South Park can get stuffed; The Simpsons is not only the funniest animated show on TV, it’s the funniest TV show of all time, ever. Even during its dodgier seasons, the show is still one hundred times more amusing than any other TV show on or off the air. What’s more, it is, without doubt, the most subsversise show ever, and yet it’s broadcast at 6pm on BBC2 at a time when families are sitting around with their dinners on their laps. This is because the irony-lacking TV schedulers just don’t get it. Even after everything that’s been written about it, they still think it’s for kids. All South Park has is profanity and toilet humour. The Simpsons has its fair share of toilet jokes, but it handles them with panache. That takes real genius.

---

Hey - it’s been running for ten years last December. What better way to celebrate the worldwide cult than getting drunk, and reading Bubblegun’s 20 Things You Genuinely Didn’t Know About The Simpsons? Now go get some gin, kids...

1
The first Simpsons cartoon was broadcast as part of the Tracey Ullman Show on the Fox Network on 19th April 1987. Production began on the Simpsons’ own series exactly two years later, and the first episode, Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire, was broadcast on the 17th of December 1989.

2
The first episode to go into production was actually Some Enchanted Evening. However, it was pushed back to the 13th and final episode of the first season due to animation problems with several scenes.

3
Cartoonist Matt Groening cr+eated The Simpsons characters in 15 minutes, while waiting to meet producer James L. Brooks.

4
Each Simspons short on The Tracey Ullman Show took approximately four weeks to complete. The average Simpsons episode now takes around six months.

5
There are 121 Springfields in America. A fictional Springfield was the setting of the all-American values-imbued sit-com Father Knows Best.

6
Depending on which episode you view, the Simpsons’ home address is: 94 Evergreen Terrace, 59 Evergreen Terrace, 1094 Evergreen Terrace, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, 723 Evergreen Terrace, or 430 Spalding Way.

 7
According to producer David Silverman, Springfield is in the state of "North Takoma, eight miles from Toon Town".

8
Matt Groening named Bart simply by rearranging the letters of "brat".

9
Groening’s parents are called Homer and Margret. He has three sisters called Patty, Lisa and Maggie. And a brother called Santa’s Little Helper (Mark).

10
The movie Day Of The Locust features a beer-swilling slob named Homer Simpson.

11
In the first season of the Simpsons, Dan Castellaneta impersonated Walter Matthau to provide Homer’s voice. He changed the voice at the beginning of the second season. According to Castellaneta: "It was too hard for me to yell."

12
The "J" in Homer J. Simpson is Matt Groening’s tribute to the Rocky And Bullwinkle characters Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose.

13
In the scripts, Homer’s "D’oh" is written as "annoyed grunt".

14
Homer is officially 36 years old (though in a recent episode he claims to be 38). Marge is 34, Bart 10, Lisa eight and Maggie one.

15
Bart’s friend Milhouse is named after US President Richard Milhous (no "e") Nixon.

16
In his first appearance in the third episode broadcast, Homer’s Odyssey, Mr Burns’ fawning assistant Smithers is black. This was a mistake on the part of the show’s colourists - he was meant to be yellow.

17
The Simpson’s producers have chosen not to re-cast the voices of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz following the murder of Phil Hartman by his wife. Instead, the characters have been retired from the series.

18
In the first season of the show, episodes were animated from 12,000 individual drawings. More recent episodes use double that number.

19
Just outside of Las Vegas is an exact replica of the Simpsons’ house. It was created by Pepsi in 1997 as the first prize in a competition. It was won by a 63 year-old grandmother. She chose to open the house as a tourist attraction.

20
Originally due to air after the episode "Bart The Daredevil" was a short animation entitled "Nazi’s On Tap". Designed to appear as a "lost" Simpsons episode from 1944, the episode had a crudely-animated Bart and Homer capturing Adolf hitler, with Bart ending the episode by saying "That was neato, now for Hirohito!". Despite the script being completed and the audio track laid down, for reasons unknown it was never animated.