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The Simpsons star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of the middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its titular family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield, and lampoons many aspects of the human condition including American culture, society, and television. Since its debut on December 17, 1989, the show has broadcast [[List of The Simpsons episodes|

"Simpsons" redirects here. For the franchise, see The Simpsons (franchise). For the titular family, see Simpson family. For other uses, see The Simpsons (disambiguation) and Simpson (disambiguation).

Animation/Selected article
File:The Simpsons yellow logo.svg
Genre	Animated sitcom Satire
Created by	Matt Groening
Based on	The Simpsons shorts by Matt Groening
Developed by	James L. Brooks Matt Groening Sam Simon
Voices of	Dan Castellaneta Julie Kavner Nancy Cartwright Yeardley Smith Harry Shearer Hank Azaria (Complete list)
Theme music composer	Danny Elfman
Composer(s)	Richard Gibbs (1989–1990) Alf Clausen (1990–2017) Bleeding Fingers Music (2017–present)
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	35
No. of episodes	768 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	List James L. Brooks Matt Groening Al Jean (1992–1993; 1995–present) Matt Selman (2005–present) John Frink (2009–present) Sam Simon (1989–1993) Mike Reiss (1992–1993; 1995–1998) David Mirkin (1993–1995) Bill Oakley (1995–1997) Josh Weinstein (1995–1997) Mike Scully (1997–2001) David X. Cohen (1998–1999) George Meyer (1999–2001) Carolyn Omine (2005–2006) Tim Long (2005–2009) Ian Maxtone-Graham (2005–2012)
Producer(s)	Bonita Pietila Richard Raynis Richard Sakai Denise Sirkot
Editor(s)	Don Barrozo Michael Bridge
Running time	21–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Gracie Films 20th Television (seasons 1–32) 20th Television Animation (season 33–present)
Release
Original network	Fox
Original release	December 17, 1989 (1989-12-17) – present
External links
[{{#property:P856}} Website]

The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Developed by Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, the series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, it caricatures society, Western culture, television, and the human condition.

The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer Brooks. He created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name; he thought Simpson was a funny name in that it sounded similar to "simpleton". The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).

Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 768 episodes of the show have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American animated series, longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in seasons and individual episodes. A feature-length film, The Simpsons Movie, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, to critical and commercial success, with a sequel in development as of 2018. The series has also spawned numerous comic book series, video games, books, and other related media, as well as a billion-dollar merchandising industry. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie Films and 20th Television.

On January 26, 2023, the series was renewed for its 35th and 36th seasons, taking the show through the 2024–25 television season. Both seasons contain a combined total of 51 episodes. Seven of these episodes are season 34 holdovers, while the other 44 will be produced in the production cycle of the upcoming seasons, bringing the show's overall episode total up to 801. Season 35 premiered on October 1, 2023.

The Simpsons received widespread acclaim throughout its early seasons in the 1990s, which are generally considered its "golden age". Since then, it has been criticized for a perceived decline in quality. Time named it the 20th century's best television series, and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club named it "television's crowning achievement regardless of format". On January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 37 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, and 2 Peabody Awards. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase of "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many other later adult-oriented animated sitcom television series.

Premise

Characters

Main article: List of The Simpsons characters

The main characters are the Simpson family, who live in the fictional "Middle America" town of Springfield. Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality. He is married to Marge (née Bouvier), a stereotypical American housewife and mother. They have three children: Bart, a ten-year-old troublemaker and prankster; Lisa, a precocious eight-year-old activist; and Maggie, the baby of the family who rarely speaks, but communicates by sucking on a pacifier. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care about one another.

The family also owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball II, who is replaced by a cat also called Snowball II in the fifteenth-season episode "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot". Extended members of the Simpson and Bouvier family in the main cast include Homer's father Abe and Marge's sisters Patty and Selma. Marge's mother Jacqueline and Homer's mother Mona appear less frequently.

File:Simpsons cast.png

The Simpsons sports a vast array of secondary and tertiary characters.

The show includes a vast array of quirky supporting characters, which include Homer's friends Barney Gumble, Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson; the school principal Seymour Skinner and staff members such as Edna Krabappel and Groundskeeper Willie; students such as Milhouse Van Houten, Nelson Muntz and Ralph Wiggum; shopkeepers such as Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Comic Book Guy and Moe Szyslak; government figures Mayor "Diamond" Joe Quimby and Clancy Wiggum; next-door neighbor Ned Flanders; local celebrities such as Krusty the Clown and news reporter Kent Brockman; nuclear tycoon Montgomery Burns and his devoted assistant Waylon Smithers; and dozens more.

The creators originally intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A number of them have gained expanded roles and subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV.

Continuity and the floating timeline

Despite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays passing, the characters never age. The series uses a floating timeline in which episodes generally take place in the year the episode is produced. Flashbacks and flashforwards do occasionally depict the characters at other points in their lives, with the timeline of these depictions also generally floating relative to the year the episode is produced. For example, the 1991 episodes "The Way We Was" and "I Married Marge" depict Homer and Marge as high schoolers in the 1970s who had Bart (who is always 10 years old) in the early '80s, while the 2008 episode "That '90s Show" depicts Homer and Marge as a childless couple in the '90s, and the 2021 episode "Do Pizza Bots Dream of Electric Guitars" portrays Homer as an adolescent in the same period. The 1995 episode "Lisa's Wedding" takes place during Lisa's college years in the then-future year of 2010, the same year the show began airing its 22nd season, in which Lisa was still 8. Regarding the contradictory flashbacks, Selman stated that "they all kind of happened in their imaginary world."

The show follows a loose and inconsistent continuity. For example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but not in another. However, it is consistently portrayed that he is Jewish, that his father was a rabbi, and that his career began in the 1960s. The latter point introduces another snag in the floating timeline: historical periods that are a core part of a character's backstory remain so even when their age makes it unlikely or impossible, such as Grampa Simpson and Principal Skinner's respective service in World War II and Vietnam.

The only episodes not part of the series' main canon are the Treehouse of Horror episodes, which often feature the deaths of main characters. Characters who die in "regular" episodes, such as Maude Flanders, Mona Simpson and Edna Krabappel, however, stay dead. Most episodes end with the status quo being restored, though occasionally major changes will stick, such as Lisa's conversions to vegetarianism and Buddhism, the divorce of Milhouse van Houten's parents, and the marriage and subsequent parenthood of Apu and Manjula.

Setting

Main article: Springfield (The Simpsons)

The Simpsons takes place in a fictional American town called Springfield. Although there are many real settlements in America named Springfield, the town the show is set in is fictional. The state it is in is not established. In fact, the show is intentionally evasive with regard to Springfield's location. Springfield's geography and that of its surroundings is inconsistent: from one episode to another, it may have coastlines, deserts, vast farmland, mountains, or whatever the story or joke requires. Groening has said that Springfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the city where he grew up. Groening has said that he named it after Springfield, Oregon, and the fictitious Springfield which was the setting of the series Father Knows Best. He "figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do." Many landmarks, including street names, have connections to Portland.

Production

Development

Main articles: History of The Simpsons and The Simpsons shorts

James L. Brooks (pictured) asked Matt Groening to create a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show.

When producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show The Tracey Ullman Show, he decided to include small animated sketches before and after the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's Life in Hell comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts. Groening initially intended to present an animated version of his Life in Hell series. However, Groening later realized that animating Life in Hell would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of Brooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a dysfunctional family that became the Simpsons. He named the characters after his own family members, substituting "Bart" for his own name, adopting an anagram of the word brat.

The Simpson family first appeared as shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. Groening submitted only basic sketches to the animators and assumed that the figures would be cleaned up in production. However, the animators merely re-traced his drawings, which led to the crude appearance of the characters in the initial shorts. The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo, with Wes Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. The colorist, "Georgie" Gyorgyi Kovacs Peluce (Kovács Györgyike) made the characters yellow; as Bart, Lisa and Maggie have no hairlines, she felt they would look strange if they were flesh-colored. Groening supported the decision, saying: "Marge is yellow with blue hair? That's hilarious — let's do it!"

In 1989, a team of production companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The team included the Klasky Csupo animation house. Brooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that prevented Fox from interfering with the show's content. Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called "the mainstream trash" that they were watching. The half-hour series premiered on December 17, 1989, with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". "Some Enchanted Evening" was the first full-length episode produced, but it did not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season, because of animation problems. In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed a lawsuit against Fox, claiming that her show was the source of the series' success. The suit said she should receive a share of the profits of The Simpsons—a claim rejected by the courts.

