One-minute shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show from 19 April 1987 (1987)
Matt Groening sketched the family in the lobby rather than hand over the rights to his comic strip Life in Hell
General knowledge · Film, TV & games
The Simpsons
Shorts from 1987; series from 17 December 1989
Television — American animated sitcom, the longest-running scripted primetime series
An American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox network, developed with James L. Brooks and Sam Simon. It began as a set of crude one-minute shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show from 19 April 1987, and graduated to a half-hour series with the Christmas episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" on 17 December 1989. Groening named the family after his own — father Homer, mother Margaret, sisters Lisa and Maggie — reserving an anagram of "brat" for the son. It passed Gunsmoke in 2018 to become the longest-running American scripted primetime series.
How to spot them
- ▸Yellow skin, four fingers, and a town called Springfield whose state is never given
- ▸A theme by Danny Elfman, a different couch gag each week, and a chalkboard punishment in the title sequence
- ▸'D'oh!', 'Eat my shorts', 'Excellent', and a nuclear plant owned by Charles Montgomery Burns
- ▸Six principal voice actors covering hundreds of characters
Key facts
'Roasting on an Open Fire', the Christmas episode that launched the half-hour series in December 1989 (1989)
Broadcast 17 December 1989, it was the first full-length episode, brought forward when another was not ready
'D'oh!', admitted to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001 (2001)
Dan Castellaneta's ad-lib, scripted only as 'annoyed grunt'
A nuclear power plant owned by a centenarian who cannot remember his employee's name
Mr Burns and Homer; Burns is voiced by Harry Shearer
Overtook Gunsmoke in 2018 as the longest-running American scripted primetime series (2018)
It had already passed Gunsmoke's run in years in 2009
A theme by Danny Elfman over a title sequence with a chalkboard gag and a different couch joke each week (1989)
Elfman has called it the most popular thing he has written
The 800th episode, broadcast in December 2025 (2025)
Part of season 37; the show is commissioned through a fortieth season in 2028–29
A 2007 feature film in which a town is sealed under a glass dome (2007)
The Simpsons Movie, which took over $500 million worldwide
Quick-fire facts
- •Created by Matt Groening, who had been drawing the comic strip Life in Hell; developed with James L. Brooks and Sam Simon
- •The shorts began on The Tracey Ullman Show on 19 April 1987; the first half-hour episode aired on 17 December 1989
- •Groening named Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie after his own family; Bart is an anagram of 'brat'
- •The principal voice cast is Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer
- •'D'oh!' entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001
- •The theme tune was written by Danny Elfman
- •Groening has said Springfield is named after Springfield, Oregon, near where he grew up
- •In 2018 it became the longest-running American scripted primetime series by episode count, passing Gunsmoke
- •The 800th episode was broadcast in December 2025, during season 37
- •Fox has commissioned the series through a fortieth season, running to 2028–29, with shorter runs of about fifteen broadcast episodes
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Animation World Network — The Simpsons season 37 and renewal through season 40 Consulted for current season and episode milestones; cited without URL
- Chris Turner — Planet Simpson