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[ "<h1>The Simpsons</h1>\nThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition.\n\nThe family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–90).\n\nSince its debut on December 17, 1989, episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in terms of seasons and number of episodes. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, and grossed over $527&nbsp;million. Then on October 30, 2007, a video game was released. Currently, The Simpsons finished airing its thirtieth season, which began airing September 30, 2018. The Simpsons was renewed for a thirty-first and thirty-second season on February 6, 2019, the latter of which will contain the 700th episode. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television.\n\nThe Simpsons received acclaim throughout its first nine or ten seasons, which are generally considered its \"Golden Age\". Time named it the 20th century's best television series, and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club named it \"television's crowning achievement regardless of format\". On January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, and a Peabody Award. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase \"D'oh!\" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many other later adult-oriented animated sitcoms. However, it has also been criticized for a perceived decline in quality over the years.\n\n<h2>Premise</h2>\n<h3>Characters</h3>\n\nThe Simpsons is known for its wide ensemble of main and supporting characters.\n\nThe main characters are the Simpson family, who live in a fictional \"Middle America\" town of Springfield. Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality. He is married to Marge Bouvier, a stereotypical American housewife and mother. They have three children: Bart, a ten-year-old troublemaker and prankster; Lisa, a precocious eight-year-old activist; and Maggie, the baby of the family who rarely speaks, but communicates by sucking on a pacifier. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care about one another. Homer's dad Grampa Simpson lives in the Springfield Retirement Home after Homer forced his dad to sell his house so that his family could buy theirs. Grampa Simpson has had starring roles in several episodes.\n\nThe family also owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball V, renamed Snowball II in \"I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot\". Both pets have had starring roles in several episodes.\nThe show includes an array of quirky supporting characters, which include Homer's co-workers (also friends) Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson, the school principal Seymour Skinner and teachers Edna Krabappel and Elizabeth Hoover, neighbor Ned Flanders, friends Barney Gumble, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Moe Szyslak, Milhouse Van Houten, and Nelson Muntz, extended relatives Patty and Selma Bouvier, townspeople such as Mayor Quimby, Chief Clancy Wiggum, tycoon Charles Montgomery Burns and his executive assistant Waylon Smithers, and local celebrities Krusty the Clown and news reporter Kent Brockman.\n\nThe creators originally intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A number of them have gained expanded roles and subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV.\n\n<h3>Continuity and the floating timeline</h3>\nDespite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays passing, the characters do not age between episodes (either physically or in stated age), and generally appear just as they did when the series began. The series uses a floating timeline in which episodes generally take place in the year the episode is produced even though the characters do not age. Flashbacks and flashforwards do occasionally depict the characters at other points in their lives, with the timeline of these depictions also generally floating relative to the year the episode is produced. For example, in the 1991 episode \"I Married Marge\", Bart (who is always 10 years old) appears to be born in 1980 or 1981. But in the 1995 episode \"And Maggie Makes Three\", Maggie (who always appears to be around 1 year old) appears to be born in 1993 or 1994. In the 1992 episode \"Lisa's First Word\", Lisa (who is always 8) is shown to have been born in 1984.\n\nA canon of the show does exist, although Treehouse of Horror episodes and any fictional story told within the series are typically non-canon. However, continuity is inconsistent and limited in The Simpsons. For example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but may not be able to read in another. Lessons learned by the family in one episode may be forgotten in the next. Some examples of limited continuity include Sideshow Bob's appearances where Bart and Lisa flashback at all the crimes he committed in Springfield or when the characters try to remember things that happened in previous episodes.\n\n<h3>Setting</h3>\nThe Simpsons takes place in the fictional American town of Springfield in an unknown and impossible-to-determine U.S. state. The show is intentionally evasive in regard to Springfield's location. Springfield's geography, and that of its surroundings, contains coastlines, deserts, vast farmland, tall mountains, or whatever the story or joke requires. Groening has said that Springfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the city where he grew up. The name \"Springfield\" is a common one in America and appears in at least 29 states. Groening has said that he named it after Springfield, Oregon, and the fictitious Springfield which was the setting of the series Father Knows Best. He \"figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do.\"\n<h2>Production</h2>\n\n<h3>Development</h3>\nWhen producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show The Tracey Ullman Show, he decided to include small animated sketches before and after the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's Life in Hell comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts. Groening initially intended to present an animated version of his Life in Hell series. However, Groening later realized that animating Life in Hell would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of Brooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a dysfunctional family that became the Simpsons. He named the characters after his own family members, substituting \"Bart\" for his own name, adopting an anagram of the word \"brat\".\n\nThe Simpson family first appeared as shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Groening submitted only basic sketches to the animators and assumed that the figures would be cleaned up in production. However, the animators merely re-traced his drawings, which led to the crude appearance of the characters in the initial shorts. The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo, with Wes Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. Colorist Gyorgyi Peluce was the person who decided to make the characters yellow.\n\nIn 1989, a team of production companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The team included the Klasky Csupo animation house. Brooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that prevented Fox from interfering with the show's content. Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called \"the mainstream trash\" that they were watching. The half-hour series premiered on December 17, 1989, with \"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire\". \"Some Enchanted Evening\" was the first full-length episode produced, but it did not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season, because of animation problems. In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed a lawsuit against Fox, claiming that her show was the source of the series' success. The suit said she should receive a share of the profits of The Simpsons—a claim rejected by the courts.\n\n<h3>Executive producers and showrunners</h3>\nMatt Groening and James L. Brooks have served as executive producers during the show's entire history, and also function as creative consultants. Sam Simon, described by former Simpsons director Brad Bird as \"the unsung hero\" of the show, served as creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He was constantly at odds with Groening, Brooks and the show's production company Gracie Films and left in 1993. Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that sees him receive a share of the profits every year, and an executive producer credit despite not having worked on the show since 1993, at least until his passing in 2015. A more involved position on the show is the showrunner, who acts as head writer and manages the show's production for an entire season.\n\n<h3>Writing</h3>\n\nThe first team of writers, assembled by Sam Simon, consisted of John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. Newer Simpsons writing teams typically consist of sixteen writers who propose episode ideas at the beginning of each December. The main writer of each episode writes the first draft. Group rewriting sessions develop final scripts by adding or removing jokes, inserting scenes, and calling for re-readings of lines by the show's vocal performers. Until 2004, George Meyer, who had developed the show since the first season, was active in these sessions. According to long-time writer Jon Vitti, Meyer usually invented the best lines in a given episode, even though other writers may receive script credits. Each episode takes six months to produce so the show rarely comments on current events.\n\nCredited with sixty episodes, John Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons. One of the best-known former writers is Conan O'Brien, who contributed to several episodes in the early 1990s before replacing David Letterman as host of the talk show Late Night. English comedian Ricky Gervais wrote the episode \"Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife\", becoming the first celebrity to both write and guest star in the same episode. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, writers of the film Superbad, wrote the episode \"Homer the Whopper\", with Rogen voicing a character in it.\n\nAt the end of 2007, the writers of The Simpsons went on strike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East. The show's writers had joined the guild in 1998.\n\n<h3>Voice actors</h3>\n\nThe Simpsons has six main cast members: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Barney Gumble, and other adult, male characters. Julie Kavner voices Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma, as well as several minor characters. Castellaneta and Kavner had been a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast and were given the parts so that new actors would not be needed. Cartwright voices Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other children. Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, is the only cast member who regularly voices only one character, although she occasionally plays other episodic characters. The producers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila believed her voice was too high, so she was given the role of Lisa instead. Cartwright was originally brought in to voice Lisa, but upon arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the \"middle child\" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as \"devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever\". Groening let her try out for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot. Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had been professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show. Azaria and Shearer do not voice members of the title family, but play a majority of the male townspeople. Azaria, who has been a part of the Simpsons regular voice cast since the second season, voices recurring characters such as Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Professor Frink. Shearer provides voices for Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy and Dr. Hibbert. Every main cast member has won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.\n\nWith one exception, episode credits list only the voice actors, and not the characters they voice. Both Fox and the production crew wanted to keep their identities secret during the early seasons and, therefore, closed most of the recording sessions while refusing to publish photos of the recording artists. However, the network eventually revealed which roles each actor performed in the episode \"Old Money\", because the producers said the voice actors should receive credit for their work. In 2003, the cast appeared in an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, doing live performances of their characters' voices.\n\nThe six main actors were paid $30,000 per episode until 1998, when they were involved in a pay dispute with Fox. The company threatened to replace them with new actors, even going as far as preparing for casting of new voices, but series creator Groening supported the actors in their action. The issue was soon resolved and, from 1998 to 2004, they were paid $125,000 per episode. The show's revenue continued to rise through syndication and DVD sales, and in April 2004 the main cast stopped appearing for script readings, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later and their salaries were increased to something between $250,000 and $360,000 per episode. In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a \"healthy bump\" in salary to an amount close to $500,000 per episode. The negotiations were soon completed, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, the cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.\n\nIn addition to the main cast, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, and Russi Taylor voice supporting characters. From 1999 to 2002, Roswell's characters were voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven. Karl Wiedergott has also appeared in minor roles, but does not voice any recurring characters. Wiedergott left the show in 2010, and since then Chris Edgerly has appeared regularly to voice minor characters. Repeat \"special guest\" cast members include Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Joe Mantegna, Maurice LaMarche, and Kelsey Grammer. Following Hartman's death in 1998, the characters he voiced (Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz) were retired; Wallace's character of Edna Krabappel was retired as well after her death in 2013.\n\nEpisodes will quite often feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians and scientists. In the earlier seasons, most of the guest stars voiced characters, but eventually more started appearing as themselves. Tony Bennett was the first guest star to appear as himself, appearing briefly in the season two episode \"Dancin' Homer\". The Simpsons holds the world record for \"Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series\".\n\nThe Simpsons has been dubbed into several other languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It is also one of the few programs dubbed in both standard French and Quebec French. The show has been broadcast in Arabic, but due to Islamic customs, numerous aspects of the show have been changed. For example, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs. Because of such changes, the Arabized version of the series met with a negative reaction from the lifelong Simpsons fans in the area.\n\n<h3>Animation</h3>\n\nSeveral different U.S. and international studios animate The Simpsons. Throughout the run of the animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, the animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo. With the debut of the series, because of an increased workload, Fox subcontracted production to several local and foreign studios. These are AKOM, Anivision, Rough Draft Studios, USAnimation, and Toonzone Entertainment.\n\nFor the first three seasons, Klasky Csupo animated The Simpsons in the United States. In 1992, the show's production company, Gracie Films, switched domestic production to Film Roman, who continued to animate the show until 2016. In Season 14, production switched from traditional cel animation to digital ink and paint. The first episode to experiment with digital coloring was \"Radioactive Man\" in 1995. Animators used digital ink and paint during production of the season 12 episode \"Tennis the Menace\", but Gracie Films delayed the regular use of digital ink and paint until two seasons later. The already completed \"Tennis the Menace\" was broadcast as made.\n\nThe production staff at the U.S. animation studio, Film Roman, draws storyboards, designs new characters, backgrounds, props and draws character and background layouts, which in turn become animatics to be screened for the writers at Gracie Films for any changes to be made before the work is shipped overseas. The overseas studios then draw the inbetweens, ink and paint, and render the animation to tape before it is shipped back to the United States to be delivered to Fox three to four months later.\n\nThe series began high-definition production in Season 20; the first episode, \"Take My Life, Please\", aired February 15, 2009. The move to HDTV included a new opening sequence. Matt Groening called it a complicated change because it affected the timing and composition of animation.\n\n<h2>Themes</h2>\nThe Simpsons uses the standard setup of a situational comedy, or sitcom, as its premise. The series centers on a family and their life in a typical American town, serving as a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle. However, because of its animated nature, The Simpsons scope is larger than that of a regular sitcom. The town of Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. By having Homer work in a nuclear power plant, the show can comment on the state of the environment. Through Bart and Lisa's days at Springfield Elementary School, the show's writers illustrate pressing or controversial issues in the field of education. The town features a vast array of media channels—from kids' television programming to local news, which enables the producers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry.\n\nSome commentators say the show is political in nature and susceptible to a left-wing bias. Al Jean acknowledged in an interview that \"We [the show] are of liberal bent.\" The writers often evince an appreciation for liberal ideals, but the show makes jokes across the political spectrum. The show portrays government and large corporations as callous entities that take advantage of the common worker. Thus, the writers often portray authority figures in an unflattering or negative light. In The Simpsons, politicians are corrupt, ministers such as Reverend Lovejoy are indifferent to churchgoers, and the local police force is incompetent. Religion also figures as a recurring theme. In times of crisis, the family often turns to God, and the show has dealt with most of the major religions.\n\n<h2>Hallmarks</h2>\n\n<h3>Opening sequence</h3>\nThe Simpsons opening sequence is one of the show's most memorable hallmarks. The standard opening has gone through three iterations (a replacement of some shots at the start of the second season, and a brand new sequence when the show switched to high-definition in 2009).\n\nEach has the same basic sequence of events: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title towards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the family on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down on their couch to watch television. The original opening was created by David Silverman, and was the first task he did when production began on the show. The series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro style piece. This piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.\n\nOne of the most distinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from episode to episode: Bart writes different things on the school chalkboard, Lisa plays different solos on her saxophone (or occasionally a different instrument), and different gags accompany the family as they enter their living room to sit on the couch.\n\n<h3>Halloween episodes</h3>\nThe special Halloween episode has become an annual tradition. \"Treehouse of Horror\" first broadcast in 1990 as part of season two and established the pattern of three separate, self-contained stories in each Halloween episode. These pieces usually involve the family in some horror, science fiction, or supernatural setting and often parody or pay homage to a famous piece of work in those genres. They always take place outside the normal continuity of the show. Although the Treehouse series is meant to be seen on Halloween, this changed by the 2000s, when new installments have premiered after Halloween due to Fox's current contract with Major League Baseball's World Series, however, since 2011, every Treehouse of Horror episode has aired in October.\n\n<h3>Humor</h3>\nThe show's humor turns on cultural references that cover a wide spectrum of society so that viewers from all generations can enjoy the show. Such references, for example, come from movies, television, music, literature, science, and history. The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags into the show's background via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs, newspapers, billboards, and elsewhere. The audience may often not notice the visual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so fleeting that they become apparent only by pausing a video recording of the show or viewing it in slow motion. Kristin Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a \"flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show.\"\n\nOne of Bart's early hallmarks was his prank calls to Moe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak in which Bart calls Moe and asks for a gag name. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but soon realizes it is a prank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were apparently based on a series of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings, though Groening has denied any causal connection.