Executive producers and showrunners

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons

List of showrunners throughout the series' run:

• Season 1–2: Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, & Sam Simon
• Season 3–4: Al Jean & Mike Reiss
• Season 5–6: David Mirkin
• Season 7–8: Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
• Season 9–12: Mike Scully
• Season 13–31: Al Jean
• Season 32–present: Al Jean & Matt Selman

Matt Groening and James L. Brooks have served as executive producers during the show's entire history, and also function as creative consultants. Sam Simon, described by former Simpsons director Brad Bird as "the unsung hero" of the show, served as creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He was constantly at odds with Groening, Brooks and the show's production company Gracie Films and left in 1993. Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that sees him receive a share of the profits every year, and an executive producer credit despite not having worked on the show since 1993, at least until his passing in 2015. A more involved position on the show is the showrunner, who acts as head writer and manages the show's production for an entire season.

Writing

Main article: List of The Simpsons writers

The first team of writers, assembled by Sam Simon, consisted of John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. Newer Simpsons' writing teams typically consist of sixteen writers who propose episode ideas at the beginning of each December. The main writer of each episode writes the first draft. Group rewriting sessions develop final scripts by adding or removing jokes, inserting scenes, and calling for re-readings of lines by the show's vocal performers. Until 2004, George Meyer, who had developed the show since the first season, was active in these sessions. According to long-time writer Jon Vitti, Meyer usually invented the best lines in a given episode, even though other writers may receive script credits. Each episode takes six months to produce so the show rarely comments on current events.

Part of the writing staff of The Simpsons in 1992. Back row, left to right: Mike Mendel, Colin A. B. V. Lewis (partial), Jeff Goldstein, Al Jean (partial), Conan O'Brien, Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, Mike Reiss, Ken Tsumura, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti (partial), CJ Gibson, and David M. Stern. Front row, left to right: Dee Capelli, Lona Williams, and unknown.

Credited with sixty episodes, John Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons. One of the best-known former writers is Conan O'Brien, who contributed to several episodes in the early 1990s before replacing David Letterman as host of the talk show Late Night. English comedian Ricky Gervais wrote the episode "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", becoming the first celebrity both to write and guest star in the same episode. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, writers of the film Superbad, wrote the episode "Homer the Whopper", with Rogen voicing a character in it.

At the end of 2007, the writers of The Simpsons went on strike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East. The show's writers had joined the guild in 1998.

In May 2023, the writers of The Simpsons went on strike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East.

Voice actors

Main articles: List of The Simpsons cast members, List of The Simpsons guest stars, and Non-English versions of The Simpsons

Cast members
		120x120px	120x120px	120x120px
Dan Castellaneta	Julie Kavner	Nancy Cartwright	Yeardley Smith	Hank Azaria	Harry Shearer
Homer Simpson, Abe Simpson, Krusty the Clown, various characters	Marge Simpson, Patty and Selma Bouvier, additional voices	Bart Simpson, Maggie Simpson, various characters	Lisa Simpson	Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilan (1990–2020), Lou (1990–2020), various characters	Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Dr. Hibbert (1990–2021), Waylon Smithers, Principal Skinner, Reverend Lovejoy, various characters

The Simpsons has six main cast members: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Barney Gumble, and other adult male characters. Julie Kavner voices Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma, as well as several minor characters. Castellaneta and Kavner had been a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast and were given the parts so that new actors would not be needed. Cartwright voices Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other children. Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, is the only cast member who regularly voices only one character, although she occasionally plays other episodic characters. The producers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila believed her voice was too high, so she was given the role of Lisa instead. Cartwright was originally brought in to voice Lisa, but upon arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the "middle child" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as "devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever". Groening let her try out for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot. Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had been professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show. Azaria and Shearer do not voice members of the title family, but play a majority of the male townspeople. Azaria, who has been a part of the main voice cast since the second season in one episode "Old Money" and then perpetually part of the regular main voice cast since the third season, voices recurring characters such as Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Professor Frink. Shearer provides voices for Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy and formerly Dr. Hibbert. Every main cast member has won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.

With one exception, episode credits list only the voice actors, and not the characters they voice. Both Fox and the production crew wanted to keep their identities secret during the early seasons and, therefore, closed most of the recording sessions while refusing to publish photos of the recording artists. However, the network eventually revealed which roles each actor performed in the episode "Old Money", because the producers said the voice actors should receive credit for their work. In 2003, the cast appeared in an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, doing live performances of their characters' voices.

The six main actors were paid $30,000 per episode, until 1998, when they were involved in a pay dispute with Fox. The company threatened to replace them with new actors, even going as far as preparing for casting of new voices, but series creator Groening supported the actors in their action. The issue was soon resolved and, from 1998 to 2004, they were paid $125,000 per episode. The show's revenue continued to rise through syndication and DVD sales, and in April 2004 the main cast stopped appearing for script readings, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later and their salaries were increased to something between $250,000 and $360,000 per episode. In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a "healthy bump" in salary to an amount close to $500,000 per episode. The negotiations were soon completed, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, the cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.

In addition to the main cast, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, and Russi Taylor voice supporting characters. From 1999 to 2002, Roswell's characters were voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven. Karl Wiedergott has also appeared in minor roles, but does not voice any recurring characters. Wiedergott left the show in 2010, and since then Chris Edgerly has appeared regularly to voice minor characters. Repeat "special guest" cast members include Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Joe Mantegna, Maurice LaMarche, and Kelsey Grammer. Following Hartman's death in 1998, the characters he voiced (Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz) were retired; Wallace's character of Edna Krabappel was retired as well after her death in 2013. Following Taylor's death in 2019, her characters (including Sherri, Terri, and Martin Prince) are now voiced by Grey Griffin.

Episodes will quite often feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians and scientists. In the earlier seasons, most of the guest stars voiced characters, but eventually more started appearing as themselves. Tony Bennett was the first guest star to appear as himself, appearing briefly in the season two episode "Dancin' Homer". The Simpsons holds the world record for "Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series".

The Simpsons has been dubbed into several other languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It is also one of the few programs dubbed in both standard French and Quebec French. The show has been broadcast in Arabic, but due to Islamic customs, numerous aspects of the show have been changed. For example, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs. Because of such changes, the Arabized version of the series met with a negative reaction from the lifelong Simpsons fans in the area.

Animation

Animation director David Silverman, who helped define the look of the show

Several different U.S. and international studios animate The Simpsons. Throughout the run of the animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, the animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo. With the debut of the series, because of an increased workload, Fox subcontracted production to several local and foreign studios. These are AKOM, Anivision, Rough Draft Studios, USAnimation, and Toonzone Entertainment.

For the first three seasons, Klasky Csupo animated The Simpsons in the United States. In 1992, the show's production company, Gracie Films, switched domestic production to Film Roman, who continued to animate the show until 2016 when they were replaced by Fox Television Animation, which allowed the show to be made more in-house. In Season 14, production switched from traditional cel animation to digital ink and paint. The first episode to experiment with digital coloring was "Radioactive Man" in 1995. Animators used digital ink and paint during production of the season 12 episode "Tennis the Menace", but Gracie Films delayed the regular use of digital ink and paint until two seasons later. The already completed "Tennis the Menace" was broadcast as made.

The production staff at the U.S. animation studio, Film Roman, draws storyboards, designs new characters, backgrounds, props and draws character and background layouts, which in turn become animatics to be screened for the writers at Gracie Films for any changes to be made before the work is shipped overseas. The overseas studios then draw the inbetweens, ink and paint, and render the animation to tape before it is shipped back to the United States to be delivered to Fox three to four months later.

The series began high-definition production in Season 20; the first episode, "Take My Life, Please", aired February 15, 2009. The move to HDTV included a new opening sequence. Matt Groening called it a complicated change because it affected the timing and composition of animation.

Themes

Main articles: Media in The Simpsons, Politics in The Simpsons, and Religion in The Simpsons

The Simpsons uses the standard setup of a situational comedy, or sitcom, as its premise. The series centers on a family and their life in a typical American town, serving as a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle. However, because of its animated nature, The Simpsons' scope is larger than that of a regular sitcom. The town of Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. By having Homer work in a nuclear power plant, the show can comment on the state of the environment. Through Bart and Lisa's days at Springfield Elementary School, the show's writers illustrate pressing or controversial issues in the field of education. The town features a vast array of television channels, which enables the producers to make jokes about the entertainment industry and the press.

Some commentators say the show is political in nature and susceptible to a left-wing bias. Al Jean acknowledged in an interview that "We [the show] are of liberal bent." The writers often evince an appreciation for progressive leanings, but the show makes jokes across the political spectrum. The show portrays government and large corporations as evil entities that take advantage of the common worker. Thus, the writers often portray authority figures in an unflattering or negative light. In The Simpsons, politicians are corrupt, ministers such as Reverend Lovejoy are dismissive to churchgoers, and the local police force is incompetent. Religion also figures as a recurring theme. In times of crisis, the family often turns to God, and the show has dealt with most of the major religions.

