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The Simpsons
The Simpsons is the longest-running animated television series in American television history, with 17 seasons and 356 episodes since its debut on December 17, 1989 on the Fox Network and a spin-off of The Tracey Ullman Show.
Highly satirical, the show lampoons many aspects of the human condition, but primarily parodies the "Middle American" lifestyle its titular family exhibits and more generally American culture, society and even television itself. In the Channel 4 programs, the 100 Greatest Cartoons and the 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows, it was voted into first place.
Setting, characters and plot
The characters were originally created by Matt Groening as part of a series of original animated segments for The Tracey Ullman Show. Over the course of the series Groening has used many of the themes present in his long-running comic strip series, Life in Hell. (For instance, the idea of creative school children constantly being persecuted and suppressed by totalitarian grown-ups stems from the strip.)
The Simpsons is set in the fictional United States town of Springfield. Throughout the show's history fans have tried to determine where Springfield is by taking the town's characteristics, surrounding geography and nearby landmarks as clues. However, both the town itself and its location are fictional. Nearly every state and region in the U.S. has been both suggested and ruled out by conflicting "evidence" of a location for Springfield, so that the town could theoretically be anywhere. For example, in the episode "Behind the Laughter" the Simpsons are described as "a northern Kentucky family". In a later airing the location was changed to "southern Missouri." Also, in the episode "Sweet & Sour Marge", it is mentioned that Tennessee is to the south of Springfield which would put them back in Kentucky or possibly, in Virginia. Creator Matt Groening has stated that Springfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the town he grew up in (see Matt Groening's Portland (http://www.portlandtribune.com/simpsons/)), and the name "Springfield" was chosen because virtually every state has a town or city with that name. (See Where Is The Simpsons' Springfield? (http://www.snpp.com/guides/springfield.list.html) for more information on this issue.)
Animation scholars and fans have noted the series uses the medium of animation to its advantage, allowing the show to take place in many settings (indoors and outdoors) and feature a far greater cast of characters than a live-action sitcom. The cost of having an episode of The Simpsons take place in the mountains, Europe, the city park, or a cruise ship on the ocean (all of which simply use drawn and painted backgrounds) is hardly more than placing the family in the standard "family comedy setting" of a living room, a kitchen, and one or two related settings (the workplace and a favorite social hangout) (which is also no more than drawn and painted backgrounds). This allows for far more flexibility in plot development than a typical live-action sitcom set sound stages.