Written by: Samuel K. Sloan (Farpoint Media Exec. News Director)
On Sunday, May 20th, Homer and his dysfunctional family and full line of show character misfits reached a landmark in television history. “The Simpsons,” which set the standard for what really good animated satire should be and only the fourth scripted animated primetime series in the history of network television to reach this pinnacle, showcases its 400th episode. On Sunday Fox ran episodes 399 and 400 back-to-back. One other area of interest to trivia fans will be the revenue that “The Simpsons” franchise has reaped — totaling a nice round $1 billion.
The show has garnered 23 Emmy Awards and an untold number of nominations in its 18 years on the air. It also is one of only a precious few Fox television programs, besides Sutherland’s “24″ not to be axed after a few episodes or just one season, (1st episode aired in 1989) and “The Simpsons” shows no sign of weakening or growing weary for its writers or its audience, although there has been a slow decline in viewing numbers over the last two seasons.
The animated series has showcased so many different guest stars over its nearly two-decade history, all relishing the idea of coming on the program and doing voice overs of their animated likeness and allowing Homer and his family to parody them to no end. Stars like the aforementioned Keifer Sutherland have been apart of this history making series, along with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny doing an X-Files satire, astronaut Neil Armstrong, Mr. Spock himself-Leonard Nimoy, director/actors Penny Marshall and Albert Brooks, the great James Earl Jones, George Takei, Ringo Starr, even the late and great comedians Johnny Carson and Bob Hope. The list of guest stars reads like a virtual entertainment whos who log book. Other animated movies and shows haven’t escaped Homer and Bart’s sharp tongue of wit. The program has parodied Shrek, Disney classics and live-action films like the Star Trek franchise, the Pirates of the Caribbean and so many more.
“Our show is parody of what we see in life,” supervising director Matt Kirkland told Animation World Magazine recently. “Life keeps changing and moving on. There’s always new ideas for us to parody.”
The credit for the lasting impression the show has made must be laid squarely in the lap of show creator Matt Groening and his staff of nearly 100 talented writers, and of course, the voice actors that have brought life to Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and their pacifier sucking baby, as well as a whole list of memorable characters.
“I love the style that we stumbled into, this high-velocity pacing that allowed us to do every kind of comedy we could think of, from the most highfalutin’ literary references to sub-Three Stooges physical abuse,” creator Matt Groening told USA Today.
“The Simpsons” will be making another kind of history on July 27 of this year. The whole family and their motley crew of townfolk will be featured in a major motion picture for the big screen called “The Simpsons Movie,” written by Groening and James L. Brooks, helmed by “Ice Age’s” David Silverman and starring all those voice actors we have become so familiar with over these past 400 episodes, along with guest stars Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier,” “X-Men: The Last Stand”), Minnie Driver (“Riches”) and Joe Mantegna reprising his role of Fat Tony.
[Main voice actors have been Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge), Nancy Cartwright (Bart), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), and the very versatile Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria, along with the late Phil Hartman have provided the voices of a whole bevy of familiar and hillarious characters on the show.]
I've not watched much at all this season. It got really old mid last year and just wasn't funny anymore. I watched episode 399 and 400 to catch the history making ones but the 24 wasn't funny at all to me (maybe because I missed 398 and don't like 24 that much) but 400 was just head scratching.
I really thought the joke was the credits, not that the show was really over.