The Simpsons Turn 20!

I was thinking about favorite TV shows, their influence on pop culture and society. I own almost all 11 seasons of "The Simpsons" that are on DVD; I still need Season 1 and Season 11, and I am waiting for Season 11 to go on sale because you know what, the economy is tough, but sooner or later I am confident I will complete my collection. I have also decided, totally unrelated to this blog entry, that I will own every season of "ER" as well. So last night, I decided that I absolutely needed to blog about "The Simpsons" and this is what I came up with---


--“The Simpsons” will celebrate its 20th Anniversary this year. On February 9,
1997 the series surpassed “The Flintstones” as the longest running primetime
animated series in the United States.

--“The Simpsons” has won numerous TV awards and honors-- 24 Primetime
Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards (Annie Awards are awards for animated TV
shows), and a coveted Peabody Award. Time Magazine named “The Simpsons”
the best television series of the century.

--The TV Show was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!
--Many pieces of media have been created to honor the show, there are
“Simpsons” comic books (there is even a series of comics on Bart Simpson’s
Treehouse of Horror, these are related to the Halloween episodes) , “Simpsons”
music (songs that were made for the show or played on the show), there are
“Simpsons” video games and board games like “Simpsons” monopoly. In the
early 1990s, merchandise sales generated $2 billion of revenue in 14 months.

--Universal Studios in Florida even went so far as to open a “Simpsons” ride, a
simulator ride in which patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called
Krustyland and built by Krusty the Clown. The real drama begins when Sideshow Bob breaks out of prison trying to wreak havoc on the Simpsons family.

--The show became so popular that creator Matt Groening decided to make a
feature film starring America’s favorite family; the film was released on July 27,
2007. The anticipation of the film being released caused quite the celebration,
12 7-Eleven stores across the country were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts (the
7-Eleven of “The Simpsons). The stores sold “Simpsons” related merchandise
like “Buzz Cola“, doughnuts with pink frosting and sprinkles, “Krusty O” cereal,
and “Squishees”. Springfield towns across the country competed to host the
movie premiere.

--So far eleven seasons of the show have been released on DVD with the rest to
follow, for some time the first season, released in 2001 was the best selling
television DVD in history. The record, unfortunately was later broken by non other than "Chappelle Show".

--In April of this year, the U.S. Postal Service announced that Homer, Marge,
Bart, Lisa, and Maggie would each be featured individually on a set of five, 44
cent stamps. This makes “The Simpsons” the first TV series to receive this honor
while still in production. I, for one, cannot wait to go out and my Simpsons stamps.

--Homer’s famous phrase D’oh is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.

-- Wikipedia has a list of all the celebs who have done voices or appeared in cartoon form as themselves, I was amazed with the list, and so, you must check it out yourself-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_guest_stars_on_The_Simpsons