Sexuality is often a source of jokes in the series or serves as the theme of certain episodes. Even though homosexuals are sometimes sources of gags, the series often comments on how American society treats them, with "Homer's Phobia" devoting an entire episode to the family making a gay friend and Homer's initial hostility to him. In 1990, The Simpsons became the first animated early evening show to depict a kiss between two men in "Simpson and Delilah".

Hallmarks

Opening sequence

Main article: The Simpsons opening sequence

The Simpsons' opening sequence is one of the show's most memorable hallmarks. The standard opening has gone through three iterations (a replacement of some shots at the start of the second season, and a brand new sequence when the show switched to high-definition in 2009).

Each has the same basic sequence of events: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title towards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the family on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down on their couch to watch television. The original opening was created by David Silverman, and was the first task he did when production began on the show. The series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro-style piece. This piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from episode to episode: Bart writes different things on the school chalkboard, Lisa plays different solos on her saxophone (or occasionally a different instrument), and different gags accompany the family as they enter their living room to sit on the couch.

Halloween episodes

Main article: Treehouse of Horror

Bart Simpson introducing a segment of "Treehouse of Horror IV" in the manner of Rod Serling's Night Gallery

The special Halloween episode has become an annual tradition. "Treehouse of Horror" first broadcast in 1990 as part of season two and established the pattern of three separate, self-contained stories in each Halloween episode. These pieces usually involve the family in some horror, science fiction, or supernatural setting and often parody or pay homage to a famous piece of work in those genres. They always take place outside the normal continuity of the show. Although the Treehouse series is meant to be seen on Halloween, this changed by the 2000s (and again in 2020), when new installments have premiered after Halloween due to Fox's current contract with Major League Baseball's World Series. Prior to 2020 (between 2011 and 2019), every Treehouse of Horror episode had aired in October.

Humor

The show's humor turns on cultural references that cover a wide spectrum of society so that viewers from all generations can enjoy the show. Such references, for example, come from movies, television, music, literature, science, and history. The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags into the show's background via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs, newspapers, billboards, and elsewhere. The audience may often not notice the visual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so fleeting that they become apparent only by pausing a video recording of the show or viewing it in slow motion. Kristin Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a "flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show."

One of Bart's early hallmarks was his prank calls to Moe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak where he asks for a gag name. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but soon realizes it is a prank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were apparently based on a series of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings, though Groening has denied any causal connection. Moe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis "Red" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side. As the series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up with a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, and the pranks were dropped as a regular joke during the fourth season. The Simpsons also often includes self-referential humor. The most common form is jokes about Fox Broadcasting. For example, the episode "She Used to Be My Girl" included a scene in which a Fox News Channel van drove down the street while displaying a large "Bush Cheney 2004" banner and playing Queen's "We Are the Champions", in reference to the 2004 U.S. presidential election and claims of conservative bias in Fox News.

The show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and secondary characters have at least one each. Notable expressions include Homer's annoyed grunt "D'oh!", Mr. Burns' "Excellent" and Nelson Muntz's "Ha-ha!" Some of Bart's catchphrases, such as "¡Ay, caramba!", "Don't have a cow, man!" and "Eat my shorts!" appeared on T-shirts in the show's early days. However, Bart rarely used the latter two phrases until after they became popular through the merchandising. The use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The episode "Bart Gets Famous" mocks catchphrase-based humor, as Bart achieves fame on the Krusty the Clown Show solely for saying "I didn't do it."

Purported foreshadowing of actual events

The Simpsons has gained notoriety for jokes that appeared to become reality. Perhaps the most famous example comes from the episode "Bart to the Future", which mentions billionaire Donald Trump having been president of the United States at one time and leaving the nation broke. The episode first aired in 2000, sixteen years before Trump (who at the time was exploring a presidential run) was elected. Another episode, "When You Dish Upon a Star", lampooned 20th Century Fox as a division of The Walt Disney Company. Nineteen years later, Disney purchased Fox. Other examples purported as The Simpsons predicting the future include the introduction of the Smartwatch, video chat services, autocorrection technology, Richard Branson's spaceflight, Lady Gaga's acrobatic performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show and the Titan submersible implosion.

Al Jean has commented on the show's purported ability to predict the future, explaining that they're really just "educated guesses" and stating that "if you throw enough darts, you're going to get some bullseyes." Fact-checking sources such as Snopes have debunked many of the claimed prophecies, explaining that the show's extensive run means "a lot of jokes, and a lot of opportunities for coincidences to appear" and "most of these 'predictions' have rather simple and mundane explanations". For example, the device shown on The Simpsons with autocorrection is an Apple Newton, a real 1993 device notorious for its poor handwriting recognition. Technologically advanced watches have appeared in numerous works of fiction, decades before The Simpsons.

Influence and legacy

Idioms

A number of neologisms that originated on The Simpsons have entered popular vernacular. Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium, remarked, "The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the Bible as our culture's greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry other textual allusions." The most famous catchphrase is Homer's annoyed grunt: "D'oh!" So ubiquitous is the expression that it is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, but without the apostrophe. Dan Castellaneta says he borrowed the phrase from James Finlayson, an actor in many Laurel and Hardy comedies, who pronounced it in a more elongated and whining tone. The staff of The Simpsons told Castellaneta to shorten the noise, and it went on to become the well-known exclamation in the television series.

Groundskeeper Willie's description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was used by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg in 2003, after France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. The phrase quickly spread to other journalists. "Cromulent" and "embiggen", words used in "Lisa the Iconoclast", have since appeared in the Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon, and scientific journals respectively. "Kwyjibo", a fake Scrabble word invented by Bart in "Bart the Genius", was used as one of the aliases of the creator of the Melissa worm. "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords", was used by Kent Brockman in "Deep Space Homer" and has become a snowclone, with variants of the utterance used to express obsequious submission. It has been used in media, such as New Scientist magazine. The dismissive term "Meh", believed to have been popularized by the show, entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008. Other words credited as stemming from the show include "yoink" and "craptacular".

The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations includes several quotations from the show. As well as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", Homer's lines, "Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try", from "Burns' Heir" (season five, 1994) as well as "Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all", from "Eight Misbehavin'" (season 11, 1999), entered the dictionary in August 2007.

Many quotes/scenes have become popular Internet memes, including Jasper Beardley's quote "That's a paddlin'" from "The PTA Disbands" (season 6, 1995) and "Steamed Hams" from "22 Short Films About Springfield" (season 7, 1996).

Television

The Simpsons was the first successful animated program in American prime time since Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in the 1970s. During most of the 1980s, US pundits considered animated shows as appropriate only for children, and animating a show was too expensive to achieve a quality suitable for prime-time television. The Simpsons changed this perception, initially leading to a short period where networks attempted to recreate prime-time cartoon success with shows like Capitol Critters, Fish Police, and Family Dog, which were expensive and unsuccessful. The Simpsons' use of Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming made the episodes cheaper. The success of The Simpsons and the lower production cost prompted US television networks to take chances on other adult animated series. This development led US producers to a 1990s boom in new, animated prime-time shows for adults, such as Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Futurama (which was created by Matt Groening), and The Critic (which was also produced by Gracie Films). For Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, "The Simpsons created an audience for prime-time animation that had not been there for many, many years ... As far as I'm concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium."

The Simpsons has had crossovers with four other shows. In the episode "A Star Is Burns", Marge invites Jay Sherman, the main character of The Critic, to be a judge for a film festival in Springfield. Matt Groening had his name removed from the episode since he had no involvement with The Critic. South Park later paid homage to The Simpsons with the episode "Simpsons Already Did It". In "Simpsorama", the Planet Express crew from Futurama come to Springfield in the present to prevent the Simpsons from destroying the future. In the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy", the Griffins visit Springfield and meet the Simpsons.

The Simpsons has also influenced live-action shows like Malcolm in the Middle, which featured the use of sight gags and did not use a laugh track unlike most sitcoms. Malcolm in the Middle debuted January 9, 2000, in the time slot after The Simpsons. Ricky Gervais called The Simpsons an influence on The Office, and fellow British sitcom Spaced was, according to its director Edgar Wright, "an attempt to do a live-action The Simpsons." In Georgia, the animated television sitcom The Samsonadzes, launched in November 2009, has been noted for its very strong resemblance with The Simpsons, which its creator Shalva Ramishvili has acknowledged.

