like to pitch in.
Matt’s idea – famously formulated in the lobby of the TV company at the last moment – was to create a dysfunctional family much like, apparently, his own. The characters of The Simpsons were based on people he knew, with tearaway child Bart built around Matt himself. Bart is, of course, an anagram of “brat”.
The characters were meant to poke fun at everyday Americans and even the surname Simpson was chosen because it sounded like “simpleton”.
Groening submitted some rough, black and white sketches of the family to the animation studio hoping they would tidy up the characters.
They instead dutifully copied his work, hence why early seasons of The Simpsons look rather haphazard compared to later years. Despite the slightly shambolic look the animated shorts garnered the most laughs on the show. The rest of the writing staff began to resent The Simpsons and a spin-off series was mooted.
Thirteen full-length episodes were ordered by TV network Fox and The Simpsons debuted in December 1989.
In early episodes the characters were slightly different; Lisa is sometimes shown as short-tempered and ill-disciplined, while Homer is the voice of reason. The roles would eventually be reversed, of course.
Audiences came to love Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Maggie and their popularity grew from there.
The characters became a cultural phenomenon, with celebrities queuing up to appear. The likes of Paul Mccartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Patrick Stewart, Dustin Hoffman, Leonard Nimoy, Meryl Streep, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash and Michelle Pfeiffer have all appeared.
The show was a ratings success and there have been 702 episodes of The Simpsons over 32 years.
In 2007 The Simpsons movie grossed $500 million at the box office and there have been numerous video games, comics, theme parks and an array of other media for fans to enjoy.
Its heyday may have passed – fans generally recognise the first decade as the series’ strongest – but The Simpsons isn’t going to be stopping any time soon.
It has been renewed for another two years – so it’s likely the show will reach a staggering 750 episodes.