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FXX announces post-marathon schedule for “The Simpsons”

The 12-day marathon of every episode of The Simpsons ever made (plus The Simpsons Movie) has done well for FXX, and it still has five days to go as of this writing, continuing through Sept. 1. FXX says that through its first six days, the marathon grew in viewership each day, and FXX has ranked as a Top 5 Basic Cable Network on each night. Tuesday night’s primetime portion (8-11pm) drove the network to a No. 1 rank among all basic cable networks in Adults 18-49 (1.07 million) and Adults 18-34 (764,000). It ranked No. 1 outright, inclusive of broadcast […]

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Play D’oh!: The Simpsons FXX marathon schedule

Woo hoo! TV’s longest-running marathon gets underway Aug. 21 on FXX, which will air every episode of The Simpsons — 552 episodes, 25 seasons — back-to-back in order over the next 12 days. FXX will also air The Simpsons Movie on Aug. 29. Thank you! Come again!   You’ll need a wheelbarrow full of tacos to provide adequate sustenance for this marathon. In a historic deal, FXX won exclusive pay-TV, on demand and non-linear rights to The Simpsons, and the network is celebrating with the longest marathon on TV history: all 552 episodes from Seasons 1-25 and The Simpsons Movie […]

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“Brick Like Me”: Photos from The Simpsons LEGO episode

Proving again that the good people at LEGO have established a marketing department within my brain, FOX’s Sunday, May 4 (8pm ET/PT), episode of The Simpsons will have a special LEGO-themed show. Conveniently, it’s also timed to the launch of a Simpsons line of LEGO minifigure and building sets. In “Brick Like Me,” Homer wakes up in a world where his family and everyone in Springfield are made of LEGO in the series’ milestone 550th episode. We’ll have to see if there’s a reference to Blockos. Photos from The Simpsons LEGO episode: The Simpson family at breakfast brickfast. Vegetarian bricks […]

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“The Simpsons” to guest-star on “Family Guy” next fall

If Seth MacFarlane guest-voicing on The Simpsons this past season didn’t do it, perhaps any last remnants of rumors of a creative feud between the creators of The Simpsons and the creators of Family Guy that have swirled since the latter show debuted will be finally put to rest with FOX’s announcement yesterday that the famed animated Simpsons family — complete with their voice actors — will guest-star on an episode of Family Guy in Fall 2014.   The Family Guy episode, titled “The Simpsons Guy,” finds Peter (Seth MacFarlane) and the rest of the Griffin family ending up in […]

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Seth MacFarlane to guest-voice on “The Simpsons” season finale

Seth MacFarlane will have his voice featured on all of FOX’s Animation Domination shows on the night of May 19 when he provides a guest voice to the long-running hit The Simpsons in its Season 24 finale (MacFarlane, of course, will also be featured in the one-hour season finales of his own series The Cleveland Show and Family Guy that same evening). There had been some good-natured (?) ribbing between The Simpsons and Family Guy during the early years of Seth MacFarlane’s show, with Family Guy sometimes joking along the lines of, “The Simpsons did this first,” while some Simpsons […]

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“Simpsons” writer Michael Price talks about writing the show’s 500th episode

Michael Price has been around for the 300th, 400th and now 500th episodes of The Simpsons. He even remembers the first gag he was assigned to write back in late 2001, which oddly enough was for the 300th episode — the one where Bart finds out he was once Baby Stink-Breath. It involved finding one of Bart’s old commercials on a taped episode of Perfect Strangers and finessing a “Don’t be ridiculous” reference into the script for authenticity. One of his more recent contributions will figure more prominently into the show’s already untouchable legacy. Price is the writer of the 500th […]

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“Simpsons” executive producer Al Jean talks Episode 500, the show’s history, and more

This Sunday, Feb. 19, at 8pm ET/PT, The Simpsons will air its milestone 500th episode, “At Long Last Leave,” in which the Simpson family is evicted from Springfield and joins an off-the-grid community outside of town. But it doesn’t look as if The Simpsons will be evicted from the hearts and minds of millions of fans any time soon. The show’s recent deal with FOX means it will be going through at least Episode 559, and the series remains a Sunday-night staple for the network, even in the wake of cast renegotiations and almost blasphemous rumors of cancellation recently. Given […]

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“Simpsons” by the hundreds: Looking back at the 100th, 200th, 300th and 400th episodes

Five hundred couch gags, 500 chalkboard punishments, 500 Gracie Films logos appearing after the credits … The Simpsons has certainly surpassed any sensible estimation of success that would have come about at the show’s 1989 premiere. And as the 500th episode sets to debut on Sunday, it’s the perfect opportunity to look back at how it has celebrated its four other “hundredth” episodes. 100 — “Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song” (April 28, 1994) Bart’s antics finally have some real-world consequences when his latest prank — unleashing Santa’s Little Helper into the air ducts of Springfield Elementary — gets Principal Skinner […]

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“Simpsons” maestro Alf Clausen shares stories behind some of Springfield’s greatest hits

By Stacey Harrison On The Simpsons, the characters never age and time pretty much stands still. But for Alf Clausen, all he has to do is look at his son to take in the true scope of the passage of time. “The thing that keeps coming back to me is the fact that my younger son was 11 when I started doing this show and he’s now 34,” he says. That’s 23 seasons of creating the music that has become an indelible component of The Simpsons legacy, a concept on everyone’s mind now as the show approaches its 500th episode, […]

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“The Simpsons” at 500 — our favorite episodes

The Simpsons airs its 500th episode Feb. 19 at 8pm ET/PT on FOX, as part of its 23rd season (and it will be running through at least Season 25, and Episode No. 559). By now, its longevity, and the numbers and records it keeps racking up year after year, are no longer surprising. It’s become one of those things that is just always there. To an entire generation of viewers, it always has been there; and even to those of us who were around pre-Simpsons, it honestly has become hard to remember that long-ago period, when Homer and his family […]