LGBT representation

See also: LGBT representation in The Simpsons

The Simpsons has historically been open to portrayals of LGBT characters and settings, and it has routinely challenged heteronormativity. It was one of several animated television shows in the United States that began introducing characters that were LGBT, both openly and implied, in the 1990s. While early episodes involving LGBT characters primarily included them through the use of stereotypes, The Simpsons developed several prominent LGBT characters over its run. Producers of the show, such as Matt Groening and Al Jean, have expressed their opinion that LGBT representation in media is important, and that they seek to actively include it. Some characters, such as Julio, were created with their sexual orientation in mind, with it being central to their character. The show expanded its roster of openly LGBT characters through episodes in which prominent characters Patty Bouvier and Waylon Smithers came out in seasons 16 and 27, respectively.

Release

Broadcast

Main article: List of The Simpsons episodes

Season		No. of episodes	Originally aired			Viewership
			Season premiere	Season finale	Time slot (ET)	Avg. viewers (in millions)	Most watched episode
							Viewers (millions)	Episode title
1	1989–90	13	December 17, 1989	May 13, 1990	Sunday 8:30 pm	27.8	33.5	"Life on the Fast Lane"
2	1990–91	22	October 11, 1990	July 11, 1991	Thursday 8:00 pm	24.4	33.6	"Bart Gets an 'F'"
3	1991–92	24	September 19, 1991	August 27, 1992		21.8	25.5	"Colonel Homer"
4	1992–93	22	September 24, 1992	May 13, 1993		22.4	28.6	"Lisa's First Word"
5	1993–94	22	September 30, 1993	May 19, 1994		18.9	24.0	"Treehouse of Horror IV"
6	1994–95	25	September 4, 1994	May 21, 1995	Sunday 8:00 pm	15.6	22.2	"Treehouse of Horror V"
7	1995–96	25	September 17, 1995	May 19, 1996	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–24) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episode 25)	15.1	22.6	"Who Shot Mr. Burns? – Part II"
8	1996–97	25	October 27, 1996	May 18, 1997	Sunday 8:30 pm (Episodes 1–3) Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 4–12, 14–25) Friday 8:00 pm (Episode 13)	14.5	20.41	"The Springfield Files"
9	1997–98	25	September 21, 1997	May 17, 1998	Sunday 8:00 pm	15.3	19.80	"The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons"
10	1998–99	23	August 23, 1998	May 16, 1999		13.5	19.11	"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday"
11	1999–2000	22	September 26, 1999	May 21, 2000		8.8	19.16	"Faith Off"
12	2000–01	21	November 1, 2000	May 20, 2001		15.5	18.52	"HOMR"
13	2001–02	22	November 6, 2001	May 22, 2002	Tuesday 8:30 pm (Episode 1) Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 2–20) Sunday 7:30 pm (Episode 21) Wednesday 8:00 pm (Episode 22)	12.5	14.91	"The Parent Rap"
14	2002–03	22	November 3, 2002	May 18, 2003	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–11, 13–21) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episodes 12, 22)	14.4	22.04	"I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can"
15	2003–04	22	November 2, 2003	May 23, 2004	Sunday 8:00 pm	11.0	16.30	"I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot"
16	2004–05	21	November 7, 2004	May 15, 2005	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–7, 9–16, 18, 20) Sunday 10:30 pm (Episode 8) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episodes 17, 19, 21)	10.2	23.07	"Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass"
17	2005–06	22	September 11, 2005	May 21, 2006	Sunday 8:00 pm	9.55	11.66	"Treehouse of Horror XVI"
18	2006–07	22	September 10, 2006	May 20, 2007		9.15	11.63	"The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer"
19	2007–08	20	September 23, 2007	May 18, 2008		8.37	11.74	"Treehouse of Horror XVIII"
20	2008–09	21	September 28, 2008	May 17, 2009	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–7, 9–21) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episode 8)	7.1	12.40	"Treehouse of Horror XIX"
21	2009–10	23	September 27, 2009	May 23, 2010	Sunday 8:00 pm	7.1	14.62	"Once Upon a Time in Springfield"
22	2010–11	22	September 26, 2010	May 22, 2011		7.09	12.55	"Moms I'd Like to Forget"
23	2011–12	22	September 25, 2011	May 20, 2012		6.15	11.48	"The D'oh-cial Network"
24	2012–13	22	September 30, 2012	May 19, 2013	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–21) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episode 22)	5.41	8.97	"Homer Goes to Prep School"
25	2013–14	22	September 29, 2013	May 18, 2014	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–11, 13–22) Sunday 7:30 pm (Episode 12)	5.02	12.04	"Steal This Episode"
26	2014–15	22	September 28, 2014	May 17, 2015	Sunday 8:00 pm	5.61	10.62	"The Man Who Came to Be Dinner"
27	2015–16	22	September 27, 2015	May 22, 2016		4.0	8.33	"Teenage Mutant Milk-Caused Hurdles"
28	2016–17	22	September 25, 2016	May 21, 2017 (2017-05-21)		4.80	8.19	"Pork and Burns"
29	2017–18	21	October 1, 2017	May 20, 2018		4.07	8.04	"Frink Gets Testy"
30	2018–19	23	September 30, 2018	May 12, 2019		3.10	8.20	"The Girl on the Bus"
31	2019–20	22	September 29, 2019	May 17, 2020		2.58	5.63	"Go Big or Go Homer"
32	2020–21	22	September 27, 2020	May 23, 2021	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–10, 12–22) Sunday 9:00 pm (Episode 11)	2.32	4.93	"Treehouse of Horror XXXI"
33	2021–22	22	September 26, 2021	May 22, 2022		2.25	3.97	"Portrait of a Lackey on Fire"
34	2022–23	22	September 25, 2022	May 21, 2023	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–8, 10–22) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episode 9)	1.83	4.77	"From Beer to Paternity"
35	2023–24	18	October 1, 2023	May 19, 2024	Sunday 8:00 pm (Episodes 1–5, 7, 10–18) Sunday 8:30 pm (Episodes 6, 8, 9)	TBA	TBA	TBA

Syndication

The cable television network FXX, a sibling of 20th Television and formerly the Fox network, has exclusive cable and digital syndication rights for The Simpsons. Original contracts had previously stated that syndication rights for The Simpsons would not be sold to cable until the series conclusion, at a time when cable syndication deals were highly rare. The series has been syndicated to local broadcast stations in nearly all markets throughout the United States since September 1994.

FXX premiered The Simpsons on their network on August 21, 2014, by starting a twelve-day marathon which featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already been released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Simpsons Movie, which FX Networks had already owned the rights to air. It was the longest continuous marathon in the history of television (until VH1 Classic aired a 433-hour, nineteen-day, marathon of Saturday Night Live in 2015; celebrating that program's 40th anniversary). The first day of the marathon was the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the ratings more than tripled those of regular prime time programming for FXX. Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after night, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each night. In Australia, a marathon of every episode of the show (at the time) aired from December 16, 2019, to January 5, 2020, on Fox8 (a cable network operated on pay TV provider Foxtel and a corporate sibling to the American Fox network).

After Disney acquired both 20th Television and FX Networks, it was announced that The Simpsons would air on the company's Freeform channel starting October 2, 2019.

Streaming and digital sell-through

"Simpsons World" redirects here. For the Treehouse of Horror segment, see Treehouse of Horror XXXIII.

On October 21, 2014, a digital service courtesy of the FXNOW app, called Simpsons World, launched with every episode of the series accessible to authenticated FX subscribers, and is available on game consoles such as Xbox One, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and online via web browser. There was early criticism of both wrong aspect ratios for earlier episodes and the length of commercial breaks on the streaming service, but that problem was soon amended with fewer commercial breaks during individual episodes. Later it was announced that Simpsons World would now let users watch all of the SD episodes in their original format. Simpsons World was discontinued after the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019, where the series streams exclusively. Initially, the series was only available cropped to 16:9 without the option to view the original 4:3 versions, reigniting criticisms of cropping old episodes. In response, Disney announced that "in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series." On May 28, 2020, Disney+ made the first 19 seasons, along with some episodes from season 20, of The Simpsons available in both 16:9 and the original 4:3 aspect ratio. Season 31 came to Disney+ on October 2, 2020, with Hulu streaming the latest episodes of season 32 the next day. Season 32 came to Disney+ on September 29, 2021.

The season 3 premiere "Stark Raving Dad", which features Michael Jackson as the voice of Leon Kompowsky, was pulled out of rotation in 2019 by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Al Jean after HBO aired the documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men share details into how Jackson allegedly abused them as children. It is therefore unavailable on Disney+. However, the episode is still available on The Complete Third Season DVD box set released on August 26, 2003.

In July 2017, all episodes from seasons 4 to 19 were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store in Canada.

