The Simpsons Hits Twenty. Twenty!
I never thought I’d see the day. The Simpsons, possibly the most consistently funny show on television, has just started its 20th season. I remember watching the first episode back on December 17, 1989 when I was 14 years old and thinking it was pretty stupid (you may have figured out that 2008 - 1989 = 19, not 20, but the original Simpsons shorts started airing in 1987). If I had told myself that I’d be giggling my ass off at the 421st episode in Bangkok in my 33rd year, I’d have thought I was crazy; but that’s what I did today. Despite the fact that most people have seen every episode five times and we don’t go as nutty for every new episode as we used to, you have to hand it to Matt Groening and the gang… 20 years is a hell of a landmark. I got to thinking… what was happening in the world when the Simpsons first aired?
The original lineup. Painful... I can barely bring myself to watch these anymore.
Pan Am flight 103: Investigators announce that the cause of the crash was a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player.
Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
Iran breaks off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.
Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska’s Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil after running aground.
Motorola introduces the Motorola MicroTAC Personal Cellular Telephone, then the world’s smallest mobile phone.
The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing on the army’s approach to the square, with the final stand-off being covered live on television.
The television show Seinfeld premieres.
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.
Monty Python member Graham Chapman passes away of a rare spinal cancer.
East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel freely to West Germany for the first time in decades (the next day celebrating Germans began tearing the wall down).
Will I be watching the Simpsons when I turn 40? Wouldn’t that be something.
And today. Much better.
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