Be it Hitchcock movies, infomercials, the superficial and sensationalistic local news, or Thomas Pynchon novels, (The Simpsons) is a crash course in popular culture, nearly compulsively cataloging and critiquing other media forms.
The Atlantic reports on the 500th Simpsons episode (with a brief glimpse into the typical writing process — “about a year” from “conception to air”!). As ambivalent as I feel toward it now (though I’ve enjoyed some recent episodes) — and as disappointing as it is to see the producers feeding into the Julian Assange celebrity-machine by casting him in the 500th episode — it’s hard to overstate the impact of this series, and the civilising power of satire to which it is testament.