Reception and achievements

Early success

The Simpsons was the Fox network's first television series to rank among a season's top 30 highest-rated shows. In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed "Bartmania". He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold; as many as one million were sold on some days. Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" and "Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')". The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales. Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.

Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons' time slot from 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it competed with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time. Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry. "Bart Gets an 'F'" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen rating, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network, and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons. The show moved back to its Sunday slot in 1994 and has remained there ever since.

The Simpsons has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, and it has been noted for being described as "the most irreverent and unapologetic show on the air." In a 1990 review of the show, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it as "the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on The Simpsons." Tucker also described the show as a "pop-cultural phenomenon, a prime-time cartoon show that appeals to the entire family."

Run length achievements

On February 9, 1997, The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones with the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" as the longest-running prime-time animated series in the United States. In 2004, The Simpsons replaced The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 to 1966) as the longest-running sitcom (animated or live action) in the United States in terms of the number of years airing. In 2009, The Simpsons surpassed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet's record of 435 episodes and is now recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest running sitcom (in terms of episode count). In October 2004, Scooby-Doo briefly overtook The Simpsons as the American animated show with the highest number of episodes (albeit under several different iterations). However, network executives in April 2005 again cancelled Scooby-Doo, which finished with 371 episodes, and The Simpsons reclaimed the title with 378 episodes at the end of their seventeenth season. In May 2007, The Simpsons reached their 400th episode at the end of the eighteenth season. While The Simpsons has the record for the number of episodes by an American animated show, other animated series have surpassed The Simpsons. For example, the Japanese anime series Sazae-san has over 2,000 episodes (7,000+ segments) to its credit.

In 2009, Fox began a year-long celebration of the show titled "Best. 20 Years. Ever." to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons. One of the first parts of the celebration is the "Unleash Your Yellow" contest in which entrants must design a poster for the show. The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after "Bart the Genius" aired on January 14, 1990), with The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!, a documentary special by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the "cultural phenomenon of The Simpsons".

As of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), The Simpsons became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, having surpassed the 1955–1975 run of Gunsmoke. On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons also surpassed Gunsmoke's 635-episode count with the episode "Forgive and Regret".

The Simpsons is both the longest-running and the highest ranking animated series to feature on TV Time's top 50 most followed TV shows ever.

On February 6, 2019, it was announced that The Simpsons has been renewed for seasons 31 and 32.

On March 3, 2021, it was announced that The Simpsons was renewed for seasons 33 and 34.

Awards and honors

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by The Simpsons

The Simpsons has been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. In a 1999 issue celebrating the 20th century's greatest achievements in arts and entertainment, Time named The Simpsons the century's best television series, writing: "Dazzlingly intelligent and unapologetically vulgar, the Simpsons have surpassed the humor, topicality and, yes, humanity of past TV greats." In that same issue, Time included Bart Simpson in the Time 100, the publication's list of the century's 100 most influential people. Bart was the only fictional character on the list. On January 14, 2000, the Simpsons were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also in 2000, Entertainment Weekly magazine TV critic Ken Tucker named The Simpsons the greatest television show of the 1990s. Furthermore, viewers of the UK television channel Channel 4 have voted The Simpsons at the top of two polls: 2001's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows (despite the show not being aimed at children), and 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons, with Homer Simpson voted into first place in 2001's 100 Greatest TV Characters. Homer also placed ninth on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Greatest TV icons". In 2002, The Simpsons ranked No. 8 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and was ranked the No. 6 cult show in 2004. In 2007, it moved to No. 8 on TV Guide's cult shows list and was included in Time's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time". In 2008 the show was placed in first on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 100 Shows of the Past 25 Years". Empire named it the greatest TV show of all time. In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer "the greatest character of the last 20 years", while in 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed The Simpsons as the 11th "best written" series in television history. In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Simpsons as the greatest TV cartoon of all time and the tenth greatest show of all time. A 2015 The Hollywood Reporter survey of 2,800 actors, producers, directors, and other industry people named it as their No. 10 favorite show. In 2015, British newspaper The Telegraph named The Simpsons as one of the 10 best TV sitcoms of all time. Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked The Simpsons as the greatest American TV series of all time in their 2016 book TV (The Book). In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked The Simpsons as the second-greatest TV show of all time. In 2023, Variety ranked The Simpsons as the fourth-greatest TV show of all time.

Criticism

Controversy

Bart's rebellious, bad boy nature, which underlies his misbehavior and rarely leads to any punishment, led some people to characterize him as a poor role model for children. In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a "threat to learning" because of his "underachiever and proud of it" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education. Others described him as "egotistical, aggressive and mean-spirited". In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him "angry, confused, frustrated". In response, Matt Groening said, "That sums up Bart, all right. Most people are in a struggle to be normal [and] he thinks normal is very boring, and does things that others just wished they dare do." On January 27, 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush said, "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons." The writers rushed out a tongue-in-cheek reply in the form of a short segment that aired three days later before a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad" in which Bart replied, "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."

The show also received criticism from the nuclear power industry in its early years, with its portrayal of the evil boss Mr. Burns and "bungling idiot" employees (including Homer Simpson himself) with their lack of safety and security. In a letter to the nuclear power-backed U.S. Council for Energy Awareness, producer Sam Simon apologized, stating, "I apologize that the Simpsons have offended a lot of people in the energy industry. I agree with you that in real life, Homer Simpson would not be employed at a nuclear power plant. On the other hand, he probably wouldn't be employed anywhere."

Various episodes of the show have generated controversy. The Simpsons visit Australia in "Bart vs. Australia" (season six, 1995) and Brazil in "Blame It on Lisa" (season 13, 2002) and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the visited countries. In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which claimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime, kidnappings, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten Fox with legal action. Groening was a fierce and vocal critic of the episode "A Star Is Burns" (season six, 1995), which featured a crossover with The Critic. He felt that it was just an advertisement for The Critic, and that people would incorrectly associate the show with him. When he was unsuccessful in getting the episode pulled, he had his name removed from the credits and went public with his concerns, openly criticizing James L. Brooks and saying the episode "violates the Simpsons' universe." In response, Brooks said, "I am furious with Matt, ... he's allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in the press is going too far. ... his behavior right now is rotten."

"The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) is one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening and by Harry Shearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."

Bans

The show has reportedly been taken off the air in several countries. China banned it from prime-time television in August 2006, "in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios." In 2008, Venezuela barred the show from airing on morning television as it was deemed "unsuitable for children". The same year, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons, South Park and some other Western cartoons be removed from broadcast schedules "for propaganda of various vices" and the broadcaster's license to be revoked. However, a court decision later dismissed this request.

Perceived decline in quality

Further information: Historiography of The Simpsons § Arguments for decline in quality

Critics' reviews of early Simpsons episodes praised the show for its sassy humor, wit, realism, and intelligence. However, in the late 1990s, around the airing of season 10, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some critics started calling the show "tired". By 2000, some long-term fans had become disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-driven plots to what they perceived as an overemphasis on zany antics. Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald attributed the decline in quality to an abandonment of character-driven storylines in favor of celebrity cameo appearances and references to popular culture. Schembri wrote in 2011: "The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from commanding attention to merely being attention-seeking. It began by proving that cartoon characters don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested with real emotions. Now the show has in essence fermented into a limp parody of itself. Memorable story arcs have been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity walk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue."

In 2010, the BBC noted "the common consensus is that The Simpsons' golden era ended after season nine", and Todd Leopold of CNN, in an article looking at its perceived decline, stated "for many fans ... the glory days are long past." Similarly, Tyler Wilson of Coeur d'Alene Press has referred to seasons one to nine as the show's "golden age", and Ian Nathan of Empire described the show's classic era as being "say, the first ten seasons". Jon Heacock of LucidWorks stated that "for the first ten years [seasons], the show was consistently at the top of its game", with "so many moments, quotations, and references – both epic and obscure – that helped turn the Simpson family into the cultural icons that they remain to this day".

Mike Scully, who was showrunner during seasons nine through twelve, has been the subject of criticism. Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote that "under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon ... Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny, but it hasn't been touching in years." When asked in 2007 how the series' longevity is sustained, Scully joked: "Lower your quality standards. Once you've done that you can go on forever."

Al Jean, who was showrunner during seasons thirteen through thirty-three, has also been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that the show has continued to decline in quality under his tenure. Former writers have complained that under Jean, the show is "on auto-pilot", "too sentimental", and the episodes are "just being cranked out". Some critics believe that the show has "entered a steady decline under Jean and is no longer really funny". John Ortved, author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, characterized the Jean era as "toothless", and criticized what he perceived as the show's increase in social and political commentary. Jean responded: "Well, it's possible that we've declined. But honestly, I've been here the whole time and I do remember in season two people saying, 'It's gone downhill.' If we'd listened to that then we would have stopped after episode 13. I'm glad we didn't."