\nMoe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis \"Red\" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side. As the series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up with a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, and the pranks were dropped as a regular joke during the fourth season. The Simpsons also often includes self-referential humor. The most common form is jokes about Fox Broadcasting. For example, the episode \"She Used to Be My Girl\" included a scene in which a Fox News Channel van drove down the street while displaying a large \"Bush Cheney 2004\" banner and playing Queen's \"We Are the Champions\", in reference to the 2004 U.S. presidential election and claims of conservative bias in Fox News.\n\nThe show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and secondary characters have at least one each. Notable expressions include Homer's annoyed grunt \"D'oh!\", Mr. Burns' \"Excellent\" and Nelson Muntz's \"Ha-ha!\" Some of Bart's catchphrases, such as \"¡Ay, caramba!\", \"Don't have a cow, man!\" and \"Eat my shorts!\" appeared on T-shirts in the show's early days. However, Bart rarely used the latter two phrases until after they became popular through the merchandising. The use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The episode \"Bart Gets Famous\" mocks catchphrase-based humor, as Bart achieves fame on the Krusty the Clown Show solely for saying \"I didn't do it.\"\n\n<h4>Foreshadowing of actual events</h4>\nThe Simpsons has gained notoriety for jokes that eventually became reality. Perhaps the most famous example comes from the episode \"Bart to the Future\", which mentions billionaire Donald Trump having been President of the United States at one time and leaving the nation broke. The episode first aired in 2000, sixteen years before Trump was elected. Another episode, \"When You Dish Upon a Star\", lampooned 20th Century Fox as a division of The Walt Disney Company. Nineteen years later, Disney purchased Fox. Other examples of The Simpsons predicting the future include the introduction of the Smartwatch, video chat services, autocorrection technology, and Lady Gaga's acrobatic performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show. Conversely, some fact-checking sources such as Snopes have debunked many of these claims, including the aforementioned Lady Gaga one.\n\n<h2>Influence and legacy</h2>\n\n<h3>Idioms</h3>\nA number of neologisms that originated on The Simpsons have entered popular vernacular. Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium, remarked, \"The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the Bible as our culture's greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry other textual allusions.\" The most famous catchphrase is Homer's annoyed grunt: \"D'oh!\" So ubiquitous is the expression that it is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, but without the apostrophe. Dan Castellaneta says he borrowed the phrase from James Finlayson, an actor in many Laurel and Hardy comedies, who pronounced it in a more elongated and whining tone. The staff of The Simpsons told Castellaneta to shorten the noise, and it went on to become the well-known exclamation in the television series.\n\nGroundskeeper Willie's description of the French as \"cheese-eating surrender monkeys\" was used by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg in 2003, after France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. The phrase quickly spread to other journalists. \"\" and \"embiggen\", words used in \"Lisa the Iconoclast\", have since appeared in the Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon, and scientific journals respectively. \"Kwyjibo\", a fake Scrabble word invented by Bart in \"Bart the Genius\", was used as one of the aliases of the creator of the Melissa worm. \"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords\", was used by Kent Brockman in \"Deep Space Homer\" and has become a snowclone, with variants of the utterance used to express obsequious submission. It has been used in media, such as New Scientist magazine. The dismissive term \"Meh\", believed to have been popularized by the show, entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008. Other words credited as stemming from the show include \"yoink\" and \"craptacular\".\n\nThe Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations includes several quotations from the show. As well as \"cheese-eating surrender monkeys\", Homer's lines, \"Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try\", from \"Burns' Heir\" (season five, 1994) as well as \"Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all\", from \"Eight Misbehavin'\" (season 11, 1999), entered the dictionary in August 2007.\n\nMany quotes/scenes have become popular internet memes, including Jasper Beardley‘s quote \"That's a paddlin’\" from The PTA Disbands (season 6, 1995) and Steamed Hams from 22 Short Films About Springfield (season 7, 1996).\n\n<h3>Television</h3>\nThe Simpsons was the first successful animated program in American prime time since Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in the 1970s. During most of the 1980s, US pundits considered animated shows as appropriate only for children, and animating a show was too expensive to achieve a quality suitable for prime-time television. The Simpsons changed this perception, initially leading to a short period where networks attempted to recreate prime-time cartoon success with shows like Capitol Critters, Fish Police, and Family Dog, which were expensive and unsuccessful. The Simpsons use of Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming made the episodes cheaper. The success of The Simpsons and the lower production cost prompted US television networks to take chances on other adult animated series. This development led US producers to a 1990s boom in new, animated prime-time shows for adults, such as Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Futurama and The Critic. For Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, \"The Simpsons created an audience for prime-time animation that had not been there for many, many years&nbsp;... As far as I'm concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium.\"\n\nThe Simpsons has had crossovers with four other shows. In the episode \"A Star Is Burns\", Marge invites Jay Sherman, the main character of The Critic, to be a judge for a film festival in Springfield. Matt Groening had his name removed from the episode since he had no involvement with The Critic. South Park later paid homage to The Simpsons with the episode \"Simpsons Already Did It\". In \"Simpsorama\", the Planet Express crew from Futurama come to Springfield in the present to prevent the Simpsons from destroying the future. In the Family Guy episode \"The Simpsons Guy\", the Griffins visit Springfield and meet the Simpsons.\n\nThe Simpsons has also influenced live-action shows like Malcolm in the Middle, which featured the use of sight gags and did not use a laugh track unlike most sitcoms. Malcolm in the Middle debuted January 9, 2000, in the time slot after The Simpsons. Ricky Gervais called The Simpsons an influence on The Office, and fellow British sitcom Spaced was, according to its director Edgar Wright, \"an attempt to do a live-action The Simpsons.\" In Georgia, the animated television sitcom The Samsonadzes, launched in November 2009, has been noted for its very strong resemblance with The Simpsons, which its creator Shalva Ramishvili has acknowledged.\n\n<h2>Reception and achievements</h2>\n\n<h3>Early success</h3>\nThe Simpsons was the Fox network's first television series to rank among a season's top 30 highest-rated shows. In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed \"Bartmania\". He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold; as many as one million were sold on some days. Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as \"I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?\" and \"Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')\". The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2&nbsp;billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales. Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.\n\nDue to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons time slot from 8:00&nbsp;p.m. ET on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it competed with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time. Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed \"Bill vs. Bart\" rivalry. \"Bart Gets an F\" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen ratings, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6&nbsp;million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network, and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons. The show moved back to its Sunday slot in 1994 and has remained there ever since.\n\nThe Simpsons has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, and it has been noted for being described as \"the most irreverent and unapologetic show on the air.\" In a 1990 review of the show, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it as \"the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on The Simpsons.\" Tucker also described the show as a \"pop-cultural phenomenon, a prime-time cartoon show that appeals to the entire family.\"\n\n<h3>Run length achievements</h3>\nOn February 9, 1997, The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones with the episode \"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show\" as the longest-running prime-time animated series in the United States. In 2004, The Simpsons replaced The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 to 1966) as the longest-running sitcom (animated or live action) in the United States. In 2009, The Simpsons surpassed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriets record of 435 episodes and is now recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest running sitcom (in terms of episode count). In October 2004, Scooby-Doo briefly overtook The Simpsons as the American animated show with the highest number of episodes (albeit under several different iterations). However, network executives in April 2005 again cancelled Scooby-Doo, which finished with 371 episodes, and The Simpsons reclaimed the title with 378 episodes at the end of their seventeenth season. In May 2007, The Simpsons reached their 400th episode at the end of the eighteenth season. While The Simpsons has the record for the number of episodes by an American animated show, other animated series have surpassed The Simpsons. For example, the Japanese anime series Sazae-san has over 7,000 episodes to its credit.\n\nIn 2009, Fox began a year-long celebration of the show titled \"Best. 20 Years. Ever.\" to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons. One of the first parts of the celebration is the \"Unleash Your Yellow\" contest in which entrants must design a poster for the show. The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after \"Bart the Genius\" aired on January 14, 1990), with The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special&nbsp;– In 3-D! On Ice!, a documentary special by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the \"cultural phenomenon of The Simpsons\".\n\nAs of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), The Simpsons became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, having surpassed the 1955–1975 run of Gunsmoke. On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons also surpassed Gunsmokes 635-episode count with the episode \"Forgive and Regret.\"\n\nOn February 6, 2019, it was announced that The Simpsons has been renewed for Seasons 31 and 32.\n\n<h3>Awards and accolades</h3>\nThe Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. In a 1999 issue celebrating the 20th century's greatest achievements in arts and entertainment, Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television series. In that same issue, Time included Bart Simpson in the , the publication's list of the century's 100 most influential people. Bart was the only fictional character on the list. On January 14, 2000, the Simpsons were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also in 2000, Entertainment Weekly magazine TV critic Ken Tucker named The Simpsons the greatest television show of the 1990s. Furthermore, viewers of the UK television channel Channel 4 have voted The Simpsons at the top of two polls: 2001's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows, and 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons, with Homer Simpson voted into first place in 2001's 100 Greatest TV Characters. Homer also placed ninth on Entertainment Weekly list of the \"50 Greatest TV icons\". In 2002, The Simpsons ranked #8 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and was ranked the #6 cult show in 2004. In 2007, it moved to #8 on TV Guide's cult shows list and was included in Time list of the \"100 Best TV Shows of All Time\". In 2008 the show was placed in first on Entertainment Weekly \"Top 100 Shows of the Past 25 Years\". Empire named it the greatest TV show of all time. In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer \"the greatest character of the last 20 years\", while in 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed The Simpsons as the 11th \"best written\" series in television history. In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Simpsons as the greatest TV cartoon of all time and the tenth greatest show of all time. A 2015 The Hollywood Reporter survey of 2,800 actors, producers, directors, and other industry people named it as their #10 favorite show. In 2015, British newspaper The Telegraph named The Simpsons as one of the 10 best TV sitcoms of all time. Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked The Simpsons as the greatest American TV series of all time in their 2016 book .\n\n<h4>Controversy</h4>\nBart's rebellious, bad boy nature, which underlies his misbehavior and rarely leads to any punishment, led some people to characterize him as a poor role model for children. In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a \"threat to learning\" because of his \"underachiever and proud of it\" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education. Others described him as \"egotistical, aggressive and mean-spirited\". In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him \"angry, confused, frustrated\". In response, Matt Groening said, \"That sums up Bart, all right. Most people are in a struggle to be normal [and] he thinks normal is very boring, and does things that others just wished they dare do.\" On January 27, 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush said, \"We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.\" The writers rushed out a tongue-in-cheek reply in the form of a short segment which aired three days later before a rerun of \"Stark Raving Dad\" in which Bart replied, \"Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.\"\n\nVarious episodes of the show have generated controversy. The Simpsons visit Australia in \"Bart vs. Australia\" (season six, 1995) and Brazil in \"Blame It on Lisa\" (season 13, 2002) and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the visited countries. In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which claimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime, kidnappings, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten Fox with legal action. Groening was a fierce and vocal critic of the episode \"A Star Is Burns\" (season six, 1995) which featured a crossover with The Critic. He felt that it was just an advertisement for The Critic, and that people would incorrectly associate the show with him. When he was unsuccessful in getting the episode pulled, he had his name removed from the credits and went public with his concerns, openly criticizing James L. Brooks and saying the episode \"violates the Simpsons' universe.\" In response, Brooks said, \"I am furious with Matt,&nbsp;... he's allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in the press is going too far.&nbsp;... his behavior right now is rotten.\"\n\n\"The Principal and the Pauper\" (season nine, 1997) is one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening and by Harry Shearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, \"That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience.\"\n\n<h4>Ban</h4>\nThe show has reportedly been taken off the air in several countries. China banned it from prime-time television in August 2006, \"in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios.\" In 2008, Venezuela barred the show from airing on morning television as it was deemed \"unsuitable for children\". The same year, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons, South Park and some other Western cartoons be removed from broadcast schedules \"for propaganda of various vices\" and the broadcaster's license to be revoked. However, the court decision later dismissed this request.\n\n<h4>Declining quality</h4>\nCritics' reviews of early Simpsons episodes praised the show for its sassy humor, wit, realism, and intelligence. However, in the late 1990s, around the airing of season 10, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some critics started calling the show \"tired\". By 2000, some long-term fans had become disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-driven plots to what they perceived as an overemphasis on zany antics. Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald attributed the decline in quality to an abandonment of character-driven storylines in favor of and overuse of celebrity cameo appearances and references to popular culture. Schembri wrote in 2011: \"The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from commanding attention to merely being attention-seeking. It began by proving that cartoon characters don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested with real emotions. Now the show has in essence fermented into a limp parody of itself. Memorable story arcs have been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity walk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue.\"\n\nIn 2010, the BBC noted \"the common consensus is that The Simpsons golden era ended after season nine\", and Todd Leopold of CNN, in an article looking at its perceived decline, stated \"for many fans&nbsp;... the glory days are long past.\" Similarly, Tyler Wilson of Coeur d'Alene Press has referred to seasons one to nine as the show's \"golden age\", and Ian Nathan of Empire described the show's classic era as being \"say, the first ten seasons.\" Jon Heacock of LucidWorks stated that \"for the first ten years [seasons], the show was consistently at the top of its game\", with \"so many moments, quotations, and references – both epic and obscure – that helped turn the Simpson family into the cultural icons that they remain to this day.\"\n\nMike Scully, who was showrunner during seasons nine through twelve, has been the subject of criticism. Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote that \"under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon&nbsp;... Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny, but it hasn't been touching in years.\" When asked in 2007 how the series' longevity is sustained, Scully joked: \"Lower your quality standards. Once you've done that you can go on forever.\"\n\nAl Jean, showrunner since season thirteen, has also been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that the show has continued to decline in quality under his tenure. Former writers have complained that under Jean, the show is \"on auto-pilot\", \"too sentimental\", and the episodes are \"just being cranked out.\" Some critics believe that the show has \"entered a steady decline under Jean and is no longer really funny.\" John Ortved, author of , characterized the Jean era as \"toothless\", and criticized what he perceived as the show's increase in social and political commentary. Jean responded: \"Well, it's possible that we've declined. But honestly, I've been here the whole time and I do remember in season two people saying, 'It's gone downhill.' If we'd listened to that then we would have stopped after episode 13. I'm glad we didn't.\"\n\nIn 2004, Harry Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: \"I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now.\" Dan Castellaneta responded: \"I don't agree,&nbsp;... I think Harry's issue is that the show isn't as grounded as it was in the first three or four seasons, that it's gotten crazy or a little more madcap. I think it organically changes to stay fresh.\" Also in 2004 author Douglas Coupland described claims of declining quality in the series as \"hogwash\", saying \"The Simpsons hasn't fumbled the ball in fourteen years, it's hardly likely to fumble it now.\" In an April 2006 interview, Groening said: \"I honestly don't see any end in sight. I think it's possible that the show will become too financially cumbersome&nbsp;... but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or better than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative, and the stories do things that we haven't done before. So creatively there's no reason to quit.\"\n\nIn 2016, popular culture writer Anna Leszkiewicz suggested that even though The Simpsons still holds cultural relevance, contemporary appeal is only for the first ten seasons, with recent episodes only garnering mainstream attention when a favorite character from the golden era is killed off, or when new information and shock twists are given for old characters. The series' ratings have also declined; while the first season enjoyed an average of 13.4&nbsp;million viewing households per episode in the U.S., the twenty-first season had an average of 7.2&nbsp;million viewers.\n\nAlan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz argued in their 2016 book titled TV (The Book) that the peak of The Simpsons are \"roughly seasons [three through twelve]\", and that despite the decline, episodes from the later seasons such as \"Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind\" and \"Holidays of Future Passed\" could be considered on par with the earlier classic episodes, further stating that \"even if you want to call the show today a thin shadow of its former self, think about how mind-boggingly great its former self had to be for so-diminished a version to be watchable at all.