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“More than 64 million Americans alive today have never known a world without Maggie, Lisa, Bart, Marge, and Homer in it”

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.


“No one can give more than one hundred percent. By definition that is the most anyone can give.”

Erik Malinowski takes a fascinating look at the making of ‘Homer at the Bat’ from season three of The Simpsons. This was the first Simpsons episode to make heavy use of multiple guest stars — and as Malinowski explains, the writing staff were forced to give one hundred and ten percent to pull the episode off. (“That’s impossible…” etc)

Which other guest stars have demanded changes over the show’s twenty-plus year history, I wonder?