In 2004, cast member Harry Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now." Cast member Dan Castellaneta responded: "I don't agree, ... I think Harry's issue is that the show isn't as grounded as it was in the first three or four seasons, that it's gotten crazy or a little more madcap. I think it organically changes to stay fresh." Also in 2004 author Douglas Coupland described claims of declining quality in the series as "hogwash", saying "The Simpsons hasn't fumbled the ball in fourteen years, it's hardly likely to fumble it now." In an April 2006 interview, Groening said: "I honestly don't see any end in sight. I think it's possible that the show will get too financially cumbersome ... but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or better than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative, the stories do things that we haven't done before, so creatively there's no reason to quit."

In 2016, popular culture writer Anna Leszkiewicz suggested that even though The Simpsons still holds cultural relevance, "contemporary appeal" is only for the "first ten or so seasons", with recent episodes only garnering mainstream attention when a favorite character from the golden era is killed off, or when new information and shock twists are given for old characters. The series' ratings have also declined; while the first season enjoyed an average of 13.4 million viewing households per episode in the U.S., the twenty-first season had an average of 7.2 million viewers.

Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz argued in their 2016 book titled TV (The Book) that the peak of The Simpsons are "roughly seasons 3–12", and that despite the decline, episodes from the later seasons such as "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" and "Holidays of Future Passed" could be considered on par with the earlier classic episodes, further stating that "even if you want to call the show today a thin shadow of its former self, think about how mind-boggingly great its former self had to be for so-diminished a version to be watchable at all."

In 2020, Uproxx writer Josh Kurp stated that while he agrees with the sentiment that The Simpsons is not as good as it used to be, it is because "it was working at a level of comedy and characterization that no show ever has." He felt there were still many reasons to watch the series, as it was "still capable of quality television, and even the occasional new classic" and the fact that the show was willing to experiment, giving examples such as bringing on guest animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Sylvain Chomet to produce couch gags, and guest writers like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Pete Holmes and Megan Amram to write episodes. In the season 32 episode "I, Carumbus", the show itself makes a nod to these concerns in its credits gag where the god Jupiter notes that "It definitely feels like they're wrapping it up ... any day now."

In a 2021 interview with NME, Jean was quoted as saying, "To people who say The Simpsons isn't as good as it used to be, I would say I think the world isn't as good as it used to be. But we're declining at a slower rate."

Race controversy

Further information: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon § Accusations of racial stereotyping

The stereotypical nature of the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has been the subject of controversy. Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu stated in his 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu that as a child he was a fan of The Simpsons and liked Apu, but he now finds the character's stereotypical nature troublesome. Defenders of the character responded that the show is built on comical stereotypes, with creator Matt Groening saying, "that's the nature of cartooning." He added that he was "proud of what we do on the show", and "it's a time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended". In response to the controversy, Apu's voice actor, Hank Azaria, said he was willing to step aside from his role as Apu: "The most important thing is to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character." In February 2020, he confirmed that he would no longer voice Apu. Groening stated at the same time that the character would remain in the show.

The criticisms were referenced in the season 29 episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished", when Lisa breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience by saying, "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?" to which Marge replies, "Some things will be addressed at a later date." Lisa adds, "If at all." This reference was clarified by the fact that there was a framed photo of Apu with the caption on the photo saying "Don't have a cow, Apu", a play on Bart's catchphrase "Don't have a cow, man," as well as the fact that Hindus do not eat cows as they are considered sacred. In October 2018, it was reported that Apu would be written out of the show, which Groening denied.

On June 26, 2020, in light of the various Black Lives Matter protests, Fox announced that recurring characters of color (Carl Carlson and Dr. Hibbert, among others) would no longer be voiced by white actors. Beginning with season 32, Carl, a black character originally voiced by Azaria, is now voiced by black actor Alex Désert. In addition, Bumblebee Man, a Spanish-speaking Latino character also originally voiced by Azaria, is now voiced by Mexican-American actor Eric Lopez, and Dr. Hibbert, a black character originally voiced by Harry Shearer, is now voiced by black actor Kevin Michael Richardson.

Other media

Main article: The Simpsons (franchise)

Comic books

Main article: List of The Simpsons comics

Numerous Simpson-related comic books have been released over the years. So far, nine comic book series have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993. The first comic strips based on The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine Simpsons Illustrated, which was a companion magazine to the show. The comic strips were popular and a one-shot comic book titled Simpsons Comics and Stories, containing four different stories, was released in 1993 for the fans. The book was a success and due to this, the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, and his companions Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Steve Vance and Cindy Vance created the publishing company Bongo Comics. Issues of Simpsons Comics, Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Bart Simpson have been collected and reprinted in trade paperbacks in the United States by HarperCollins.

Film

Main article: The Simpsons Movie

A Seattle 7-Eleven store transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart as part of a promotion for The Simpsons Movie

20th Century Fox and Gracie Films produced The Simpsons Movie, an animated film that was released on July 27, 2007. The film was directed by long-time Simpsons producer David Silverman and written by a team of Simpsons writers comprising Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, George Meyer, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, David Mirkin, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, and Ian Maxtone-Graham. Production of the film occurred alongside continued writing of the series despite long-time claims by those involved in the show that a film would enter production only after the series had concluded. There had been talk of a possible feature-length Simpsons film ever since the early seasons of the series. James L. Brooks originally thought that the story of the episode "Kamp Krusty" was suitable for a film, but he encountered difficulties in trying to expand the script to feature-length. For a long time, difficulties such as lack of a suitable story and an already fully engaged crew of writers delayed the project.

On August 10, 2018, 20th Century Fox announced that a sequel is in development.

Music

Main article: The Simpsons discography

Collections of original music featured in the series have been released on the albums Songs in the Key of Springfield, Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and The Simpsons: Testify. Several songs have been recorded with the purpose of a single or album release and have not been featured on the show. The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and becoming certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The first single from the album was the pop rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any credit. The Yellow Album was released in 1998, but received poor reception and did not chart in any country.

The Simpsons Ride

Main article: The Simpsons Ride

File:The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Florida.jpg

The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios Florida

In 2007, it was officially announced that The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride, would be implemented into the Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood. It officially opened May 15, 2008, in Florida and May 19, 2008, in Hollywood. In the ride, patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called Krustyland built by Krusty the Clown. However, Sideshow Bob is loose from prison to get revenge on Krusty and the Simpson family. It features more than 24 regular characters from The Simpsons and features the voices of the regular cast members, as well as Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor and Kelsey Grammer. Harry Shearer did not participate in the ride, so none of his characters have vocal parts. The ride also features clips from the show in the waiting line.

Video games

Further information: List of The Simpsons video games

Numerous video games based on the show have been produced. Some of the early games include Konami's arcade game The Simpsons (1991) and Acclaim Entertainment's The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (1991). More modern games include The Simpsons: Road Rage (2001), The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003) and The Simpsons Game (2007). Electronic Arts, which produced The Simpsons Game, has owned the exclusive rights to create video games based on the show since 2005. In 2010, they released a game called The Simpsons Arcade for iOS. Another EA-produced mobile game, Tapped Out, was released in 2012 for iOS users, then in 2013 for Android and Kindle users. Two Simpsons pinball machines have been produced: one that was available briefly after the first season, and another in 2007, both out of production.

Merchandise

See also: List of The Simpsons books and List of The Simpsons home video releases

The popularity of The Simpsons has made it a billion-dollar merchandising industry. The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from T-shirts to posters. The Simpsons has been used as a theme for special editions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, Operation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer Do? and Simpsons Jeopardy!. Several card games such as trump cards and The Simpsons Trading Card Game have also been released. Many official or unofficial Simpsons books such as episode guides have been published. Many episodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years. When the first season DVD was released in 2001, it quickly became the best-selling television DVD in history, although it was later overtaken by the first season of Chappelle's Show. In particular, seasons one through seventeen were released on DVD for 13 years between September 2001 to December 2014 in the U.S./Canada (Region 1), Europe (Region 2), and Australia/New Zealand/Latin America (Region 4). However, on April 8, 2015, Al Jean announced that the Season 17 DVD would be the last one ever produced, leaving the collection from Seasons 1 to 17, Season 20 (released out of order in 2010), with Seasons 18, 19, and 21 onwards unreleased. Jean also stated that the deleted scenes and commentaries would try to be released to the Simpsons World app, and that they were pushing for Simpsons World to be expanded outside of the U.S. Two years later, however, on July 22, 2017, it was announced that Season 18 would be released on December 5, 2017, on DVD. Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019, on DVD.