\"\n\n<h4>Apu controversy</h4>\n\nThe stereotypical nature of the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has long been the subject of controversy. This was particularly highlighted by Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu's 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu. In the film, Kondabolu states that as a child he was a fan of The Simpsons and liked Apu, but he now finds the character's stereotypical nature troublesome. Defenders of the character responded that the show is built on comical stereotypes, with creator Matt Groening saying, \"that's the nature of cartooning.\" He added that he was \"proud of what we do on the show\", and \"it's a time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended\". In response to the controversy, Apu's voice actor, Hank Azaria, said he was willing to step aside from his role as Apu: \"The most important thing is to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character.\"\n\nThe criticisms were referenced in the season 29 episode \"No Good Read Goes Unpunished\", when Lisa breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience by saying, \"Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?\" to which Marge replies, \"Some things will be addressed at a later date.\" Lisa adds, \"If at all.\" This reference was clarified by the fact that there was a framed photo of Apu with the caption on the photo saying \"Don't have a cow, Apu\", a play on Bart's catchphrase \"Don't have a cow, man,\" as well as the fact that Hindus do not eat cows as they are considered sacred. In October 2018, it was reported that Apu would be written out of the show, however that report was later debunked by the producers.\n\n<h2>Other media</h2>\n<h3>Comic books</h3>\n\nNumerous Simpson-related comic books have been released over the years. So far, nine comic book series have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993. The first comic strips based on The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine Simpsons Illustrated, which was a companion magazine to the show. The comic strips were popular and a one-shot comic book titled Simpsons Comics and Stories, containing four different stories, was released in 1993 for the fans. The book was a success and due to this, the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, and his companions Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Steve Vance and Cindy Vance created the publishing company Bongo Comics. Issues of Simpsons Comics, Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Bart Simpson have been collected and reprinted in trade paperbacks in the United States by HarperCollins.\n\n<h3>Film</h3>\n20th Century Fox, Gracie Films, and Film Roman produced The Simpsons Movie, an animated film that was released on July 27, 2007. The film was directed by long-time Simpsons producer David Silverman and written by a team of Simpsons writers comprising Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, George Meyer, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, David Mirkin, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, and Ian Maxtone-Graham. Production of the film occurred alongside continued writing of the series despite long-time claims by those involved in the show that a film would enter production only after the series had concluded. There had been talk of a possible feature-length Simpsons film ever since the early seasons of the series. James L. Brooks originally thought that the story of the episode \"Kamp Krusty\" was suitable for a film, but he encountered difficulties in trying to expand the script to feature-length. For a long time, difficulties such as lack of a suitable story and an already fully engaged crew of writers delayed the project.\n\nOn August 10, 2018, 20th Century Fox announced that a sequel is in development.\n\n<h3>Music</h3>\n\nCollections of original music featured in the series have been released on the albums Songs in the Key of Springfield, Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and . Several songs have been recorded with the purpose of a single or album release and have not been featured on the show. The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200 and becoming certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The first single from the album was the pop rap song \"Do the Bartman\", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any credit. The Yellow Album was released in 1998, but received poor reception and did not chart in any country.\n\n<h3>The Simpsons Ride</h3>\nIn 2007, it was officially announced that The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride, would be implemented into the Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood. It officially opened May 15, 2008 in Florida and May 19, 2008, in Hollywood. In the ride, patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called Krustyland built by Krusty the Clown. However, Sideshow Bob is loose from prison to get revenge on Krusty and the Simpson family. It features more than 24 regular characters from The Simpsons and features the voices of the regular cast members, as well as Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor and Kelsey Grammer. Harry Shearer did not participate in the ride, so none of his characters has vocal parts.\n\n<h3>Video games</h3>\n\nNumerous video games based on the show have been produced. Some of the early games include Konami's arcade game The Simpsons (1991) and Acclaim Entertainment's (1991). More modern games include (2001), (2003) and The Simpsons Game (2007). Electronic Arts, which produced The Simpsons Game, has owned the exclusive rights to create video games based on the show since 2005. In 2010, they released a game called The Simpsons Arcade for iOS. Another EA-produced mobile game, , was released in 2012 for iOS users, then in 2013 for Android and Kindle users. Two Simpsons pinball machines have been produced: one that was available briefly after the first season, and another in 2007, both out of production.\n\n<h2>Syndication</h2>\nThe cable television network FXX has exclusive cable and digital syndication rights for The Simpsons. Original contracts had previously stated that syndication rights for The Simpsons would not be sold to cable until the series conclusion, at a time when cable syndication deals were highly rare. The series has been syndicated to local broadcast stations in nearly all markets throughout the United States since September 1993.\n\nFXX premiered The Simpsons on their network on August 21, 2014 by starting a twelve-day marathon which featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already been released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Simpsons Movie, which FX Networks had already owned the rights to air. It was the longest continuous marathon in the history of television (until VH1 Classic aired a 433-hour, nineteen-day, marathon of Saturday Night Live in 2015; celebrating that program's 40th anniversary). The first day of the marathon was the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the ratings more than tripled that those of regular prime time programming for FXX. Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after night, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each night.\n\nOn May 14, 2019, it was announced that FX Networks would share The Simpsons with Freeform starting October 2, 2019.\n\n<h2>Streaming and digital sell-through</h2>\n\nOn October 21, 2014, a digital service courtesy of the FXNOW app, called Simpsons World, launched. Simpsons World with every episode of the series accessible to authenticated FX subscribers, and is available on game consoles such as Xbox One, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and online via web browser. There was early criticism of both wrong aspect ratios for earlier episodes and the length of commercial breaks on the streaming service, but there are now fewer commercial breaks during individual episodes. Later it was announced that Simpsons World would now let users watch all of the SD episodes in their original format. Simpsons World was discontinued after the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019, where the series streams exclusively. However, the series is only available cropped to with no option to view the original versions, reigniting criticisms of cropping old episodes. In response, Disney stated \"...in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series.\"\n\nThe season 3 premiere \"Stark Raving Dad\", which features Michael Jackson as the voice of Leon Kompowsky, was pulled out of rotation in 2019 by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Al Jean after HBO aired the documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men share details into how Jackson allegedly abused them as children. It is therefore unavailable on Disney+. However, the episode is still available on The Complete Third Season DVD box set released on August 26, 2003.\n\nIn July 2017, all episodes from seasons 4 to 19 were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store, in Canada.\n\n<h2>Merchandise</h2>\n\nThe popularity of The Simpsons has made it a billion-dollar merchandising industry. The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from T-shirts to posters. The Simpsons has been used as a theme for special editions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, Operation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer Do? and Simpsons Jeopardy!. Several card games such as trump cards and The Simpsons Trading Card Game have also been released. Many official or unofficial Simpsons books such as episode guides have been published. Many episodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years. When the first season DVD was released in 2001, it quickly became the best-selling television DVD in history, although it was later overtaken by the first season of Chappelle's Show. In particular, seasons one through seventeen were released on DVD for 13 years between September 2001 to December 2014 in the U.S./Canada (Region 1), Europe (Region 2) and Australia/New Zealand/Latin America (Region 4). However, on April 19, 2015, Al Jean announced that the Season 17 DVD would be the last one ever produced, leaving the collection from Seasons 1 to 17, Season 20 (released out of order in 2010), with Seasons 18, 19, and 21 onwards unreleased. Jean also stated that the deleted scenes and commentaries would try to be released to the Simpsons World app, and that they were pushing for Simpsons World to be expanded outside of the U.S. Two years later, however, on July 22, 2017, it was announced that Season 18 would be released on December 5, 2017 on DVD. Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019 on DVD.\n\nIn 2003, about 500 companies around the world were licensed to use Simpsons characters in their advertising. As a promotion for The Simpsons Movie, twelve 7-Eleven stores were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts and sold The Simpsons related products. These included \"Buzz Cola\", \"Krusty-O\" cereal, pink doughnuts with sprinkles, and \"Squishees\".\n\nIn 2008, consumers around the world spent $750&nbsp;million on merchandise related to The Simpsons, with half of the amount originating from the United States. By 2009, 20th Century Fox had greatly increased merchandising efforts. On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, to commemorate the show's twentieth anniversary. The Simpsons is the first television series still in production to receive this recognition. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009. Approximately one billion were printed, but only 318 million were sold, costing the Postal Service $1.2&nbsp;million.\n\n<h2>References</h2>\n<h3>Notes</h3>\n<h3>Bibliography</h3>\n<ul>\n\n</ul>\n\n<h2>Further reading</h2>\n<ul>\n\n</ul>\n\n<h2>External links</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Simpsons at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Archived from the original on June 4, 2017.</li>\n<li>The Simpsons Archive</li>\n\n</ul>\n", "<h1>List of The Simpsons episodes</h1>\n<section begin=head />\n\nThe Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a satirical depiction of a dysfunctional middle class American lifestyle starring the eponymous family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the town of Springfield, the show lampoons both American culture and the human condition. The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening named each character (other than Bart) after members of his own family. The shorts became part of the Fox series The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime-time hit show.\n\nSince its debut on December 17, 1989, The Simpsons has broadcast 673 episodes. The show holds several American television longevity records. It is the longest-running prime-time animated series and longest-running sitcom in the United States. On February 19, 2012, The Simpsons reached its 500th episode in the twenty-third season. With its twenty-first season (2009–10), the series surpassed Gunsmoke in seasons to claim the spot as the longest-running American prime-time scripted television series, and later also surpassed Gunsmoke in episode count with the episode \"Forgive and Regret\" on April 29, 2018.\n\nEpisodes of The Simpsons have won dozens of awards, including 31 Emmys (ten for Outstanding Animated Program), 30 Annies, and a Peabody. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007 and grossed US$526.2 million worldwide. The first twenty seasons are available on DVD in regions 1, 2, and 4, with the twentieth season released on both DVD and Blu-ray in 2010 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. On April 8, 2015, showrunner Al Jean announced that there would be no more DVD or Blu-ray releases, shifting focus to digital distribution, although this was later reversed on July 22, 2017. Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019, on DVD.\n\nOn November 4, 2016, The Simpsons was renewed for seasons 29 and 30. It reached its 600th episode on October 16, 2016, in its twenty-eighth season. The thirtieth season ended on May 12, 2019. On February 6, 2019, The Simpsons was renewed for seasons 31 and 32, in which the latter will contain the 700th episode.\n\nSeason 31 premiered on September 29, 2019.\n\n<h2>Series overview</h2>\n<h3>Ratings</h3>\nWith its first season, The Simpsons became the Fox network's first series to rank among the top thirty highest rated shows of a television season. Due to this success, Fox decided to switch The Simpsons timeslot in hopes of higher ratings for the shows airing after it. The series moved from 8:00&nbsp;p.m. on Sunday nights to the same time on Thursdays, where it competed with The Cosby Show, the number one show at the time.\n\nMany of the producers were against the move, as The Simpsons had been in the top ten while airing on Sunday, and they felt the move would destroy its ratings. Ratings wise, new episodes of The Cosby Show beat The Simpsons every time during the second season and The Simpsons eventually fell out of the top ten. At the end of the season Cosby averaged as the fifth highest rated show on television, while The Simpsons was thirty-eighth.\n\nThe show continued in its Thursday timeslot until the sixth season, when, in 1994, it reverted to its original slot on Sunday. It has remained there ever since.\n\n<h4>Key</h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Seasons 1–11 are ranked by households (in millions).</li>\n<li>Seasons 12–30 are ranked by total viewers (in millions).</li>\n\n</ul>\n<h4>Notes</h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Until the 1996/97 television season, ratings were calculated over 30 weeks from September to mid April. Episodes that aired after mid-April were not part of the overall average and ranking.</<li>\n<li>Season one had approximately 13.4 million viewing households. Season two dropped 9%, resulting in an average of approximately 12.2 million viewing households.</<li>\n<li>Season three had an average rating of 13.0 points. For the 1991/92 season, each point represented 921,000 viewing households, resulting in a total average of approximately 12.0 million viewing households.</<li>\n<li>Season four had approximately 12.1 million viewing households. Season five dropped 13%, resulting in an average of approximately 10.5 million viewing households.<section end=head /></<li>\n\n</ol>\n<h2>Episodes</h2>\n\n<h3>Season 21 (2009–10)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 22 (2010–11)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 23 (2011–12)</h3>\n\n<h3>The Longest Daycare (2012)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 24 (2012–13)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 25 (2013–14)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 26 (2014–15)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 27 (2015–16)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 28 (2016–17)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 29 (2017–18)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 30 (2018–19)</h3>\n\n<h3>Season 31 (2019–20)</h3>\n\n<h2>Specials</h2>\n<h2>Upcoming episodes without a scheduled air date</h2>\n\n<h2>See also</h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"The Simpsons Guy\"&nbsp;– a crossover episode of Family Guy</li>\n<li>The Simpsons home media</li>\n</ul>\n<section begin=tail />\n\n<h2>References</h2>\nBibliography\n\n<h2>External links</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>List of The Simpsons episodes at The Simpsons.com</li>\n<li>List of The Simpsons episodes at TV.com</li>\n\n</ul>\n\n<section end=tail />\n", "<h1>The Simpsons (season 20)</h1>\nThe Simpsons twentieth season aired on Fox from September 28, 2008 to May 17, 2009. With this season, the show tied Gunsmoke as the longest-running American primetime television series in terms of total number of seasons. The season was released on Blu-ray on January 12, 2010, making this the first season to be released on Blu-ray. It was released on DVD in Region 1 on January 12, 2010, and in Region 4 on January 20, 2010. The season was only released on DVD in Region 2 on September 17, 2010 in a few areas.\n\n<h2>Production</h2>\nIt contained nine holdover episodes from the season 19 (KABF) production line.\n\nProduction on the season was delayed because of contract negotiations with the six main voice actors. The dispute was resolved, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 (US) per episode. The delay in production caused the planned 22 episodes to be shortened to 20. In addition, voice actor Dan Castellaneta was credited as a consulting producer for the first time. The main cast consisted of Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. The recurring cast consisted of Marcia Wallace, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Russi Taylor, and Karl Wiedergott.\n\nThe Simpsons began high-definition production in season 20. The first episode in HD, \"Take My Life, Please\", aired on February 15, 2009. \"Take My Life, Please\" is also the first to feature the new opening sequence.\n\nAlso, more episodes were given the TV-14 rating than any previous season. The episodes that were given this rating were \"Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes\", \"Treehouse of Horror XIX\", \"Gone Maggie Gone\", \"No Loan Again, Naturally\", \"Dangerous Curves\", \"Wedding For Disaster\", and \"Four Great Women and a Manicure\".\n\n<h3>20th anniversary</h3>\nIn 2009, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons, Fox announced that a year-long celebration of the show titled \"Best. 20 Years. Ever.\" would run from January 14, 2009 to January 14, 2010. Several contests were run, including the \"Unleash Your Yellow\" contest in which entrants designed a poster for the show and \"Best. Couch Gag. Ever.\" where fans created their own live-action couch gag video.\n\nAs part of the celebration, the Irish-themed episode \"In the Name of the Grandfather\" premiered on Sky1 in the United Kingdom and Ireland on March 17, 2009. It was the first-ever episode of the show to air in Europe before being seen in the United States. The American debut of the episode was on March 22.\n\n<h2>Reception</h2>\n<h3>Critical reception</h3>\nRobert Canning of IGN gave the season a 7.9 out of 10 improving 1.3 from the past season. He gave it a positive review saying that it was \"Good\" and that \"With at least two more years of The Simpsons guaranteed, this unexpected but very welcome resurgence has come at a perfect time. If they can keep the momentum moving, the series is primed to once again approach perfection and go out at the top of its game.\"\n\n<h3>Awards</h3>\n\nEpisodes from the twentieth season received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations. \"Gone Maggie Gone\" was nominated for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming less than One Hour) and Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. Dan Castellaneta won the Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy for voicing Homer in the episode \"Father Knows Worst\"; Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer were also nominated for the episodes \"Eeny Teeny Maya Moe\" and \"The Burns and the Bees\", respectively. The winners were announced on September 12, 2009. The Simpsons was the only series to be nominated in the Animation category at the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2010. The nominees were: Stephanie Gillis for \"The Burns and the Bees\", John Frink for \"Eeny Teeny Maya, Moe\", Billy Kimball & Ian Maxtone-Graham for Gone Maggie Gone\", Don Payne for \"Take My Life, Please\", and Joel H. Cohen for \"Wedding for Disaster\". The award was won by Joel H. Cohen.\n\n<h3>Nielsen ratings</h3>\nThe season ranked 77th in ratings with an average of 6.93 million viewers and an 18/49 rating of 3.4/9 and the rerun timeslot ranking 113th. The most viewed episode was \"Treehouse of Horror XIX\", with 12.48 million watching it and a 4.9 Nielsen rating. The least viewed episode was \"Four Great Women and a Manicure\" which is the second-least-viewed episode of the series, after Season 21's \"Million Dollar Maybe\".\n\n<h2>Episodes</h2>\n\n<onlyinclude></onlyinclude>\n\n<h2>Blu-ray and DVD release</h2>\nThe DVD and Blu-ray boxset for season twenty was released by 20th Century Fox in the United States and Canada on January 12, 2010, eight months after it had completed broadcast on television. As well as every episode from the season, the Blu-ray and DVD releases feature hand-drawn menus by Matt Groening.\n<h2>Notes</h2>\n<h2>References</h2>\n\n<dl>\n<dt>Bibliography</dt>\n\n</dl>\n\n<h2>External links</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Season 20 at The Simpsons.com</li>\n\n</ul>\n" ]

