Portal:The Simpsons

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Simpsons Portal

The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Developed by Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, the series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, it caricatures society, Western culture, television, and the human condition.

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer Brooks. He created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name; he thought Simpson was a funny name in that it sounded similar to "simpleton". 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 (1989–1990).

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 763 episodes of the show have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American animated series, longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in seasons and individual episodes. A feature-length film, The Simpsons Movie, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, to critical and commercial success, with a sequel in development as of 2018. The series has also spawned numerous comic book series, video games, books, and other related media, as well as a billion-dollar merchandising industry. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie Films and 20th Television. (Full article...)

Selected article

Matt Groening
Matt Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist and television producer and writer from Portland, Oregon. Groening is best known as the creator of The Simpsons . He is also the creator of the comic Life in Hell and co-creator of Futurama. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the FOX variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, the Simpsons and named the members after his own family, except Bart, which was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired over 400 episodes in 19 seasons. In 1997, Groening got together with David X. Cohen and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000. After four years on the air, the show was cancelled by Fox, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes to be aired in 2008. Groening has won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, nine for The Simpsons and one for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell.

Selected image

Maggie Roswell
Maggie Roswell
Credit: Tommy Collier

Maggie Roswell voices several characters on the show, including Helen Lovejoy.

Character quote

Main Topics

Selected episode

"Trash of the Titans" is the 22nd episode of The Simpsons' ninth season and the 200th overall. It originally aired on the Fox network on April 26, 1998. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, and directed by Jim Reardon. It saw Steve Martin guest star as Ray Patterson, and U2 as themselves, although Larry Mullen doesn't say a word in the episode. The band's head of Principal Management Paul McGuinness and Susie Smith, an employee of Principal Management also make brief appearances in the episode. It won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less). This episode is dedicated to the memory of Linda McCartney. She appeared alongside her husband Paul in the episode "Lisa the Vegetarian".

Did you know...

Did you know?
  • ...that Lisa Simpson's struggles to be a voice of reason in her family struck a chord with viewers in Japan and the broadcasters found they were able to turn the apparent dislike of the series around by focusing marketing attention on her?

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various The Simpsons-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected quote

I'm a big fan of a lot of episodes. There was an episode we did a few years ago called Behind the Laughter that was, I think, pretty funny. It was sort of a parody of a show called Behind the Music and it was like a documentary behind-the-scenes of The Simpsons. That actually ended up winning us an Emmy. I think we were very fortunate in that respect.
Tim Long

Subcategories

Featured content

Featured articles

Featured lists

Good articles

Did you know? articles

Featured portals

In the News articles

Main page featured articles

Good topics


Related portals

WikiProjects

Things you can do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals