Eat my shorts! D'oh!

Just a few catchphrases that make me and surely loads of others out there think of certain yellow skinned characters that are well imbedded in our subconscious, whether we are fans or not. The Simpsons is now the longest running primetime show in television history. It has been swimming in the mainstream ocean for 20 years now and judging by its ongoing popularity it will be rocking our televisions for quite some time. The idea of the show popped out of Matt Groening’s head, who wanted to create a show about a dysfunctional family, but with a certain edge. An early tag-line for The Simpsons said that they "put the Fun back in Dysfunctional" and judging by the series’ longevity we can only agree that the show’s philosophy of making fun of itself and everything in its wake goes a long way. The Simpsons first appeared in 1987 as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show where it started developing a life of its own. Later it was adapted into a half-hour series for Fox Broadcasting Company and there was no way back.

Groening’s goal was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called “the mainstream trash” that they were watching. Its subversive humor and delightful wit made an indelible imprint on pop culture world wide.

During its two decades of existence so far, The Simpsons shifted across different types of media which helped the series to reach a wider range of audience. Watching these shifts is an interesting insight on how this edgy humor based show can get away with everything if we just learn to smile at it. The Simpsons’ surfing across the media follows an almost predicable pattern, the show used up everything available at a certain given time.

Simpsons Illustrated

At the beginning of the Simpsons frenzy numerous Simpson-related comic books have been released on the market. The first comic strips appeared in 1991 in the Simpsons Illustrated which was a companion magazine to the show, an obvious spin-off of the popular American sports magazine. Its success encouraged the creator to publish several other comic book series based on the popular characters.

The Hollywood connection

Having great names linked to a show is always a voucher for the show’s quality and The Simpsons had a huge number of A-listers as guest appearances. Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Kiefer Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Danny DeVito are just a few of those names. In fact, celebrities have been known to be so eager to make guest appearance on The Simpsons that they even played themselves in an unflattering light. For instance, Jasper Johns played himself as a kleptomaniac, Gary Coleman played himself as a pathetic has-been, and Tom Arnold played himself as an obnoxious non-talent who gets fired for being such a bad actor.

The Simpsons goes MTV

Michael Jackson was a declared fan of the show; he wrote the pop rap song “Do the Bartman" performed by Nancy Cartwright and featured on the 1990 album The Simpsons Sing the Blues. Also, Bart and Homer appear at the end of Michael Jackson's music video for the song "Black or White" thus consolidating their position in the consciousness of the MTV generation.

Homer: “Oh, so they have Internet on computers now!”

With the Internet slowly taking over, The Simpsons writers started slipping dozens of internet references and website names into the episodes. As a joke, Fox started putting online several websites mentioned as the episode aired, like www.whatbadgerseat.com, www.dorks-gone-wild.com and www.sexyslumberparty.com. Unfortunately, most of these websites are no longer active.

The Simpsons Movie campaign

The idea of making a film version of the series was envisioned at the very beginning of the show but was set to be put in practice only after the series concluded. Taking in account the show’s success and counting on some smart publicity stunts, producers opted to green light the production. As part of the promotion eleven 7-Eleven stores in the United States and one in Canada were transformed into Kwit-E-Marts selling various Simpsons products such as Squishees, Buzz Cola and Krusty-Os cereal. Doing the daily shopping at the same store as some of the world’s funniest cartoon characters is an activity worth signing up for.

Licking the Simpsons

The internet craze caused a serious decline of the postal service. In 2009, the US Postal Service issued a set of five 44¢ commemorative postage stamps honoring the TV series, with each member of the Simpson family (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie) appearing on a different stamp. These collector stamps are the service’s way to fight back and regain some of its audience.

“Supporting the Simpsons: sometimes.”

It is a good idea to associate health with something fun. But can the Simpsons determine the population to eat healthy? The US Department of Health thinks that they are the best media to reach their target audience, therefore the Simpsons have been chosen to front a Government campaign to tackle obesity. Cartoon characters designed by Aardman Animations can be seen sitting in the Simpson’s house eating junk food, which will be replaced by healthy alternatives.

The Bunny

A big stir was caused last year at the release of Playboy magazine’s October issue, featuring Marge Simpson on the cover and also as a three page spread with “implied nudity”, this being part of the show’s commemorating its 20^th anniversary. Playboy CEO Scott Flanders sustains that by this cartoon stunt he succeeded in attracting readers younger than the magazine’s 35-year-old average.

It’s alive!

After 20 years the craze still goes on and it is slowly taking every possible shape and form provided by the media. The over 500 fan pages on Facebook and Homer’s Twitter page with over 50 000 followers are good testimony. Although the series lost many fans over the years, clever story telling by the use of new media made The Simpsons gain a whole new generation of fans. The interest is still alive, mainly due to the creators’ susceptibility towards the needs of the audience and their ability to adapt the show to new media over the years.