You’ve probably seen this a ton of other places, but it was 20 years ago today (December 17, 1989) that first 20-minute episode of The Simpsons aired on FOX.
That’s really nuts if you think about it. I don’t think I’ve felt much older then realizing not only has this show been on 20 years (and I’ve been rather faithful in watching it all this time) but also that I was 16 when it debuted. Sheesh. If they were real people, Bart would be 30 and Santa’s Little Helper would be dead.
Funny how much times change though. I can remember people complaining about how ‘bad’ Bart was and how that sort of thing shouldn’t be on TV – especially as a cartoon that kids would be inclined to watch. In today’s climate, the character is downright cute and nonthreatening and most of the cartoons on TV (outside of Nick and Disney) are meant for adults.
At any rate, I dig the show.
Gonch Fun Fact – I still say, “I’d like some taquitos” every time we walk past them in the grocery store and that’s a quote from a minor character in an episode that’s more than 10 years old.
From the press release:
One of America’s favorite — if not entirely functional — families first appeared on its own half-hour television show on this day 20 years ago — “The Simpsons.” Cartoonist Matt Groening’s characters Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie soon had popularity unusual for an animated feature, and created a legion of loyal fans who wouldn’t miss one of the shows. Aside from the wide range of souvenir items generated by the program, some of the character’s sayings — especially Bart’s — have become part of the language, such as “Don’t have a cow.” When “The Simpsons” first went on the air, there were 193 million television sets in U.S. homes — today, the number is more than 300 million.
The Simpsons first appeared in 1987 as a series of 30-second shorts produced by Groening for the FOX series “The Tracey Ullman Show.” The first of these shorts aired on April 19, 1987, during the third week of primetime broadcasts on FOX. Soon they had their own series, premiering on FOX as a half-hour Christmas special on Dec. 17, 1989, and then as a regular series on Jan. 14, 1990.
And yes, sadly, I remember the pre-Simpsons clips as my mother was a fan of the Tracey Ullman show…and back then we didn’t have TV’s in every room and the internets and such, so you either watched TV as a family and watched what your arents watched or you didn’t watch TV…and you actually watched things when they aired – on their schedule, not yours, rarely timeshifting with the VCR – that was for when you wouldn’t be home and really wanted to see something…hence, my viewing of the Tracey Ullman show.