[ "# The Simpsons\n\nThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the\nFox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of working-class\nlife, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart,\nLisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and\nparodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition.\nThe family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a\nseries of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a\ndysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members,\nsubstituting Bart for his own name. The shorts became a part of The Tracey\nUllman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed\ninto a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the\nTop 30 ratings in a season (1989–90). Since its debut on December 17, 1989,\nepisodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast. It is the longest-running\nAmerican sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime\ntelevision series, both in terms of seasons and number of episodes. The\nSimpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on\nJuly 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million. Then on October 30, 2007, a\nvideo game was released. Currently, The Simpsons finished airing its thirtieth\nseason, which began airing September 30, 2018. The Simpsons was renewed for a\nthirty-first and thirty-second season on February 6, 2019, the latter of which\nwill contain the 700th episode. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie\nFilms and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television. The\nSimpsons received acclaim throughout its first nine or ten seasons, which are\ngenerally considered its \"Golden Age\". Time named it the 20th century's best\ntelevision series, and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club named it \"television's\ncrowning achievement regardless of format\". On January 14, 2000, the Simpson\nfamily was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of\nawards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34\nAnnie Awards, and a Peabody Award. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase \"D'oh!\" has\nbeen adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many\nother later adult-oriented animated sitcoms. However, it has also been\ncriticized for a perceived decline in quality over the years.\n\n## Premise\n\n### Characters\n\nThe Simpsons is known for its wide ensemble of main and supporting characters.\nThe main characters are the Simpson family, who live in a fictional \"Middle\nAmerica\" town of Springfield. Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector\nat the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless,\nbuffoonish personality. He is married to Marge Bouvier, a stereotypical\nAmerican housewife and mother. They have three children: Bart, a ten-year-old\ntroublemaker and prankster; Lisa, a precocious eight-year-old activist; and\nMaggie, the baby of the family who rarely speaks, but communicates by sucking\non a pacifier. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine\ntheir relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care\nabout one another. Homer's dad Grampa Simpson lives in the Springfield\nRetirement Home after Homer forced his dad to sell his house so that his\nfamily could buy theirs. Grampa Simpson has had starring roles in several\nepisodes. The family also owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat,\nSnowball V, renamed Snowball II in \"I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot\". Both pets have\nhad starring roles in several episodes. The show includes an array of quirky\nsupporting characters, which include Homer's co-workers (also friends) Lenny\nLeonard and Carl Carlson, the school principal Seymour Skinner and teachers\nEdna Krabappel and Elizabeth Hoover, neighbor Ned Flanders, friends Barney\nGumble, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Moe Szyslak, Milhouse Van Houten, and Nelson\nMuntz, extended relatives Patty and Selma Bouvier, townspeople such as Mayor\nQuimby, Chief Clancy Wiggum, tycoon Charles Montgomery Burns and his executive\nassistant Waylon Smithers, and local celebrities Krusty the Clown and news\nreporter Kent Brockman. The creators originally intended many of these\ncharacters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A\nnumber of them have gained expanded roles and subsequently starred in their\nown episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a\nlarge supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV.\n\n### Continuity and the floating timeline\n\nDespite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays\npassing, the characters do not age between episodes (either physically or in\nstated age), and generally appear just as they did when the series began. The\nseries uses a floating timeline in which episodes generally take place in the\nyear the episode is produced even though the characters do not age. Flashbacks\nand flashforwards do occasionally depict the characters at other points in\ntheir lives, with the timeline of these depictions also generally floating\nrelative to the year the episode is produced. For example, in the 1991 episode\n\"I Married Marge\", Bart (who is always 10 years old) appears to be born in\n1980 or 1981. But in the 1995 episode \"And Maggie Makes Three\", Maggie (who\nalways appears to be around 1 year old) appears to be born in 1993 or 1994. In\nthe 1992 episode \"Lisa's First Word\", Lisa (who is always 8) is shown to have\nbeen born in 1984. A canon of the show does exist, although Treehouse of\nHorror episodes and any fictional story told within the series are typically\nnon-canon. However, continuity is inconsistent and limited in The Simpsons.\nFor example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but may not\nbe able to read in another. Lessons learned by the family in one episode may\nbe forgotten in the next. Some examples of limited continuity include Sideshow\nBob's appearances where Bart and Lisa flashback at all the crimes he committed\nin Springfield or when the characters try to remember things that happened in\nprevious episodes.\n\n### Setting\n\nThe Simpsons takes place in the fictional American town of Springfield in an\nunknown and impossible-to-determine U.S. state. The show is intentionally\nevasive in regard to Springfield's location. Springfield's geography, and that\nof its surroundings, contains coastlines, deserts, vast farmland, tall\nmountains, or whatever the story or joke requires. Groening has said that\nSpringfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the city where he grew\nup. The name \"Springfield\" is a common one in America and appears in at least\n29 states. Groening has said that he named it after Springfield, Oregon, and\nthe fictitious Springfield which was the setting of the series Father Knows\nBest. He \"figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a\ncity in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This\nwill be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do.\"\n\n## Production\n\n### Development\n\nWhen producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show The\nTracey Ullman Show, he decided to include small animated sketches before and\nafter the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's\nLife in Hell comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series\nof animated shorts. Groening initially intended to present an animated version\nof his Life in Hell series. However, Groening later realized that animating\nLife in Hell would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's\nwork. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of\nBrooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a\ndysfunctional family that became the Simpsons. He named the characters after\nhis own family members, substituting \"Bart\" for his own name, adopting an\nanagram of the word \"brat\". The Simpson family first appeared as shorts in The\nTracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Groening submitted only basic sketches\nto the animators and assumed that the figures would be cleaned up in\nproduction. However, the animators merely re-traced his drawings, which led to\nthe crude appearance of the characters in the initial shorts. The animation\nwas produced domestically at Klasky Csupo, with Wes Archer, David Silverman,\nand Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. Colorist Gyorgyi Peluce\nwas the person who decided to make the characters yellow. In 1989, a team of\nproduction companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour series for the Fox\nBroadcasting Company. The team included the Klasky Csupo animation house.\nBrooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that\nprevented Fox from interfering with the show's content. Groening said his goal\nin creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he\ncalled \"the mainstream trash\" that they were watching. The half-hour series\npremiered on December 17, 1989, with \"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire\".\n\"Some Enchanted Evening\" was the first full-length episode produced, but it\ndid not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season,\nbecause of animation problems. In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed a lawsuit against\nFox, claiming that her show was the source of the series' success. The suit\nsaid she should receive a share of the profits of The Simpsons—a claim\nrejected by the courts.\n\n### Executive producers and showrunners\n\nMatt Groening and James L. Brooks have served as executive producers during\nthe show's entire history, and also function as creative consultants. Sam\nSimon, described by former Simpsons director Brad Bird as \"the unsung hero\" of\nthe show, served as creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He was\nconstantly at odds with Groening, Brooks and the show's production company\nGracie Films and left in 1993. Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that sees\nhim receive a share of the profits every year, and an executive producer\ncredit despite not having worked on the show since 1993, at least until his\npassing in 2015. A more involved position on the show is the showrunner, who\nacts as head writer and manages the show's production for an entire season.\n\n### Writing\n\nThe first team of writers, assembled by Sam Simon, consisted of John\nSwartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay\nKogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. Newer Simpsons writing teams typically consist\nof sixteen writers who propose episode ideas at the beginning of each\nDecember. The main writer of each episode writes the first draft. Group\nrewriting sessions develop final scripts by adding or removing jokes,\ninserting scenes, and calling for re-readings of lines by the show's vocal\nperformers. Until 2004, George Meyer, who had developed the show since the\nfirst season, was active in these sessions. According to long-time writer Jon\nVitti, Meyer usually invented the best lines in a given episode, even though\nother writers may receive script credits. Each episode takes six months to\nproduce so the show rarely comments on current events. Credited with sixty\nepisodes, John Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons. One\nof the best-known former writers is Conan O'Brien, who contributed to several\nepisodes in the early 1990s before replacing David Letterman as host of the\ntalk show Late Night. English comedian Ricky Gervais wrote the episode \"Homer\nSimpson, This Is Your Wife\", becoming the first celebrity to both write and\nguest star in the same episode. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, writers of the\nfilm Superbad, wrote the episode \"Homer the Whopper\", with Rogen voicing a\ncharacter in it. At the end of 2007, the writers of The Simpsons went on\nstrike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East.\nThe show's writers had joined the guild in 1998.\n\n### Voice actors\n\nThe Simpsons has six main cast members: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy\nCartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Castellaneta\nvoices Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie,\nMayor Quimby, Barney Gumble, and other adult, male characters. Julie Kavner\nvoices Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma, as well as several minor characters.\nCastellaneta and Kavner had been a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast and\nwere given the parts so that new actors would not be needed. Cartwright voices\nBart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other children. Smith, the voice\nof Lisa Simpson, is the only cast member who regularly voices only one\ncharacter, although she occasionally plays other episodic characters. The\nproducers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Smith had\ninitially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director\nBonita Pietila believed her voice was too high, so she was given the role of\nLisa instead. Cartwright was originally brought in to voice Lisa, but upon\narriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the\n\"middle child\" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright\nbecame more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as \"devious,\nunderachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever\". Groening let her try\nout for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the\nspot. Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had\nbeen professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show.\nAzaria and Shearer do not voice members of the title family, but play a\nmajority of the male townspeople. Azaria, who has been a part of the Simpsons\nregular voice cast since the second season, voices recurring characters such\nas Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Professor Frink.\nShearer provides voices for Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned\nFlanders, Reverend Lovejoy and Dr. Hibbert. Every main cast member has won a\nPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. With one\nexception, episode credits list only the voice actors, and not the characters\nthey voice. Both Fox and the production crew wanted to keep their identities\nsecret during the early seasons and, therefore, closed most of the recording\nsessions while refusing to publish photos of the recording artists. However,\nthe network eventually revealed which roles each actor performed in the\nepisode \"Old Money\", because the producers said the voice actors should\nreceive credit for their work. In 2003, the cast appeared in an episode of\nInside the Actors Studio, doing live performances of their characters' voices.\nThe six main actors were paid $30,000 per episode until 1998, when they were\ninvolved in a pay dispute with Fox. The company threatened to replace them\nwith new actors, even going as far as preparing for casting of new voices, but\nseries creator Groening supported the actors in their action. The issue was\nsoon resolved and, from 1998 to 2004, they were paid $125,000 per episode. The\nshow's revenue continued to rise through syndication and DVD sales, and in\nApril 2004 the main cast stopped appearing for script readings, demanding they\nbe paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later and their\nsalaries were increased to something between $250,000 and $360,000 per\nepisode. In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to\nnew contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a \"healthy bump\"\nin salary to an amount close to $500,000 per episode. The negotiations were\nsoon completed, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 per episode.\nThree years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production\ncosts were cut, the cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just\nover $300,000 per episode. In addition to the main cast, Pamela Hayden, Tress\nMacNeille, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, and Russi Taylor voice supporting\ncharacters. From 1999 to 2002, Roswell's characters were voiced by Marcia\nMitzman Gaven. Karl Wiedergott has also appeared in minor roles, but does not\nvoice any recurring characters. Wiedergott left the show in 2010, and since\nthen Chris Edgerly has appeared regularly to voice minor characters. Repeat\n\"special guest\" cast members include Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz,\nJoe Mantegna, Maurice LaMarche, and Kelsey Grammer. Following Hartman's death\nin 1998, the characters he voiced (Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz) were retired;\nWallace's character of Edna Krabappel was retired as well after her death in\n2013. Episodes will quite often feature guest voices from a wide range of\nprofessions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians and\nscientists. In the earlier seasons, most of the guest stars voiced characters,\nbut eventually more started appearing as themselves. Tony Bennett was the\nfirst guest star to appear as himself, appearing briefly in the season two\nepisode \"Dancin' Homer\". The Simpsons holds the world record for \"Most Guest\nStars Featured in a Television Series\". The Simpsons has been dubbed into\nseveral other languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.\nIt is also one of the few programs dubbed in both standard French and Quebec\nFrench. The show has been broadcast in Arabic, but due to Islamic customs,\nnumerous aspects of the show have been changed. For example, Homer drinks soda\ninstead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs. Because\nof such changes, the Arabized version of the series met with a negative\nreaction from the lifelong Simpsons fans in the area.\n\n### Animation\n\nSeveral different U.S. and international studios animate The Simpsons.