That’s unpossible!
America’s favorite family.
Incredible. I had no idea in the early 90’s that we’d even still be talking about it, let alone that it would still be on air.
two national evening news shows (that i watched) had a story on it.
If you were in highschool when it started, you’re now older than Homer.
Don’t you mean “Ay caramba!”?
Actually, Bart pronounces it “¡Ay Carumba!” I think the T-shirts even spell it that way. (Never mind that your way is correct.)
Probably widely known by now but still passed off as “little known” trivia about the episode; it was meant to be the eighth episode, but when the first episode (the Babysitter Bandit one) came back from the Korean animators, it was so bad that the staff had Fox hold back on the planned September premiere until they were convinced that the rest of the episodes weren’t in the same condition. This is why you don’t see Santa’s Little Helper in about half of the first season episodes.
While I’m on the subject of somewhat random Simpsons trivia:
Another bit about the Christmas episode; the show has not attempted to maintain continuity with its other Christmas episodes. For example, in the second one, they have Santa’s Little Helper long before Christmas Eve, and in the 15th season Christmas episode, Homer buys a tree rather than cut one down.
For some strange reason, when they re-used the clip of Maggie saying her first word in a different episode, somebody other than Elizabeth Taylor dubbed over the voice.
While Michael Jackson did “his own” speaking in “Stark Raving Dad”, they had a soundalike singer do the singing - the same one that impersonated Tony Bennett singing “Born Free” near the end of “Whacking Day”.
In one of the few times where they have credited an actor as voicing a particular character, Jay Mohr was credited as voicing Christopher Walken (reading Goodnight Moon) in “Insane Clown Poppy”.
I cringed when I watched the flashback episode where a young Homer was in college and 90’s Seattle grunge was all the rage.
It’s also probably a good thing they got delayed. If not they wouldn’t have had any episodes for after midseason and would have had to have been off at least until the following fall (if they got picked up at all) which would have killed any momentum the show had (if by launching in fall they would have had the same momentum in the first place). Someone on the show staff said something to this effect in one of the episode commentaries.
I was pretty sure the domestication of the dog would continue unabated, though.
And the rise of the internet allowed us to find out what some nerd thinks about Star Trek.
Im guessing the first episode produced more laughs than Tracey Ullman did during her entire career.
Apologies for the cheap shot at Tracey Ullman. I have an irrational dislike of her.
I’d been waiting for the Simpsons for years, because I’d recognized a fundamental problem with family sitcoms: the kids grow up.
As I child, I didn’t get tired of stupid sitcoms, but for some reason they would discontinue! Actually it was pretty clear why they had to discontinue some of them, they couldn’t go on telling the same jokes because the kids were growing up. Toby Gillis (before my time), went through high school, then graduated and went to college. It was over.
So when I watched the Simpsons, I immediately recognised the brilliance of the concept: they can go on making episodes forever!
Actually of course they can’t go on making episodes for ever. Like the “Hill Street Blues”, or “The Bill”, the writers run out of ideas, and run out of interest. You could argue that the same thing has happened to “The Simpsons”: after a couple of years, I recognised that a strength of the old family sitcom is that the kids grow up: you get new and different situations as the family ages. I watch the Simpson now, and they’ve got to try harder for the jokes.
That’s a much later episode called That 90s Show I think (aired post 2000 at least). The very first flashback episode was in the second season, They Way We Weren’t, and it has Homer & Marge as being part of the Class of 1974! Great episode BTW…
I remember this seemed bizarre when I first heard it, but it seems borderline obvious now. The singing would have required an actual commitment of time and work, whereas the “spoken” lines could be knocked out in half an hour in the booth.
Oh I know, that’s why I cringed. I was used to Homer being in college when I was just a kid. Now he didn’t go to college until AFTER I did!
I felt the same way. For years, Homer was clearly older than me. Then, he was suddenly around my age. In that episode, he was now younger than me. I’m now getting closer to Krusty’s age and I think when the series is finally finished, I’ll be older than Grandpa Simpson or (gasp) Mr. Burns!
Dobie.
Dobie Gillis.
Do you realize the irony of starting this thread with that title?
Irony helps us play!