We don’t know about you, but we needed something comforting in the midst of everything going on right now, so we decided to dive way back into the 80s to visit the first episodes of The Simpsons.
Image Description: Homer Simpson in a Santa suit looks uncertainly at Santa’s Little Helper, a failed race dog who has jumped into Homer’s arms.
Here’s Julia’s summary:
“This was ridiculously popular, but I wasn’t allowed to watch it, so most of my early simpsons knowledge comes from t-shirts and butter finger commercials. It wasn’t until I was in college that I regularly saw any episodes. I assume Bart Simpson is always saying, “Cowabunga Dude!” and, “Don’t have a cow, man!” and Homer is always saying, “D’oh!” I also feel like my mom thought it was very crass?”
Bart doesn’t say either of those things, though he does say “Eat my shorts” at one point in the second episode, so there’s that.
We talk about the evolution of the Simpsons from the 80s to today, the weirdness of hearing their voices in other languages (especially Marge’s French voice), about other animated prime time hit shows, and honestly, we just have a nice time talking about a thing we like because we figured that’s what we really needed right now, and maybe you do, too! Next week we’ll have our After These Messages episode, and it’s gonna be all Simpsons commercials, clips from their Tracey Ullman show debut, Matt Groening comics, and stuff that’s basically nice. Unless you’re Julia’s mom, in which case, you probably hate all of this… (sorry, Julia’s mom. We think The Simpsons is good!)
We hope you’re doing okay. If you have a favorite Simpsons episode, let us know what it is! And let us know if you have any requests for things you would really like to see us cover. You can always comment on our sub stack post, send us a tweet, or email us!
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The First Episodes of The Simpsons