Monday, January 5, 2009

You Knew it was Coming...

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

It was only a matter of time before I covered The Simpsons. After all, it has been on the air non-stop since December 1989, and holds the record for the longest-running scripted comedy. (And yeah, I know I missed last week, but I was busy packing and enjoying the holidays.)

I saw the pilot when I was five years old, on a black-and-white television in my bedroom. Laying on the top bunk, I laughed at baby Maggie being dressed in a star suit (for those who don't know, the first episode of The Simpsons was the Christmas Special where they find the doggie, Santa's Little Helper), and rooted for Lisa, the clear angel in the family. About a year later, I received a blue sweatshirt for Christmas, with Bart on it, and the caption "Underachiever, and proud of it" or something very similar. When I figured out what "underachiever" meant (albeit it took me a while), I refused to wear it anymore, and also was appalled that my parents didn't find anything wrong with my wearing it to begin with. Similarly, there's a clear reason why so many people had such a big problem with using the Simpson family as role models.


Because it's virtually impossible for you to be reading this blog and not already know a fair bit about The Simpsons, I won't bother doing an overview of the show. Instead, I'll just cover some weird things about the show (which have to happen because the characters don't actually age).

For one, why make a movie in 2007? Especially since the plot was lame.
Congrats on those 24 Emmys. Although it does make me sad that so many people would vote for this show, when it teaches no values. While it is a very funny show, I think it's marketed for children who are too young to be subjected to it.
Each of the show's six main voice-over actors are paid $400,000 PER EPISODE.
Danny Elfman wrote the theme song (of course).
The "Treehouse of Horror" episodes were intended to be seen the week prior to Halloween, but Fox's deals with MLB have forced the episodes into the first week of November in recent years.
2,000 people can ride The Simpsons at Univeral Studios in one hour.
Quite a few scholars have done work on The Simpsons, and multiple reference books have been published as well.
The three-eyes fish is named, "Binky." (this makes me laugh when you think about "Binky the Clown" in the Garfield comics)
The scientist is named Professor John Frink.
Barney was named as such to match Fred Flintstone's sidekick.
The Happy Little Elves were modeled on The Smurfs.
The conductor of the Springfield Elemntary Band is Dewey Largo.
A team of sixteen writes the episodes.

Alrite, well I'm off to work some, hope you learned thing or two!
Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email This Pin This

No comments: