The Simpsons is the longest-running American primetime TV show. It may also be the most influential in terms of phrases and memes. Several new words invented by The Simpsons such as d’oh, meh, embiggen, cromulent, yoink, and craptacular are now in the dictionary. It’s probably influenced every comedy show that’s come after it in some way. Merchandising was hugely successful from the beginning, with as many as one million Bart Simpson t-shirts selling on a single day.

As a teen, my two favorite shows were The Simpsons and Seinfeld, and I still consider them to be the funniest shows I’ve ever watched. My sense of humor is largely based on them. I’ve decided to rewatch The Simpsons. Since it’s 36 seasons long and counting, it will take me a while. Since I stopped watching it sometime around season 14, most of it will be new to me, including a few episodes from the earlier seasons that I missed when they originally aired.

It was shocking at the time for a cartoon character like Bart Simpson to use swear words, especially since he was a kid. I did have at least one Mormon classmate who wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons. My Mormon family would gasp at the swear words, but it didn’t stop us from watching. Rewatching it, I was surprised at how violent the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons were from the start, as my memory thought it gradually became more violent over time. There was also more sexual content than I remembered in the early seasons. It’s a bit surprising I was allowed to watch this as a child, but I’m glad I did.

The Tracey Ullman Shorts

The Simpsons began as a series of shorts that would play before commercials on The Tracey Ullman Show. I don’t actually remember the live-action portions of The Tracey Ullman Show, since I watched it just for the Simpsons. I didn’t catch every episode when it was originally on the air, but thanks to YouTube, I’m finally able to watch all 48 episodes. Since the episodes are between one to two minutes long, you can watch them all in a little over an hour.

Although I remember finding them funny at the time, they aren’t that funny anymore. There were a surprisingly large number of episodes in which Bart gets into trouble for eating cookies. The big thing that jumps out at me is how different Lisa’s character is. Instead of the goody-two-shoes she becomes later, she acts like a second Bart, joining him in misbehaving and egging him on. It’s fun to see the two of them working together.

The episode that stands out most in my mind is “Bart’s Haircut”, probably because a verse of the song “Deep Deep Trouble” describes the episode. I remember “Deep Deep Trouble” getting a lot of airplay on the radio when I was a kid, along with “Do The Bartman”. Looking it up now, D. J. Jazzy Jeff was involved in writing and producing “Deep Deep Trouble” and Michael Jackson did backing vocals on “Do the Bartman”! I had no idea! When “Deep Deep Trouble” was playing on the radio, I remember feeling a little superior to my classmates who hadn’t watched the Tracey Ullman shorts since I knew what the song was referencing and they didn’t.

My favorite Tracey Ullman short is “The Pagans” in which Bart and Lisa declare themselves pagans to try to get out of going to church. They thank nature for causing the car to get a flat tire, then they do a pagan rain dance which makes it rain. Finally, they run from an infuriated Homer, ironically seeking sanctuary from him in church. Good stuff.

There are other amusing bits such as baby Maggie being terrified of the song Rock-a-Bye Baby because it makes her imagine falling from a tree. It was funny when Marge and the kids lock Homer in the fallout shelter because he keeps doing World War III drills in the middle of the night. I was surprised to see Grandpa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, and Itchy & Scratchy appeared this early. But really, if you skip the shorts, you’re not missing out on much. Only people who watched them when they were originally on the air and feel nostalgic for them will want to watch them again.

Season 1

Many sitcoms of the time, and even up to today, contain a laugh track to let the audience know when they’re supposed to laugh. The Simpsons didn’t include a laugh track, which seems normal now, but made the show stand out back when it was originally on the air.

It’s one of the few shows you want to actually watch the opening credits, since Bart writes something different on the blackboard every episode and the credits end with a different couch gag almost every time (the couch gags are occasionally recycled.) In later seasons, Lisa plays a different tune on her saxophone, too.

In my memory, the first episode, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” (S1, E1) was a stand-alone Christmas special and only after that proved to be a hit, did The Simpsons become a regular TV show. Obviously, my memory is wrong. This wasn’t even meant to be the first episode, but the production schedule just worked out that way. For many years, this episode would get rerun every Christmas, so I watched it many, many times over the years. It’s not my favorite, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

The first season only has half as many episodes as the later seasons. As a kid, I remember the first few seasons of The Simpsons not being very good and would dread when they popped up in reruns, especially episodes focused on Marge or Lisa as these tended to be particularly boring. Rewatching them now, the first season isn’t very funny. The only episode from the first season that made me laugh on rewatch was the “The Call of the Simpsons” (S1, E7) in which the Simpson family goes camping. The smooth-talking salesman who talks Homer into buying an RV at the beginning is hilarious, as is the ending in which scientists argue over whether Homer is a human or an ape. There’s a scene in the middle in which Homer creates a trap for a rabbit. When the rabbit triggers the trap, instead of catching the rabbit like you’d expect, it instead catapults the rabbit far away, which was hilariously unexpected. Homer and Bart’s deadpan reaction also adds to the humor.

In one episode, I believe it was “Homer’s Night Out” (S1, E10), Homer said people mistake him for Fred Flintstone. Before The Simpsons, The Flintstones held the record for longest running prime-time animated TV show. The Simpsons make references to The Flintstones in later episodes as well, but what struck me about this early episode is Homer’s friend Barney is named for the first time, making me wonder if he was named in honor of Fred Flintstone’s best friend Barney Rubble.