In 2003, about 500 companies around the world were licensed to use Simpsons characters in their advertising. As a promotion for The Simpsons Movie, twelve 7-Eleven stores were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts and sold The Simpsons related products. These included "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O" cereal, pink doughnuts with sprinkles, and "Squishees".

In 2008, consumers around the world spent $750 million on merchandise related to The Simpsons, with half of the amount originating from the United States. By 2009, 20th Century Fox had greatly increased merchandising efforts. On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, to commemorate the show's twentieth anniversary. The Simpsons is the first television series still in production to receive this recognition. The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009. Approximately one billion were printed, but only 318 million were sold, costing the Postal Service $1.2 million.

External links

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• The Simpsons at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Archived from the original on June 4, 2017.

episodes]]. The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 27 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Annie Awards and a Peabody Award. Time magazine's December 31, 1999 issue named it the 20th century's best television series, and on January 14, 2000 the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Simpsons is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program and it surpassed Gunsmoke as the longest running American primetime entertainment series. Homer's annoyed grunt "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English lexicon, while The Simpsons has influenced many adult-oriented animated sitcoms.

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A black-and-white film still. A giant mosquito plunges its proboscis into the side of a man's head. The man is lying down in bed, and has a horrified look in his open eye.

How a Mosquito Operates is a silent animated film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. The six-minute short, about a giant mosquito who torments a sleeping man, is one of the earliest animated films and is noted for the high technical quality of its naturalistic animation, considered far ahead of its contemporaries. McCay had a reputation for the technical dexterity of his cartooning, displayed most famously in the children's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905–1911). He delved into the infant art of film animation in 1911 with Little Nemo, and followed that film's success with How a Mosquito Operates. McCay gives the animation naturalistic timing, motion, and weight, and displays a more coherent story and developed character than in Nemo. How a Mosquito Operates was enthusiastically received when McCay first unveiled it as part of his "chalk talk" vaudeville act, and in a theatrical release that soon followed. In 1914 McCay further developed the character animation he introduced in Mosquito with his best-known animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur.

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Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi (pictured) as his feature film debut. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States. It focuses on Fritz (voiced by Skip Hinnant), an anthropomorphic feline in mid-1960s New York City who explores the ideals of hedonism and sociopolitical consciousness. The film is a satire focusing on American college life of the era, race relations, the free love movement, and left- and right-wing politics. Fritz the Cat was the most successful independent animated feature of all time, grossing over $100 million worldwide. The film had a troubled production history and controversial release. Creator Robert Crumb is known to have had disagreements with the filmmakers, claiming in interviews that his first wife signed over the film rights to the characters, and that he did not approve the production. Crumb was also critical of the film's approach to his material. Fritz the Cat was controversial for its rating and content, which viewers at the time found to be offensive.

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Hoodwinked! is a 2005 computer-animated film that retells the folktale Little Red Riding Hood as a police investigation, using flashbacks to show multiple characters' points of view. It was directed and written by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech, and was among the earliest computer-animated films to be completely independently funded. Due to its small budget, the animation was produced in the Philippines with a less realistic design inspired by stop motion films. Its structure was inspired by the Japanese film Rashomon and it is part of the fairy tale parody genre. Released shortly after the first two installments in the successful Shrek series, Hoodwinked! intentionally deviated from that series in its style of humor and in certain plot elements. The Weinstein Company signed on as the distributor near the end of production, and while the company recast many roles, it otherwise made few changes. Critical reception to the film was varied; although its script and cast were praised by many reviewers, its animation quality was heavily criticized. It was a commercial success, earning over ten times its budget. A sequel, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, was released in 2011.

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Steven Spielberg, the executive producer for Animaniacs

Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs is an American animated television series, distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by Amblin Entertainment. The cartoon was the second animated series produced by the collaboration of Steven Spielberg (pictured) and Warner Bros. Animation during the animation renaissance of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The studio's first series, Tiny Toon Adventures, was a success among younger viewers, and a series that attracted a sizable number of adult viewers. The Animaniacs writers and animators, led by senior producer Tom Ruegger, used the experience gained from the previous series to create new animated characters that were cast in the mold of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery's creations. Animaniacs first aired on "FOX Kids" from 1993 until 1995 and later appeared on The WB from 1995 to 1998 as part of its "Kids' WB" afternoon programming block. The series had a total of 99 episodes and one film, titled Wakko's Wish. Like other animated series, it continued to appear on television through syndication long after its original airdate.

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Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act—the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer William Randolph Hearst later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage. Though popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and the American J. Stuart Blackton and the French Émile Cohl had experimented with animation even earlier; having a character with an appealing personality distinguished Gertie from these earlier "trick films". John Randolph Bray unsuccessfully tried to patent many of McCay's animation techniques, and is said to have been behind a plagiarized version of Gertie that appeared a year or two after the original. Gertie is the best preserved of McCay's films—some of which have been lost or survive only in fragments—and has been preserved in the US National Film Registry.

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Kampung Boy is an animated television series first broadcast in 1997 over Malaysian satellite television network Astro and later in 60 other countries such as Canada and Germany. Comprising 26 episodes—one of which won an Annecy Award—the series is adapted from the best selling graphical novel The Kampung Boy. The book is an autobiography by the Malaysian cartoonist Lat (pictured), detailing his early life experiences. The television series adapted Lat's tale of the adventures of a young boy, Mat, and his life in a Malaysian kampung (village). The stories focus on the meeting between traditional and modern ways of life, either depicting the village way of life as superior to urban lifestyles, or discussing the merits and integration of modern conveniences. It has also faced questions from Southeast Asian audiences for its similarities with Western animation and deviations from the local style of spoken English. Malaysian animation critics held up Kampung Boy as the standard to which their country's animators should aspire, and academics in cultural studies regarded the series as a method of using modern technologies and cultural practices to preserve Malaysian history.

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Katsudō Shashin (活動写真, Moving Picture), or the Matsumoto fragment, refers to a Japanese animated film speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan. Its creator is unknown; evidence suggests it was made sometime between 1907 and 1911, possibly predating the earliest displays of Western animation in Japan. It was discovered in a home projector in Kyoto in 2005. The three-second film depicts a boy who writes "活動写真", removes his hat, and waves. The frames were stencilled in red and black using a device for making magic lantern slides, and the filmstrip was fastened in a loop for continuous play.

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Atlantis: The Lost Empire is the first science fiction film in Disney's animated features canon and the 41st overall. Set in 1914, the film tells the story of a young man who gains possession of a sacred book, which he believes will guide him and a crew of adventurers to the lost city of Atlantis. Linguist Marc Okrand created an Atlantean language for the film (letter "A" pictured). Atlantis made greater use of computer-generated imagery than any of Disney's previous animated features; it remains one of the few to have been shot in anamorphic format. Atlantis, which adopted the distinctive visual style of comic book creator Mike Mignola, is one of the few Disney animated features not to have songs. The film premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on June 3, 2001, and went into general release on June 15. Due to the film's poorer-than-expected box-office performance, Disney quietly canceled both a spin-off television series and an underwater attraction at its Disneyland theme park. Some critics praised it as a unique departure from typical Disney animated features, while others disliked it due to the unclear target audience and absence of songs.

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South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (pictured in 2007) for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become infamous for its crude, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics. The ongoing narrative revolves around four children—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—and their bizarre adventures in and around the fictional and titular Colorado town. Parker and Stone developed the show from two animated shorts they created in 1992 and 1995. South Park debuted on August 13, 1997 with great success, consistently earning the highest ratings of any basic cable program. A total of 267 episodes have been broadcast throughout its run. Following the early success of the series, the feature length musical film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut had a widespread theatrical release in June 1999. South Park has also received numerous media awards, including four Primetime Emmy Awards. The show has also garnered a Peabody Award for Comedy Central.

Selected article: 11-20

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Shrek is a 2001 computer-animated fantasy-comedy film produced by PDI/DreamWorks, released by DreamWorks Pictures, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers (pictured), Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. It is loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, and somewhat serves as a parody film, targeting other films adapted from numerous children's fantasies (mainly animated Disney films). Shrek originally cast Chris Farley to do the voice for the title character, recording about 80%–90% of his dialog. Shrek established DreamWorks Animation as a prime competitor to Pixar in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. The film's success prompted DreamWorks to create three sequels, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and Shrek Forever After, two holiday specials, Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless, and a spin-off film, Puss in Boots.

