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Writer's pictureBrandon Olmedo

History of The Simpson

The Simpsons is an American animated comedy series created by Matt Groening for Fox Broadcasting Company and its content is based on criticism of American society, telling the life of a middle-class family that lives in a fictional town called Springfield.

It all started when James L. Brooks, producer of the comedy "The Tracey Ullman Show", wanted to use a series of animated shorts. For this he had contacted Matt Groening, who had the idea of ​​presenting the short films based on his comic “Life in Hell”, but due to the publication rights he decided to create another approach for his short films; so he quickly outlined a dysfunctional family, using his family names, except in his own case, in which he substituted his name Matt for Bart.



These shorts later became part of "The Tracey Ullman Show" on April 19, 1987, but after three seasons it was decided to turn them into a series of half-hour episodes in prime time, making their debut on december 17, 1989 with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", this being a Christmas special; although really "Some Enchanted Evening" (in Spanish, "some enchanted night") was the first episode to be produced, but it was not broadcast until May 1990 due to problems with the animation. Between 1992 and 1993, The Simpsons became the first series on the Fox network to be among the top 30 most watched programs in the United States, and thanks to this success, Fox decided to place them in the same time slot as the Bill Cosby show to make him competition, but this only caused damage to the audience. In the same year, 1992, Tracey Ullman sued the Fox network arguing that the Simpsons' success had been thanks to their show, for which she demanded a percentage of the series' profits from the network, but this lawsuit was rejected.


On July 25, 2007, "The Simpsons: The Movie" was released, obtaining about 526 million dollars.


In April 2012, Matt Groening revealed that he was based on the town of Springfield, Oregon for the town in the series, but this wasn´t its actual location, rather the series' Springfield is located (fictionally) west of Shelbyville, south of Capital City, northeast of Ogdenville, and southeast of Cypress Creek.

On the other hand, The Simpsons has won numerous awards, including 24 Emmy Awards, 24 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award, in addition, on December 31, 1999 the Time magazine rated it as the best series of the 20th century, and on January 14 In 2000 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also, Homer's growl of annoyance "D'oh!" has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary.



It is worth mentioning that the Simpsons were considered a bad example, so much so that then President George H. W. Bush even said: "we want to make the American family more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons." In addition, some public schools banned the use of school supplies bearing the image of The Simpsons, but despite the bans, The Simpsons items sold so well that they generated approximately $2 billion in revenue in their first 14 months on the market.

Finally, the Simpsons have had promotional collaborations and appearances for various brands, such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Domino's Pizza, New Era, Santa Cruz, Hot Wheels, PepsiCo, Tic Tac and Vans.



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