Here’s a short feature story on the year The Simpsons began—1989—and what that moment meant for television and culture. D’oh! The Year America Met Its First Family

But the kids knew. The college students knew. Even some parents secretly knew: The Simpsons wasn’t mocking family—it was mocking everything. Consumerism, religion, network TV, marriage, work, school, the environment, and above all, itself. It was All in the Family drawn in canary yellow. year the simpsons started

To understand the shockwaves, you have to remember 1989. The top-rated show on TV was The Cosby Show —warm, safe, family-values comedy with a sweater-wearing dad who was also America’s favorite doctor. The No. 2 show? Roseanne , which was already pushing boundaries with its working-class grit. But neither had prepared audiences for what Matt Groening, a quirky cartoonist from Portland, Oregon, had cooked up in a Hollywood office. Here’s a short feature story on the year

The Simpsons had arrived.

December 17, 1989

It was weirdly tender. And then, a week later, the second episode—the one with the family road trip, a runaway pariah, and Bart famously telling Homer, “You’re a sad, strange little man”—proved the show had teeth. Bartmania exploded. “Eat my shorts,” “Don’t have a cow,” and “Ay caramba!” became playground scripture. Teachers shuddered. Parents worried. President George H.W. Bush would later declare that American families should be “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.” The college students knew

That act of desperation became a series of 48-second bumpers on The Tracey Ullman Show starting in 1987. They were crude, sloppy, and brilliant. Viewers wrote letters. Fox, a fourth-place network launched just three years earlier and often mocked as the “coat-hanger network,” needed a hit. Brooks pushed for a full half-hour series. Network executives were terrified. Animated shows were for Saturday mornings, not prime time. The last adult cartoon to try— The Flintstones in the 1960s—was a fossil.

Year The Simpsons Started |verified| May 2026

Here’s a short feature story on the year The Simpsons began—1989—and what that moment meant for television and culture. D’oh! The Year America Met Its First Family

But the kids knew. The college students knew. Even some parents secretly knew: The Simpsons wasn’t mocking family—it was mocking everything. Consumerism, religion, network TV, marriage, work, school, the environment, and above all, itself. It was All in the Family drawn in canary yellow.

To understand the shockwaves, you have to remember 1989. The top-rated show on TV was The Cosby Show —warm, safe, family-values comedy with a sweater-wearing dad who was also America’s favorite doctor. The No. 2 show? Roseanne , which was already pushing boundaries with its working-class grit. But neither had prepared audiences for what Matt Groening, a quirky cartoonist from Portland, Oregon, had cooked up in a Hollywood office.

The Simpsons had arrived.

December 17, 1989

It was weirdly tender. And then, a week later, the second episode—the one with the family road trip, a runaway pariah, and Bart famously telling Homer, “You’re a sad, strange little man”—proved the show had teeth. Bartmania exploded. “Eat my shorts,” “Don’t have a cow,” and “Ay caramba!” became playground scripture. Teachers shuddered. Parents worried. President George H.W. Bush would later declare that American families should be “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.”

That act of desperation became a series of 48-second bumpers on The Tracey Ullman Show starting in 1987. They were crude, sloppy, and brilliant. Viewers wrote letters. Fox, a fourth-place network launched just three years earlier and often mocked as the “coat-hanger network,” needed a hit. Brooks pushed for a full half-hour series. Network executives were terrified. Animated shows were for Saturday mornings, not prime time. The last adult cartoon to try— The Flintstones in the 1960s—was a fossil.