30 years ago today, a legendary show launched it's first episode, just in time for Christmas.
Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson stepped into our living rooms with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" and more than 670 episodes later, a record for a scripted prime-time series, they're still on every Sunday night. Only Gunsmoke has surpassed 600 episodes like the Simpsons.
The Simpsons were a fictional "middle American" family from Springfield. While no state has ever been mentioned on the show, creator Matt Groening has said the show was created after Springfield, Oregon in his home state of Oregon.
"Treehouse of Horror V", Season 6, 1994
Every year around Halloween, we are gifted another Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror", a series of shorter, horror-based vignettes inside an episode. There are many that are great. This, the 5th installment, is the best.
"The Shining" sees the family get hired to take care of Mr. Burns' mansion. You can probably figure out what happens next ("no beer and no TV make Homer go crazy").
There's also a play on Sweeney Todd, with a macabre ending in the school cafeteria, and Homer somehow turning a toaster into a time machine that proceeds to cause havoc in changing history.
"Home at the Bat" is loaded with stars from Major League Baseball (Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey Jr., Wade Boggs, Daryl Strawberry, Don Mattingly, even Steve Saks!). It was a revelation that so many actual celebrities made themselves available to voice their characters on an animated show. Something the Simpsons did over and over with huge success (especially Michael Jackson in that brilliant episode where he plays a mental patient the Simpsons take in).
The episode is based around Mr. Burns hiring a bunch of ringers for the company softball team. "Meet our new lunchroom cashier Ken Griffey Jr.".
Sideshow Bob was a recurring character voiced by the great Kelsey Grammer (of Cheers and Frazier). His long-running fued with Bart Simpson, and the urge to actually kill him, lead to a takeoff on the classic film(s), Cape Fear. Mainly the 1991 version with Robert DeNiro.
The Simpsons had done big events before. This is the only two-part show in Simpsons history however, and the marketing blitz the surrounded it really showed how much Fox had invested in the little animated show.
Homer- "Give me my gun".
Clerk- "Sorry, the law requires a five-day waiting period to run a background check."
Homer- "Five days! But I'm mad now!"
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