Sunday at 8 p.m. EST on Fox, ‘The Simpsons’ aired its landmark 450th episode, “Once Upon a Time in Springfield.” Following the episode was an hour long documentary from Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”), entitled “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice.”
With the 450th episode, and their 20th season on air, ‘The Simpsons’ has claimed the title of TV’s longest-running scripted nighttime series ever.
The 450th ‘The Simpsons’ episode was surprisingly nothing special. No long clip episode, or huge earth shattering Simpsons change. Actually, the episode wasn’t much about the Simpsons at all. The primary story line was of Krusty the Clown falling in love with his new co-star, Princess Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, with the Homer and his coworkers being potentially poached by a rival nuclear plant.
“The Simpsons 20th anniversary in 3-D on Ice” was an hour long special digging into exactly what has made ‘The Simpsons’ the phenomenon it is today, with special appearances by real-life ‘The Simpsons’ look-a-likes, the town that inspired it all, and the history of how The Simpsons was created.
Past and present writers, creators and comedians came together for interviews telling the tale of how ‘The Simpsons’, which first premiered on The Tracy Ullman Show morphed into arguably the greatest spin-off of all time, winning 25 Emmys, earning their very own star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame and even getting Homer’s signature “D’oh!” added to the dictionary.
If you missed the documentary, you can watch it below.
TV has changed a lot over the last 20 years. ‘The Simpsons’ was revolutionary television, opening up a whole new genre of TV, as not only the first popular cartoon for an older audience, but with a new brand of humor. They were the originals of random, obscure references and “I can’t believe they just said that” jokes, and scathing social commentary that had parents shooing their kids out of the room so they could plop down on the couch to have a good laugh.
I grew up with ‘The Simpsons,’ but secretly. My parents wouldn’t let me watch it as a kid because they thought it was too crude. They didn’t like that Bart swore, that the show made light of Homer’s alcoholism or that he routinely choked Bart, and that it poked fun at certain religions and cultures, even though it was usually to prove a point.
As I type that, I have to laugh. Boy, how times have changed.
Now, we are inundated with adult cartoons: ‘Family Guy,’ ‘South Park,’ ‘The Cleveland Show,’ ‘King of the Hill’, ‘American Dad,’ each more controversial and delightfully inappropriate than the last.
The worst Bart Simpson ever said was ‘damn’ or ‘hell’, which is mild by today’s TV shows standards. Stewie Griffin, the matricidal infant from “Family Guy,” drops b-bombs weekly, has been known to burst into song about the wonders of marijuana and make sexually explicit jokes about just about everyone.
‘South Park,’ an animated cartoon about a bunch of little kids, actually devoted an entire episode to see how many times they could say “sh*t” (162 times, in case you were curious) and Kenny, the mouthless side kick, is killed in virtually every episode.
In a game of who can push the envelope the furthest without an FCC crackdown, ‘The Simpsons’ have held true to their original style. The characters, despite an improvement in their animation, have stayed consistent and lovable. Homer, clueless and oafish as he may be, still treats Marge with the utmost respect. Bart and Lisa still bicker but always hug it out in the end, and Maggie…well, Maggie still can’t talk after two decades.
‘The Simpsons’ still might not be appropriate for the youngest of audiences, but in comparison to the other animated shows in their class, they are relatively harmless. ‘Family Guy’ and ‘South Park’ are hugely popular among tweens and teens, but ‘The Simpsons’ will always be in a league of its own.
So, will there be another 20 years of ‘The Simpsons’ to look forward to?
“I think we could do it for another 20 years, actually,” Matt Groening, ‘The Simpsons’ creator, told The Associated Press at a recent tribute by Los Angeles’ Paley Center for Media. After a burst of laughter, he continued, “Omigod! Another 20? We’ll TRY! We’ll do our BEST!”