\nThroughout the run of the animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, the\nanimation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo. With the debut of the\nseries, because of an increased workload, Fox subcontracted production to\nseveral local and foreign studios. These are AKOM, Anivision, Rough Draft\nStudios, USAnimation, and Toonzone Entertainment. For the first three seasons,\nKlasky Csupo animated The Simpsons in the United States. In 1992, the show's\nproduction company, Gracie Films, switched domestic production to Film Roman,\nwho continued to animate the show until 2016. In Season 14, production\nswitched from traditional cel animation to digital ink and paint. The first\nepisode to experiment with digital coloring was \"Radioactive Man\" in 1995.\nAnimators used digital ink and paint during production of the season 12\nepisode \"Tennis the Menace\", but Gracie Films delayed the regular use of\ndigital ink and paint until two seasons later. The already completed \"Tennis\nthe Menace\" was broadcast as made. The production staff at the U.S. animation\nstudio, Film Roman, draws storyboards, designs new characters, backgrounds,\nprops and draws character and background layouts, which in turn become\nanimatics to be screened for the writers at Gracie Films for any changes to be\nmade before the work is shipped overseas. The overseas studios then draw the\ninbetweens, ink and paint, and render the animation to tape before it is\nshipped back to the United States to be delivered to Fox three to four months\nlater. The series began high-definition production in Season 20; the first\nepisode, \"Take My Life, Please\", aired February 15, 2009. The move to HDTV\nincluded a new opening sequence. Matt Groening called it a complicated change\nbecause it affected the timing and composition of animation.\n\n## Themes\n\nThe Simpsons uses the standard setup of a situational comedy, or sitcom, as\nits premise. The series centers on a family and their life in a typical\nAmerican town, serving as a satirical parody of a middle class American\nlifestyle. However, because of its animated nature, The Simpsons scope is\nlarger than that of a regular sitcom. The town of Springfield acts as a\ncomplete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern\nsociety. By having Homer work in a nuclear power plant, the show can comment\non the state of the environment. Through Bart and Lisa's days at Springfield\nElementary School, the show's writers illustrate pressing or controversial\nissues in the field of education. The town features a vast array of media\nchannels—from kids' television programming to local news, which enables the\nproducers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry. Some\ncommentators say the show is political in nature and susceptible to a left-\nwing bias. Al Jean acknowledged in an interview that \"We [the show] are of\nliberal bent.\" The writers often evince an appreciation for liberal ideals,\nbut the show makes jokes across the political spectrum. The show portrays\ngovernment and large corporations as callous entities that take advantage of\nthe common worker. Thus, the writers often portray authority figures in an\nunflattering or negative light. In The Simpsons, politicians are corrupt,\nministers such as Reverend Lovejoy are indifferent to churchgoers, and the\nlocal police force is incompetent. Religion also figures as a recurring theme.\nIn times of crisis, the family often turns to God, and the show has dealt with\nmost of the major religions.\n\n## Hallmarks\n\n### Opening sequence\n\nThe Simpsons opening sequence is one of the show's most memorable hallmarks.\nThe standard opening has gone through three iterations (a replacement of some\nshots at the start of the second season, and a brand new sequence when the\nshow switched to high-definition in 2009). Each has the same basic sequence of\nevents: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title\ntowards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the\nfamily on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down\non their couch to watch television. The original opening was created by David\nSilverman, and was the first task he did when production began on the show.\nThe series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in\n1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro style piece. This piece\nhas been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career. One of the most\ndistinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from\nepisode to episode: Bart writes different things on the school chalkboard,\nLisa plays different solos on her saxophone (or occasionally a different\ninstrument), and different gags accompany the family as they enter their\nliving room to sit on the couch.\n\n### Halloween episodes\n\nThe special Halloween episode has become an annual tradition. \"Treehouse of\nHorror\" first broadcast in 1990 as part of season two and established the\npattern of three separate, self-contained stories in each Halloween episode.\nThese pieces usually involve the family in some horror, science fiction, or\nsupernatural setting and often parody or pay homage to a famous piece of work\nin those genres. They always take place outside the normal continuity of the\nshow. Although the Treehouse series is meant to be seen on Halloween, this\nchanged by the 2000s, when new installments have premiered after Halloween due\nto Fox's current contract with Major League Baseball's World Series, however,\nsince 2011, every Treehouse of Horror episode has aired in October.\n\n### Humor\n\nThe show's humor turns on cultural references that cover a wide spectrum of\nsociety so that viewers from all generations can enjoy the show. Such\nreferences, for example, come from movies, television, music, literature,\nscience, and history. The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags\ninto the show's background via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs,\nnewspapers, billboards, and elsewhere. The audience may often not notice the\nvisual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so fleeting that they become\napparent only by pausing a video recording of the show or viewing it in slow\nmotion. Kristin Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a \"flurry of cultural\nreferences, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable\nself-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme\nas a television show.\" One of Bart's early hallmarks was his prank calls to\nMoe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak in which Bart calls Moe and asks for a gag\nname. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but soon realizes it is a\nprank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were apparently based on a\nseries of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings, though Groening has\ndenied any causal connection. Moe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis\n\"Red\" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side. As\nthe series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up\nwith a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, and the pranks were\ndropped as a regular joke during the fourth season. The Simpsons also often\nincludes self-referential humor. The most common form is jokes about Fox\nBroadcasting. For example, the episode \"She Used to Be My Girl\" included a\nscene in which a Fox News Channel van drove down the street while displaying a\nlarge \"Bush Cheney 2004\" banner and playing Queen's \"We Are the Champions\", in\nreference to the 2004 U.S. presidential election and claims of conservative\nbias in Fox News. The show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and\nsecondary characters have at least one each. Notable expressions include\nHomer's annoyed grunt \"D'oh!\", Mr. Burns' \"Excellent\" and Nelson Muntz's \"Ha-\nha!\" Some of Bart's catchphrases, such as \"¡Ay, caramba!\", \"Don't have a cow,\nman!\" and \"Eat my shorts!\" appeared on T-shirts in the show's early days.\nHowever, Bart rarely used the latter two phrases until after they became\npopular through the merchandising. The use of many of these catchphrases has\ndeclined in recent seasons. The episode \"Bart Gets Famous\" mocks catchphrase-\nbased humor, as Bart achieves fame on the Krusty the Clown Show solely for\nsaying \"I didn't do it.\"\n\n#### Foreshadowing of actual events\n\nThe Simpsons has gained notoriety for jokes that eventually became reality.\nPerhaps the most famous example comes from the episode \"Bart to the Future\",\nwhich mentions billionaire Donald Trump having been President of the United\nStates at one time and leaving the nation broke. The episode first aired in\n2000, sixteen years before Trump was elected. Another episode, \"When You Dish\nUpon a Star\", lampooned 20th Century Fox as a division of The Walt Disney\nCompany. Nineteen years later, Disney purchased Fox. Other examples of The\nSimpsons predicting the future include the introduction of the Smartwatch,\nvideo chat services, autocorrection technology, and Lady Gaga's acrobatic\nperformance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show. Conversely, some fact-checking\nsources such as Snopes have debunked many of these claims, including the\naforementioned Lady Gaga one.\n\n## Influence and legacy\n\n### Idioms\n\nA number of neologisms that originated on The Simpsons have entered popular\nvernacular. Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium,\nremarked, \"The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the\nBible as our culture's greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry\nother textual allusions.\" The most famous catchphrase is Homer's annoyed\ngrunt: \"D'oh!\" So ubiquitous is the expression that it is now listed in the\nOxford English Dictionary, but without the apostrophe. Dan Castellaneta says\nhe borrowed the phrase from James Finlayson, an actor in many Laurel and Hardy\ncomedies, who pronounced it in a more elongated and whining tone. The staff of\nThe Simpsons told Castellaneta to shorten the noise, and it went on to become\nthe well-known exclamation in the television series. Groundskeeper Willie's\ndescription of the French as \"cheese-eating surrender monkeys\" was used by\nNational Review columnist Jonah Goldberg in 2003, after France's opposition to\nthe proposed invasion of Iraq. The phrase quickly spread to other journalists.\n\"\" and \"embiggen\", words used in \"Lisa the Iconoclast\", have since appeared in\nthe Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon, and scientific journals\nrespectively. \"Kwyjibo\", a fake Scrabble word invented by Bart in \"Bart the\nGenius\", was used as one of the aliases of the creator of the Melissa worm.\n\"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords\", was used by Kent Brockman in\n\"Deep Space Homer\" and has become a snowclone, with variants of the utterance\nused to express obsequious submission. It has been used in media, such as New\nScientist magazine. The dismissive term \"Meh\", believed to have been\npopularized by the show, entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008. Other\nwords credited as stemming from the show include \"yoink\" and \"craptacular\".\nThe Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations includes several quotations from\nthe show. As well as \"cheese-eating surrender monkeys\", Homer's lines, \"Kids,\nyou tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try\", from\n\"Burns' Heir\" (season five, 1994) as well as \"Kids are the best, Apu. You can\nteach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves,\nwhat with the Internet and all\", from \"Eight Misbehavin'\" (season 11, 1999),\nentered the dictionary in August 2007. Many quotes/scenes have become popular\ninternet memes, including Jasper Beardley‘s quote \"That's a paddlin’\" from The\nPTA Disbands (season 6, 1995) and Steamed Hams from 22 Short Films About\nSpringfield (season 7, 1996).\n\n### Television\n\nThe Simpsons was the first successful animated program in American prime time\nsince Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in the 1970s. During most of the 1980s,\nUS pundits considered animated shows as appropriate only for children, and\nanimating a show was too expensive to achieve a quality suitable for prime-\ntime television. The Simpsons changed this perception, initially leading to a\nshort period where networks attempted to recreate prime-time cartoon success\nwith shows like Capitol Critters, Fish Police, and Family Dog, which were\nexpensive and unsuccessful. The Simpsons use of Korean animation studios for\ntweening, coloring, and filming made the episodes cheaper. The success of The\nSimpsons and the lower production cost prompted US television networks to take\nchances on other adult animated series. This development led US producers to a\n1990s boom in new, animated prime-time shows for adults, such as Beavis and\nButt-Head, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Futurama and The Critic.\nFor Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, \"The Simpsons created an audience for\nprime-time animation that had not been there for many, many years ... As far\nas I'm concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is\nin many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium.\" The Simpsons has\nhad crossovers with four other shows. In the episode \"A Star Is Burns\", Marge\ninvites Jay Sherman, the main character of The Critic, to be a judge for a\nfilm festival in Springfield. Matt Groening had his name removed from the\nepisode since he had no involvement with The Critic. South Park later paid\nhomage to The Simpsons with the episode \"Simpsons Already Did It\". In\n\"Simpsorama\", the Planet Express crew from Futurama come to Springfield in the\npresent to prevent the Simpsons from destroying the future. In the Family Guy\nepisode \"The Simpsons Guy\", the Griffins visit Springfield and meet the\nSimpsons. The Simpsons has also influenced live-action shows like Malcolm in\nthe Middle, which featured the use of sight gags and did not use a laugh track\nunlike most sitcoms. Malcolm in the Middle debuted January 9, 2000, in the\ntime slot after The Simpsons. Ricky Gervais called The Simpsons an influence\non The Office, and fellow British sitcom Spaced was, according to its director\nEdgar Wright, \"an attempt to do a live-action The Simpsons.\" In Georgia, the\nanimated television sitcom The Samsonadzes, launched in November 2009, has\nbeen noted for its very strong resemblance with The Simpsons, which its\ncreator Shalva Ramishvili has acknowledged.\n\n## Reception and achievements\n\n### Early success\n\nThe Simpsons was the Fox network's first television series to rank among a\nseason's top 30 highest-rated shows. In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the\nmost popular characters on television in what was termed \"Bartmania\". He\nbecame the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts.\nIn the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold; as many as\none million were sold on some days. Believing Bart to be a bad role model,\nseveral American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to\ncaptions such as \"I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?\" and \"Underachiever\n('And proud of it, man!')\". The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated\n$2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales. Because of his\npopularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in\nadvertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in\nthe main plot. Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox\nNetwork decided to switch The Simpsons time slot from 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday\nnight to the same time on Thursday, where it competed with The Cosby Show on\nNBC, the number one show at the time. Through the summer, several news outlets\npublished stories about the supposed \"Bill vs. Bart\" rivalry. \"Bart Gets an F\"\n(season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it\nreceived a lower Nielsen ratings, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show,\nwhich had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household\ntelevisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research\nestimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number\none show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most\nwatched episode in the history of the Fox Network, and it is still the highest\nrated episode in the history of The Simpsons. The show moved back to its\nSunday slot in 1994 and has remained there ever since. The Simpsons has\nreceived overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, and it has been noted\nfor being described as \"the most irreverent and unapologetic show on the air.\"\nIn a 1990 review of the show, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it\nas \"the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons.\nIt's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three\nbig networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on The Simpsons.\" Tucker also\ndescribed the show as a \"pop-cultural phenomenon, a prime-time cartoon show\nthat appeals to the entire family.\"\n\n### Run length achievements\n\nOn February 9, 1997, The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones with the episode\n\"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show\" as the longest-running prime-time\nanimated series in the United States. In 2004, The Simpsons replaced The\nAdventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 to 1966) as the longest-running sitcom\n(animated or live action) in the United States. In 2009, The Simpsons\nsurpassed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriets record of 435 episodes and is\nnow recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest running sitcom\n(in terms of episode count). In October 2004, Scooby-Doo briefly overtook The\nSimpsons as the American animated show with the highest number of episodes\n(albeit under several different iterations). However, network executives in\nApril 2005 again cancelled Scooby-Doo, which finished with 371 episodes, and\nThe Simpsons reclaimed the title with 378 episodes at the end of their\nseventeenth season. In May 2007, The Simpsons reached their 400th episode at\nthe end of the eighteenth season. While The Simpsons has the record for the\nnumber of episodes by an American animated show, other animated series have\nsurpassed The Simpsons. For example, the Japanese anime series Sazae-san has\nover 7,000 episodes to its credit. In 2009, Fox began a year-long celebration\nof the show titled \"Best. 20 Years. Ever.