Source: bbc.com
The Simpsons, longest-running animated television series and longest-running scripted prime-time TV show in U.S. history (1989– ), now broadcast in many languages to audiences around the world.
Hats off to the Creators
The Simpsons was created by cartoonist Matt Groening. The Simpsons began in 1987 as a cartoon short on the Tracey Ullman Show, a variety program on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Expanded to half an hour, it debuted as a Christmas special on December 17, 1989, and then began airing regularly in January 1990. With veteran television and film producer-director James Brooks (Mary Tyler Moore [1970–74], As Good As It Gets [1997]) as its executive producer, along with Groening and Sam Simon, the show was slow to gain an audience, but its popularity took off later in the year, and it helped establish the upstart Fox network as a major competitor on broadcast television.
Synopsis
Set in the fictional American city of Springfield—according to Groening, it was named after Springfield, Oregon—The Simpsons centers on a family with all the dysfunctions of the modern era but the demographics of the 1950s: two married parents, two preadolescent children and an infant, living grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
The children are exceptional: Lisa is a superb jazz saxophonist and is inclined to philosophy and mathematics; Bart is a prankster of the highest order, a connoisseur of mayhem. The adults are grown-up versions of the children: Homer Simpson, an operator in a nuclear power plant, is a devotee of beer, doughnuts, and bacon, while his long-suffering wife Marge is the sound-minded glue who holds the family together. (The family are, according to Groening, “creatures of consumption and envy, laziness and opportunity, stubbornness and redemption. Just like the rest of us. Only exaggerated.”)
Added to this list are the town’s strange residents, some of them immigrants, and an endless series of walk-on guest stars voiced by their real-life counterparts, such as former Beatle George Harrison and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.
All the episodes, credited to writer David S. Cohen, was the culmination to date of everything Groening has been saying about TV for years now. In fact, Groening’s show has itself become the medium’s shrewdest critic. Which is also the core reason for The Simpsons‘ continued excellence.
It helps, of course, that as a cartoon whose time in the media spotlight has waned, The Simpsons is able to get away with jokes and opinions that would raise howling protests in other, higher-profile shows.
It also helps that The Simpsons is densely packed with throwaway jokes and references to both high and low culture, which provide a constantly humming subtext. In the world of The Simpsons, everyone has a purpose; everything exists to make a point. In that sense, this cartoon is the most humanistic show on television.
The Simpsons - The Success
The program has been very successful around the world. It is watched by millions of people in over a hundred countries. The Simpsons have triggered a merchandising industry revolving around T-shirts, DVDs, video games, a theme park and books. And it is still loved and watched by many which also proves that old is gold.
Written by - Jesvin Joseph
Edited by - Prachi Raheja
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