Here’s a short feature story on the year The Simpsons began—1989—and what that moment meant for television and culture.
Groening had been summoned by producer James L. Brooks, the genius behind The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Terms of Endearment . Brooks wanted Groening to pitch an animated short for The Tracey Ullman Show . Groening panicked—he didn’t want to lose the rights to his Life in Hell comic strip characters. So, in the lobby before the meeting, he scribbled a family named after his own parents and sisters: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. year the simpsons started
It was weirdly tender. And then, a week later, the second episode—the one with the family road trip, a runaway pariah, and Bart famously telling Homer, “You’re a sad, strange little man”—proved the show had teeth. Bartmania exploded. “Eat my shorts,” “Don’t have a cow,” and “Ay caramba!” became playground scripture. Teachers shuddered. Parents worried. President George H.W. Bush would later declare that American families should be “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.” Here’s a short feature story on the year
December 17, 1989
Behind the scenes, 1989 was chaos. Voice actors—Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith—recorded in a cramped studio. Animators in South Korea worked from rough storyboards. The show’s budget was modest; the jokes were razor-sharp. No one expected it to last past one season. Brooks wanted Groening to pitch an animated short
D’oh! The Year America Met Its First Family