\" to celebrate the 20th anniversary\nof the premiere of The Simpsons. One of the first parts of the celebration is\nthe \"Unleash Your Yellow\" contest in which entrants must design a poster for\nthe show. The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after\n\"Bart the Genius\" aired on January 14, 1990), with The Simpsons 20th\nAnniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!, a documentary special by documentary\nfilmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the \"cultural phenomenon of The\nSimpsons\". As of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), The Simpsons became the\nlongest-running American scripted primetime television series, having\nsurpassed the 1955–1975 run of Gunsmoke. On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons also\nsurpassed Gunsmokes 635-episode count with the episode \"Forgive and Regret.\"\nOn February 6, 2019, it was announced that The Simpsons has been renewed for\nSeasons 31 and 32.\n\n### Awards and accolades\n\nThe Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including\n34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. In a 1999 issue\ncelebrating the 20th century's greatest achievements in arts and\nentertainment, Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television\nseries. In that same issue, Time included Bart Simpson in the , the\npublication's list of the century's 100 most influential people. Bart was the\nonly fictional character on the list. On January 14, 2000, the Simpsons were\nawarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also in 2000, Entertainment\nWeekly magazine TV critic Ken Tucker named The Simpsons the greatest\ntelevision show of the 1990s. Furthermore, viewers of the UK television\nchannel Channel 4 have voted The Simpsons at the top of two polls: 2001's 100\nGreatest Kids' TV shows, and 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons, with Homer\nSimpson voted into first place in 2001's 100 Greatest TV Characters. Homer\nalso placed ninth on Entertainment Weekly list of the \"50 Greatest TV icons\".\nIn 2002, The Simpsons ranked #8 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time,\nand was ranked the #6 cult show in 2004. In 2007, it moved to #8 on TV Guide's\ncult shows list and was included in Time list of the \"100 Best TV Shows of All\nTime\". In 2008 the show was placed in first on Entertainment Weekly \"Top 100\nShows of the Past 25 Years\". Empire named it the greatest TV show of all time.\nIn 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer \"the greatest character of the last\n20 years\", while in 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed The Simpsons as\nthe 11th \"best written\" series in television history. In 2013, TV Guide ranked\nThe Simpsons as the greatest TV cartoon of all time and the tenth greatest\nshow of all time. A 2015 The Hollywood Reporter survey of 2,800 actors,\nproducers, directors, and other industry people named it as their #10 favorite\nshow. In 2015, British newspaper The Telegraph named The Simpsons as one of\nthe 10 best TV sitcoms of all time. Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt\nZoller Seitz ranked The Simpsons as the greatest American TV series of all\ntime in their 2016 book .\n\n#### Controversy\n\nBart's rebellious, bad boy nature, which underlies his misbehavior and rarely\nleads to any punishment, led some people to characterize him as a poor role\nmodel for children. In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a \"threat to\nlearning\" because of his \"underachiever and proud of it\" attitude and negative\nattitude regarding his education. Others described him as \"egotistical,\naggressive and mean-spirited\". In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart\nas a bad role model for children, calling him \"angry, confused, frustrated\".\nIn response, Matt Groening said, \"That sums up Bart, all right. Most people\nare in a struggle to be normal [and] he thinks normal is very boring, and does\nthings that others just wished they dare do.\" On January 27, 1992, then-\nPresident George H. W. Bush said, \"We are going to keep on trying to\nstrengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the\nWaltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.\" The writers rushed out a tongue-in-\ncheek reply in the form of a short segment which aired three days later before\na rerun of \"Stark Raving Dad\" in which Bart replied, \"Hey, we're just like the\nWaltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too.\" Various episodes of\nthe show have generated controversy. The Simpsons visit Australia in \"Bart vs.\nAustralia\" (season six, 1995) and Brazil in \"Blame It on Lisa\" (season 13,\n2002) and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the\nvisited countries. In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which\nclaimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime,\nkidnappings, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten\nFox with legal action. Groening was a fierce and vocal critic of the episode\n\"A Star Is Burns\" (season six, 1995) which featured a crossover with The\nCritic. He felt that it was just an advertisement for The Critic, and that\npeople would incorrectly associate the show with him. When he was unsuccessful\nin getting the episode pulled, he had his name removed from the credits and\nwent public with his concerns, openly criticizing James L. Brooks and saying\nthe episode \"violates the Simpsons' universe.\" In response, Brooks said, \"I am\nfurious with Matt, ... he's allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in\nthe press is going too far. ... his behavior right now is rotten.\" \"The\nPrincipal and the Pauper\" (season nine, 1997) is one of the most controversial\nepisodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the\nrevelation that Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season,\nwas an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening and by Harry\nShearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer\nrecalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, \"That's so wrong.\nYou're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years\nof investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a\nstory we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and\ngratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience.\"\n\n#### Ban\n\nThe show has reportedly been taken off the air in several countries. China\nbanned it from prime-time television in August 2006, \"in an effort to protect\nChina's struggling animation studios.\" In 2008, Venezuela barred the show from\nairing on morning television as it was deemed \"unsuitable for children\". The\nsame year, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons,\nSouth Park and some other Western cartoons be removed from broadcast schedules\n\"for propaganda of various vices\" and the broadcaster's license to be revoked.\nHowever, the court decision later dismissed this request.\n\n#### Declining quality\n\nCritics' reviews of early Simpsons episodes praised the show for its sassy\nhumor, wit, realism, and intelligence. However, in the late 1990s, around the\nairing of season 10, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some\ncritics started calling the show \"tired\". By 2000, some long-term fans had\nbecome disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-\ndriven plots to what they perceived as an overemphasis on zany antics. Jim\nSchembri of The Sydney Morning Herald attributed the decline in quality to an\nabandonment of character-driven storylines in favor of and overuse of\ncelebrity cameo appearances and references to popular culture. Schembri wrote\nin 2011: \"The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from\ncommanding attention to merely being attention-seeking. It began by proving\nthat cartoon characters don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested\nwith real emotions. Now the show has in essence fermented into a limp parody\nof itself. Memorable story arcs have been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity\nwalk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue.\" In 2010, the BBC noted \"the common\nconsensus is that The Simpsons golden era ended after season nine\", and Todd\nLeopold of CNN, in an article looking at its perceived decline, stated \"for\nmany fans ... the glory days are long past.\" Similarly, Tyler Wilson of Coeur\nd'Alene Press has referred to seasons one to nine as the show's \"golden age\",\nand Ian Nathan of Empire described the show's classic era as being \"say, the\nfirst ten seasons.\" Jon Heacock of LucidWorks stated that \"for the first ten\nyears [seasons], the show was consistently at the top of its game\", with \"so\nmany moments, quotations, and references – both epic and obscure – that helped\nturn the Simpson family into the cultural icons that they remain to this day.\"\nMike Scully, who was showrunner during seasons nine through twelve, has been\nthe subject of criticism. Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote that \"under\nScully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon ... Episodes that once\nwould have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset now end with\nHomer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny,\nbut it hasn't been touching in years.\" When asked in 2007 how the series'\nlongevity is sustained, Scully joked: \"Lower your quality standards. Once\nyou've done that you can go on forever.\" Al Jean, showrunner since season\nthirteen, has also been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that the\nshow has continued to decline in quality under his tenure. Former writers have\ncomplained that under Jean, the show is \"on auto-pilot\", \"too sentimental\",\nand the episodes are \"just being cranked out.\" Some critics believe that the\nshow has \"entered a steady decline under Jean and is no longer really funny.\"\nJohn Ortved, author of , characterized the Jean era as \"toothless\", and\ncriticized what he perceived as the show's increase in social and political\ncommentary. Jean responded: \"Well, it's possible that we've declined. But\nhonestly, I've been here the whole time and I do remember in season two people\nsaying, 'It's gone downhill.' If we'd listened to that then we would have\nstopped after episode 13. I'm glad we didn't.\" In 2004, Harry Shearer\ncriticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: \"I rate the last\nthree seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now.\"\nDan Castellaneta responded: \"I don't agree, ... I think Harry's issue is that\nthe show isn't as grounded as it was in the first three or four seasons, that\nit's gotten crazy or a little more madcap. I think it organically changes to\nstay fresh.\" Also in 2004 author Douglas Coupland described claims of\ndeclining quality in the series as \"hogwash\", saying \"The Simpsons hasn't\nfumbled the ball in fourteen years, it's hardly likely to fumble it now.\" In\nan April 2006 interview, Groening said: \"I honestly don't see any end in\nsight. I think it's possible that the show will become too financially\ncumbersome ... but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or\nbetter than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and\nimaginative, and the stories do things that we haven't done before. So\ncreatively there's no reason to quit.\" In 2016, popular culture writer Anna\nLeszkiewicz suggested that even though The Simpsons still holds cultural\nrelevance, contemporary appeal is only for the first ten seasons, with recent\nepisodes only garnering mainstream attention when a favorite character from\nthe golden era is killed off, or when new information and shock twists are\ngiven for old characters. The series' ratings have also declined; while the\nfirst season enjoyed an average of 13.4 million viewing households per episode\nin the U.S., the twenty-first season had an average of 7.2 million viewers.\nAlan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz argued in their 2016 book titled TV (The\nBook) that the peak of The Simpsons are \"roughly seasons [three through\ntwelve]\", and that despite the decline, episodes from the later seasons such\nas \"Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind\" and \"Holidays of Future Passed\"\ncould be considered on par with the earlier classic episodes, further stating\nthat \"even if you want to call the show today a thin shadow of its former\nself, think about how mind-boggingly great its former self had to be for so-\ndiminished a version to be watchable at all.\"\n\n#### Apu controversy\n\nThe stereotypical nature of the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has long been\nthe subject of controversy. This was particularly highlighted by Indian-\nAmerican comedian Hari Kondabolu's 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu. In\nthe film, Kondabolu states that as a child he was a fan of The Simpsons and\nliked Apu, but he now finds the character's stereotypical nature troublesome.\nDefenders of the character responded that the show is built on comical\nstereotypes, with creator Matt Groening saying, \"that's the nature of\ncartooning.\" He added that he was \"proud of what we do on the show\", and \"it's\na time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended\". In\nresponse to the controversy, Apu's voice actor, Hank Azaria, said he was\nwilling to step aside from his role as Apu: \"The most important thing is to\nlisten to South Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk\nabout what they feel and how they think about this character.\" The criticisms\nwere referenced in the season 29 episode \"No Good Read Goes Unpunished\", when\nLisa breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience by saying, \"Something\nthat started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically\nincorrect. What can you do?\" to which Marge replies, \"Some things will be\naddressed at a later date.\" Lisa adds, \"If at all.\" This reference was\nclarified by the fact that there was a framed photo of Apu with the caption on\nthe photo saying \"Don't have a cow, Apu\", a play on Bart's catchphrase \"Don't\nhave a cow, man,\" as well as the fact that Hindus do not eat cows as they are\nconsidered sacred. In October 2018, it was reported that Apu would be written\nout of the show, however that report was later debunked by the producers.\n\n## Other media\n\n### Comic books\n\nNumerous Simpson-related comic books have been released over the years. So\nfar, nine comic book series have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993.\nThe first comic strips based on The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine\nSimpsons Illustrated, which was a companion magazine to the show. The comic\nstrips were popular and a one-shot comic book titled Simpsons Comics and\nStories, containing four different stories, was released in 1993 for the fans.\nThe book was a success and due to this, the creator of The Simpsons, Matt\nGroening, and his companions Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Steve Vance and Cindy\nVance created the publishing company Bongo Comics. Issues of Simpsons Comics,\nBart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Bart Simpson have been collected and\nreprinted in trade paperbacks in the United States by HarperCollins.\n\n### Film\n\n20th Century Fox, Gracie Films, and Film Roman produced The Simpsons Movie, an\nanimated film that was released on July 27, 2007. The film was directed by\nlong-time Simpsons producer David Silverman and written by a team of Simpsons\nwriters comprising Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, George Meyer, Mike\nReiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, David Mirkin, Mike Scully, Matt Selman,\nand Ian Maxtone-Graham. Production of the film occurred alongside continued\nwriting of the series despite long-time claims by those involved in the show\nthat a film would enter production only after the series had concluded. There\nhad been talk of a possible feature-length Simpsons film ever since the early\nseasons of the series. James L. Brooks originally thought that the story of\nthe episode \"Kamp Krusty\" was suitable for a film, but he encountered\ndifficulties in trying to expand the script to feature-length. For a long\ntime, difficulties such as lack of a suitable story and an already fully\nengaged crew of writers delayed the project. On August 10, 2018, 20th Century\nFox announced that a sequel is in development.\n\n### Music\n\nCollections of original music featured in the series have been released on the\nalbums Songs in the Key of Springfield, Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and .\nSeveral songs have been recorded with the purpose of a single or album release\nand have not been featured on the show. The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues\nwas released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at #3 on the\nBillboard 200 and becoming certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry\nAssociation of America. The first single from the album was the pop rap song\n\"Do the Bartman\", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20,\n1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any\ncredit. The Yellow Album was released in 1998, but received poor reception and\ndid not chart in any country.\n\n### The Simpsons Ride\n\nIn 2007, it was officially announced that The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride,\nwould be implemented into the Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios\nHollywood. It officially opened May 15, 2008 in Florida and May 19, 2008, in\nHollywood. In the ride, patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called\nKrustyland built by Krusty the Clown. However, Sideshow Bob is loose from\nprison to get revenge on Krusty and the Simpson family. It features more than\n24 regular characters from The Simpsons and features the voices of the regular\ncast members, as well as Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor and Kelsey Grammer. Harry\nShearer did not participate in the ride, so none of his characters has vocal\nparts.\n\n### Video games\n\nNumerous video games based on the show have been produced. Some of the early\ngames include Konami's arcade game The Simpsons (1991) and Acclaim\nEntertainment's (1991). More modern games include (2001), (2003) and The\nSimpsons Game (2007). Electronic Arts, which produced The Simpsons Game, has\nowned the exclusive rights to create video games based on the show since 2005.\nIn 2010, they released a game called The Simpsons Arcade for iOS. Another EA-\nproduced mobile game, , was released in 2012 for iOS users, then in 2013 for\nAndroid and Kindle users. Two Simpsons pinball machines have been produced:\none that was available briefly after the first season, and another in 2007,\nboth out of production.\n\n## Syndication\n\nThe cable television network FXX has exclusive cable and digital syndication\nrights for The Simpsons. Original contracts had previously stated that\nsyndication rights for The Simpsons would not be sold to cable until the\nseries conclusion, at a time when cable syndication deals were highly rare.\nThe series has been syndicated to local broadcast stations in nearly all\nmarkets throughout the United States since September 1993. FXX premiered The\nSimpsons on their network on August 21, 2014 by starting a twelve-day marathon\nwhich featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already\nbeen released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Simpsons\nMovie, which FX Networks had already owned the rights to air. It was the\nlongest continuous marathon in the history of television (until VH1 Classic\naired a 433-hour, nineteen-day, marathon of Saturday Night Live in 2015;\ncelebrating that program's 40th anniversary). The first day of the marathon\nwas the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the\nratings more than tripled that those of regular prime time programming for\nFXX. Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after\nnight, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each\nnight. On May 14, 2019, it was announced that FX Networks would share The\nSimpsons with Freeform starting October 2, 2019.\n\n## Streaming and digital sell-through\n\nOn October 21, 2014, a digital service courtesy of the FXNOW app, called\nSimpsons World, launched. Simpsons World with every episode of the series\naccessible to authenticated FX subscribers, and is available on game consoles\nsuch as Xbox One, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and online via\nweb browser. There was early criticism of both wrong aspect ratios for earlier\nepisodes and the length of commercial breaks on the streaming service, but\nthere are now fewer commercial breaks during individual episodes. Later it was\nannounced that Simpsons World would now let users watch all of the SD episodes\nin their original format. Simpsons World was discontinued after the launch of\nDisney+ on November 12, 2019, where the series streams exclusively. However,\nthe series is only available cropped to with no option to view the original\nversions, reigniting criticisms of cropping old episodes. In response, Disney\nstated \"...in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some\nepisodes from Season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3\naspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the\npopular series.\" The season 3 premiere \"Stark Raving Dad\", which features\nMichael Jackson as the voice of Leon Kompowsky, was pulled out of rotation in\n2019 by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Al Jean after HBO aired the\ndocumentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men share details into how Jackson\nallegedly abused them as children. It is therefore unavailable on Disney+.\nHowever, the episode is still available on The Complete Third Season DVD box\nset released on August 26, 2003. In July 2017, all episodes from seasons 4 to\n19 were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store, in Canada.\n\n## Merchandise\n\nThe popularity of The Simpsons has made it a billion-dollar merchandising\nindustry. The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from\nT-shirts to posters. The Simpsons has been used as a theme for special\neditions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly,\nOperation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer\nDo? and Simpsons Jeopardy!. Several card games such as trump cards and The\nSimpsons Trading Card Game have also been released. Many official or\nunofficial Simpsons books such as episode guides have been published. Many\nepisodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years. When\nthe first season DVD was released in 2001, it quickly became the best-selling\ntelevision DVD in history, although it was later overtaken by the first season\nof Chappelle's Show. In particular, seasons one through seventeen were\nreleased on DVD for 13 years between September 2001 to December 2014 in the\nU.S./Canada (Region 1), Europe (Region 2) and Australia/New Zealand/Latin\nAmerica (Region 4). However, on April 19, 2015, Al Jean announced that the\nSeason 17 DVD would be the last one ever produced, leaving the collection from\nSeasons 1 to 17, Season 20 (released out of order in 2010), with Seasons 18,\n19, and 21 onwards unreleased. Jean also stated that the deleted scenes and\ncommentaries would try to be released to the Simpsons World app, and that they\nwere pushing for Simpsons World to be expanded outside of the U.S. Two years\nlater, however, on July 22, 2017, it was announced that Season 18 would be\nreleased on December 5, 2017 on DVD. Another two years later, on July 20,\n2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019 on\nDVD. In 2003, about 500 companies around the world were licensed to use\nSimpsons characters in their advertising. As a promotion for The Simpsons\nMovie, twelve 7-Eleven stores were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts and sold The\nSimpsons related products. These included \"Buzz Cola\", \"Krusty-O\" cereal, pink\ndoughnuts with sprinkles, and \"Squishees\". In 2008, consumers around the world\nspent $750 million on merchandise related to The Simpsons, with half of the\namount originating from the United States. By 2009, 20th Century Fox had\ngreatly increased merchandising efforts. On April 9, 2009, the United States\nPostal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer,\nMarge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, to commemorate the show's twentieth anniversary.\nThe Simpsons is the first television series still in production to receive\nthis recognition. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available\nfor purchase on May 7, 2009. Approximately one billion were printed, but only\n318 million were sold, costing the Postal Service $1.2 million.\n\n## References\n\n### Notes\n\n### Bibliography\n\n## Further reading\n\n## External links\n\n * The Simpsons at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Archived from the original on June 4, 2017.\n * The Simpsons Archive\n\n", "# List of The Simpsons episodes\n\nThe Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt\nGroening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a satirical depiction of a\ndysfunctional middle class American lifestyle starring the eponymous family:\nHomer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the town of Springfield, the show\nlampoons both American culture and the human condition. The family was\nconceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts\nwith producer James L. Brooks. Groening named each character (other than Bart)\nafter members of his own family. The shorts became part of the Fox series The\nTracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was\ndeveloped into a half-hour prime-time hit show. Since its debut on December\n17, 1989, The Simpsons has broadcast 673 episodes. The show holds several\nAmerican television longevity records. It is the longest-running prime-time\nanimated series and longest-running sitcom in the United States. On February\n19, 2012, The Simpsons reached its 500th episode in the twenty-third season.\nWith its twenty-first season (2009–10), the series surpassed Gunsmoke in\nseasons to claim the spot as the longest-running American prime-time scripted\ntelevision series, and later also surpassed Gunsmoke in episode count with the\nepisode \"Forgive and Regret\" on April 29, 2018. Episodes of The Simpsons have\nwon dozens of awards, including 31 Emmys (ten for Outstanding Animated\nProgram), 30 Annies, and a Peabody. The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film,\nwas released in theaters worldwide on July 26 and 27, 2007 and grossed\nUS$526.2 million worldwide. The first twenty seasons are available on DVD in\nregions 1, 2, and 4, with the twentieth season released on both DVD and Blu-\nray in 2010 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. On April 8, 2015,\nshowrunner Al Jean announced that there would be no more DVD or Blu-ray\nreleases, shifting focus to digital distribution, although this was later\nreversed on July 22, 2017. Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was\nannounced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019, on DVD. On\nNovember 4, 2016, The Simpsons was renewed for seasons 29 and 30. It reached\nits 600th episode on October 16, 2016, in its twenty-eighth season. The\nthirtieth season ended on May 12, 2019. On February 6, 2019, The Simpsons was\nrenewed for seasons 31 and 32, in which the latter will contain the 700th\nepisode. Season 31 premiered on September 29, 2019.\n\n## Series overview\n\n### Ratings\n\nWith its first season, The Simpsons became the Fox network's first series to\nrank among the top thirty highest rated shows of a television season. Due to\nthis success, Fox decided to switch The Simpsons timeslot in hopes of higher\nratings for the shows airing after it. The series moved from 8:00 p.m. on\nSunday nights to the same time on Thursdays, where it competed with The Cosby\nShow, the number one show at the time. Many of the producers were against the\nmove, as The Simpsons had been in the top ten while airing on Sunday, and they\nfelt the move would destroy its ratings. Ratings wise, new episodes of The\nCosby Show beat The Simpsons every time during the second season and The\nSimpsons eventually fell out of the top ten. At the end of the season Cosby\naveraged as the fifth highest rated show on television, while The Simpsons was\nthirty-eighth. The show continued in its Thursday timeslot until the sixth\nseason, when, in 1994, it reverted to its original slot on Sunday. It has\nremained there ever since.\n\n#### Key\n\n * Seasons 1–11 are ranked by households (in millions).\n * Seasons 12–30 are ranked by total viewers (in millions).\n\n#### Notes\n\n 1. Until the 1996/97 television season, ratings were calculated over 30 weeks from September to mid April. Episodes that aired after mid-April were not part of the overall average and ranking.\n 2. Season one had approximately 13.4 million viewing households. Season two dropped 9%, resulting in an average of approximately 12.2 million viewing households.\n 3. Season three had an average rating of 13.0 points. For the 1991/92 season, each point represented 921,000 viewing households, resulting in a total average of approximately 12.0 million viewing households.\n 4. Season four had approximately 12.1 million viewing households. Season five dropped 13%, resulting in an average of approximately 10.5 million viewing households. \n\n## Episodes\n\n### Season 21 (2009–10)\n\n### Season 22 (2010–11)\n\n### Season 23 (2011–12)\n\n### The Longest Daycare (2012)\n\n### Season 24 (2012–13)\n\n### Season 25 (2013–14)\n\n### Season 26 (2014–15)\n\n### Season 27 (2015–16)\n\n### Season 28 (2016–17)\n\n### Season 29 (2017–18)\n\n### Season 30 (2018–19)\n\n### Season 31 (2019–20)\n\n## Specials\n\n## Upcoming episodes without a scheduled air date\n\n## See also\n\n * \"The Simpsons Guy\" – a crossover episode of Family Guy\n * The Simpsons home media\n\n## References\n\nBibliography\n\n## External links\n\n * List of The Simpsons episodes at The Simpsons.com\n * List of The Simpsons episodes at TV.com\n\n", "# The Simpsons (season 20)\n\nThe Simpsons twentieth season aired on Fox from September 28, 2008 to May 17,\n2009. With this season, the show tied Gunsmoke as the longest-running American\nprimetime television series in terms of total number of seasons. The season\nwas released on Blu-ray on January 12, 2010, making this the first season to\nbe released on Blu-ray. It was released on DVD in Region 1 on January 12,\n2010, and in Region 4 on January 20, 2010. The season was only released on DVD\nin Region 2 on September 17, 2010 in a few areas.\n\n## Production\n\nIt contained nine holdover episodes from the season 19 (KABF) production line.\nProduction on the season was delayed because of contract negotiations with the\nsix main voice actors. The dispute was resolved, and the actors' salary was\nraised to $400,000 (US) per episode. The delay in production caused the\nplanned 22 episodes to be shortened to 20. In addition, voice actor Dan\nCastellaneta was credited as a consulting producer for the first time. The\nmain cast consisted of Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley\nSmith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. The recurring cast consisted of Marcia\nWallace, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Russi Taylor, and Karl Wiedergott.\nThe Simpsons began high-definition production in season 20. The first episode\nin HD, \"Take My Life, Please\", aired on February 15, 2009. \"Take My Life,\nPlease\" is also the first to feature the new opening sequence. Also, more\nepisodes were given the TV-14 rating than any previous season. The episodes\nthat were given this rating were \"Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes\", \"Treehouse of\nHorror XIX\", \"Gone Maggie Gone\", \"No Loan Again, Naturally\", \"Dangerous\nCurves\", \"Wedding For Disaster\", and \"Four Great Women and a Manicure\".\n\n### 20th anniversary\n\nIn 2009, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons,\nFox announced that a year-long celebration of the show titled \"Best. 20 Years.\nEver.\" would run from January 14, 2009 to January 14, 2010. Several contests\nwere run, including the \"Unleash Your Yellow\" contest in which entrants\ndesigned a poster for the show and \"Best. Couch Gag. Ever.\" where fans created\ntheir own live-action couch gag video. As part of the celebration, the Irish-\nthemed episode \"In the Name of the Grandfather\" premiered on Sky1 in the\nUnited Kingdom and Ireland on March 17, 2009. It was the first-ever episode of\nthe show to air in Europe before being seen in the United States. The American\ndebut of the episode was on March 22.\n\n## Reception\n\n### Critical reception\n\nRobert Canning of IGN gave the season a 7.9 out of 10 improving 1.3 from the\npast season. He gave it a positive review saying that it was \"Good\" and that\n\"With at least two more years of The Simpsons guaranteed, this unexpected but\nvery welcome resurgence has come at a perfect time. If they can keep the\nmomentum moving, the series is primed to once again approach perfection and go\nout at the top of its game.\"\n\n### Awards\n\nEpisodes from the twentieth season received five Primetime Emmy Award\nnominations. \"Gone Maggie Gone\" was nominated for Outstanding Animated Program\n(For Programming less than One Hour) and Outstanding Music Composition for a\nSeries. Dan Castellaneta won the Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy for\nvoicing Homer in the episode \"Father Knows Worst\"; Hank Azaria and Harry\nShearer were also nominated for the episodes \"Eeny Teeny Maya Moe\" and \"The\nBurns and the Bees\", respectively. The winners were announced on September 12,\n2009. The Simpsons was the only series to be nominated in the Animation\ncategory at the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2010. The nominees were:\nStephanie Gillis for \"The Burns and the Bees\", John Frink for \"Eeny Teeny\nMaya, Moe\", Billy Kimball & Ian Maxtone-Graham for Gone Maggie Gone\", Don\nPayne for \"Take My Life, Please\", and Joel H. Cohen for \"Wedding for\nDisaster\". The award was won by Joel H. Cohen.\n\n### Nielsen ratings\n\nThe season ranked 77th in ratings with an average of 6.93 million viewers and\nan 18/49 rating of 3.4/9 and the rerun timeslot ranking 113th. The most viewed\nepisode was \"Treehouse of Horror XIX\", with 12.48 million watching it and a\n4.9 Nielsen rating. The least viewed episode was \"Four Great Women and a\nManicure\" which is the second-least-viewed episode of the series, after Season\n21's \"Million Dollar Maybe\".\n\n## Episodes\n\n## Blu-ray and DVD release\n\nThe DVD and Blu-ray boxset for season twenty was released by 20th Century Fox\nin the United States and Canada on January 12, 2010, eight months after it had\ncompleted broadcast on television. As well as every episode from the season,\nthe Blu-ray and DVD releases feature hand-drawn menus by Matt Groening.\n\n## Notes\n\n## References\n\nBibliography\n\n## External links\n\n * Season 20 at The Simpsons.com\n\n" ]

[ { "answer": null, "qaPairs": [ { "answer": [ "April 19, 1987" ], "question": "When did the Simpsons first air on television as an animated short on the Tracey Ullman Show?" }, { "answer": [ "December 17, 1989" ], "question": "When did the Simpsons first air as a half-hour prime time show?" } ], "type": "multipleQAs" } ]

["<h1>John Adams (miniseries)</h1>\nJohn Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling (...TRUNCATED)

["# John Adams (miniseries)\n\nJohn Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most (...TRUNCATED)

[ { "answer": [ "David Morse" ], "qaPairs": null, "type": "singleAnswer" } ]

["<h1>Marriage age in the United States</h1>\nThe marriage age in the United States is set by each s(...TRUNCATED)

["# Marriage age in the United States\n\nThe marriage age in the United States is set by each state (...TRUNCATED)

[{"answer":null,"qaPairs":[{"answer":["18 years of age","18"],"question":"What is the legal age of m(...TRUNCATED)

["<h1>Barefoot in the Park</h1>\nBarefoot in the Park is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The play p(...TRUNCATED)

["# Barefoot in the Park\n\nBarefoot in the Park is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The play premie(...TRUNCATED)

[{"answer":null,"qaPairs":[{"answer":["Elizabeth Ashley"],"question":"Who starred in barefoot in the(...TRUNCATED)

["<h1>Leo Szilard</h1>\nLeo Szilard (; ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898&nbsp;– May 30, 1964) w(...TRUNCATED)

["# Leo Szilard\n\nLeo Szilard (; ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a\nHung(...TRUNCATED)

[{"answer":null,"qaPairs":[{"answer":["Began 1939, end 1946"],"question":"Based on the initial thoug(...TRUNCATED)

["<h1>Frozen Ever After</h1>\nFrozen Ever After is a reversing log flume attraction in Epcot at the (...TRUNCATED)

["# Frozen Ever After\n\nFrozen Ever After is a reversing log flume attraction in Epcot at the Walt\(...TRUNCATED)

[ { "answer": [ "June 21, 2016" ], "qaPairs": null, "type": "singleAnswer" } ]

["<h1>Geography of South India</h1>\nThe Geography of South India comprises the diverse topological (...TRUNCATED)

["# Geography of South India\n\nThe Geography of South India comprises the diverse topological and c(...TRUNCATED)

[ { "answer": [ "Aravali Range, Satpura Range, Vindhyan Range" ], "qaPairs": null, "type": "singleAnswer" } ]

["<h1>Georgia Bulldogs basketball</h1>\nThe Georgia Bulldogs basketball program is the men's college(...TRUNCATED)

["# Georgia Bulldogs basketball\n\nThe Georgia Bulldogs basketball program is the men's college bask(...TRUNCATED)

[{"answer":null,"qaPairs":[{"answer":["1980"],"question":"When was the last time UGA won a national (...TRUNCATED)

["<h1>Play That Funky Music</h1>\n\"Play That Funky Music\" is a song written by Rob Parissi and rec(...TRUNCATED)

["# Play That Funky Music\n\n\"Play That Funky Music\" is a song written by Rob Parissi and recorded(...TRUNCATED)

[{"answer":null,"qaPairs":[{"answer":["Rob Parissi"],"question":"Who sing play that funky music whit(...TRUNCATED)

["<h1>History of aerial warfare</h1>\nThe history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with the(...TRUNCATED)

["# History of aerial warfare\n\nThe history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with the use (...TRUNCATED)

[ { "answer": [ "Blériot XI", "Nieuport IV" ], "qaPairs": null, "type": "singleAnswer" } ]