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"Hell Is Other Robots" is the ninth episode of season one of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 18, 1999, as the season finale of the first season. The episode was written by Eric Kaplan and directed by Rich Moore. Guest stars in this episode include the Beastie Boys as themselves and Dan Castellaneta voicing the Robot Devil. The episode is one of the first to focus heavily on Bender. In the episode he develops an addiction to electricity. When this addiction becomes problematic, Bender joins the Temple of Robotology, but after Fry and Leela tempt Bender with alcohol and prostitutes, he quits the Temple of Robotology and is visited by the Robot Devil for sinning. Finally Fry and Leela come to rescue him, and the three escape. The episode introduces the Robot Devil, Reverend Lionel Preacherbot and the religion of the Temple of Robotology, a Futurama spoof on the Church of Scientology. The episode received positive reviews, and was one of four featured on the DVD boxed set of Matt Groening's favorite episodes, Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection.

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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is an animated television series produced by Hasbro Studios in the United States (for scripts) and at DHX Media's studio located in Vancouver (for animation; formerly known as Studio B Productions). The series, which is based on Hasbro's My Little Pony line of toys and animated works, is intended for girls age 2 to 11 and considered to be the fourth generation (G4) of the My Little Pony franchise, following earlier lines and television show tie-ins in the 1980s and 1990s. The series premiered on October 10, 2010, on The Hub, now known as Hub Network, an American pay television channel partly owned by Hasbro. Hasbro selected animator Lauren Faust (pictured) as the creative director and executive producer for the show. The show follows a studious unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle as her mentor Princess Celestia guides her to learn about friendship in the town of Ponyville. The show has been critically praised for its humor and moral outlook. Despite the target demographic of young girls, Friendship Is Magic has also gained a large following of older viewers, predominately teenagers and adults, largely male, who call themselves "bronies". Portions of the show have become part of the remix culture, and have formed the basis for a variety of Internet memes.

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"Homer's Phobia" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' eighth season, which originally aired on the Fox Network on February 16, 1997. It was the first episode written by Ron Hauge and was directed by Mike B. Anderson. John Waters guest-starred, providing the voice of the new character, John. In the episode, Homer dissociates himself from new family friend John after discovering that John is gay. Homer fears that John will have a negative influence on his son, Bart. "Homer's Phobia" was the first episode to revolve entirely around homosexual themes, with the title being a pun on the word homophobia. Originally, due to the controversial subject, the Fox censors found the episode unsuitable for broadcast, but this decision was reversed after a turnover in the Fox staff. It won four awards, including an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) and a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding TV - Individual Episode".

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Van made to look like the Mystery Machine.

Scooby-Doo is a long-running American animated television series produced for Saturday morning television in several different versions from 1969 to the present. The series was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears for Hanna-Barbera Productions, who produced numerous spin-offs and related works until being absorbed in 1997 into Warner Bros, which has handled production since then. Though the format of the show and the cast (and ages) of characters have varied significantly over the years, the most familiar versions of the show feature a talking Great Dane named Scooby-Doo and four teenagers: Fred "Freddie" Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville "Shaggy" Rogers. These five characters (officially referred to collectively as "Mystery, Inc.", but never referred to as such in the original series) drive around the world in a van called the "Mystery Machine," and solve mysteries typically involving tales of ghosts and other supernatural forces. At the end of each episode, the supernatural forces turn out to have a rational explanation (usually a criminal of some sort trying to scare people away so that they can commit crimes).

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"Lisa the Vegetarian" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 15, 1995. In the episode, Lisa decides to stop eating meat after bonding with a lamb at a petting zoo. Her schoolmates and family members ridicule her for her beliefs, but with the help of Apu, Paul McCartney, and Linda McCartney, she commits to vegetarianism. Directed by Mark Kirkland, "Lisa the Vegetarian" is the first full-length episode David S. Cohen wrote for The Simpsons. David Mirkin, the show runner at the time, supported the episode in part because he had just become a vegetarian himself. Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson is also a vegetarian. Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his then wife Linda McCartney guest star in the episode (pictured). Paul McCartney's condition for appearing was that Lisa would remain a vegetarian for the rest of the series. The episode makes several references to his musical career, and his song "Maybe I'm Amazed" plays during the closing credits. "Lisa the Vegetarian" finished 47th in the ratings for the week of October 9–15, 1995, with a 9.0 Nielsen rating. It was the fourth highest-rated show on the Fox network that week. The episode received generally positive reviews from television critics. It has won two awards, an Environmental Media Award and a Genesis Award, for highlighting environmental and animal issues.

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The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is an American animated action-adventure television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and broadcast on Cartoon Network from August 26, 1996 to April 16, 1997. A revival of the 1960s Jonny Quest franchise, it features teenage adventurers Jonny Quest, Hadji Singh, and Jessie Bannon as they accompanied Dr. Benton Quest and bodyguard Race Bannon to investigate strange phenomena, legends, and mysteries in exotic locales. Action also takes place in the virtual realm of QuestWorld, a three-dimensional cyberspace domain rendered with computer animation. Conceived in the early 1990s, Real Adventures suffered a long and troubled development. Real Adventures debuted with an unprecedented wide release on Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT, airing twenty-one times per week. Critics have debated the merits of the show's animation, writing, and spirit compared to classic Quest, but it has also received praise in those categories. Real Adventures failed to gain high ratings with its targeted demographics and its merchandise performed poorly, leading to cancellation after fifty-two episodes. Turner has released eight VHS, two laserdisc, and thirteen DVD episodes; reruns have appeared on Toonami, CNX, and other Cartoon Network formats.

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Little Nemo and the Princess ride away in the mouth of a dragon.

Little Nemo is a 1911 silent animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. One of the earliest animated films, it was McCay's first, and featured characters from McCay's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. Its expressive character animation distinguished the film from the experiments of earlier animators. Inspired by flip books his son brought home, McCay came to see the potential of the animated film medium. He claimed to be the first to make such films, though James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl were among those who preceded him. The short's four thousand drawings on rice paper were shot at Vitagraph Studios under Blackton's supervision. Most of the film's running time is made up of a live-action sequence in which McCay bets his colleagues that he can make drawings that move. He wins the bet with four minutes of animation in which the Little Nemo characters perform, interact, and metamorphose to McCay's whim. Little Nemo debuted in movie theaters on April 8, 1911, and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act. Its good reception motivated him to hand-color each of the animated frames of the originally black-and-white film. The film's success led McCay to devote more time to animation. He followed up Little Nemo with How a Mosquito Operates in 1912 and his best-known film, Gertie the Dinosaur, in 1914.

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Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz. Avatar is set in an Asian-influenced world of Chinese martial arts and elemental manipulation. The show drew on elements from traditional Asian culture, blending the styles of anime and US domestic cartoons. The series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends, who must save the world by defeating the evil Fire Lord and ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation. The pilot episode first aired on February 21, 2005 and the series concluded with a widely-praised two-hour television movie on July 19, 2008. Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics, Avatar has been nominated for and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award among others. The first season's success prompted Nickelodeon to order second and third seasons. In other media, the series has spawned a live-action movie trilogy, the first titled The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, scaled action figures, a trading card game, second, and third seasons, stuffed animals distributed by Paramount Parks, and two LEGO sets.

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"Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" is the ninth episode of the first season of the animated comedy television series South Park. The show's first Christmas special, it portrays the Jewish character Kyle feeling excluded from the town's Christmas celebrations and being comforted by Mr. Hankey, who can talk and sing. As Mr. Hankey does not come alive in the presence of other characters, they begin to think that Kyle is delusional. In another plot strand, the townspeople remove all symbols of Christmas from South Park to render the celebrations politically correct and inoffensive. When all the children start believing in him, Mr. Hankey finally reveals himself to everyone and scolds them for losing sight of the good things of Christmas and focusing on the bad. The townspeople apologize to Kyle, then sing Christmas songs and watch Mr. Hankey fly away with Santa Claus. Heavily influenced by the Peanuts Christmas special A Charlie Brown Christmas, "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" was the first South Park musical episode and the only episode in season one in which Kenny does not die. It is a satire of political correctness and religious sensitivity and has been described as one of the classic South Park episodes.

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Homer Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. Homer is the boorish father of the Simpson family and as the family's provider, he works at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. With his wife, Marge, he has three children: Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Homer embodies several American working class stereotypes: he is crude, overweight, incompetent, clumsy, lazy and ignorant; however, he is also fiercely devoted to his family. Homer was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family got their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989. Homer is one of the most influential fictional characters on television and has inspired an entire line of merchandise. His catchphrase, the annoyed grunt "d'oh!", has been included in several dictionaries. Castellaneta has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and a special achievement Annie Award for voicing Homer.

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Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was a newspaper comic strip by American cartoonist Winsor McCay which began September 10, 1904. As in McCay's signature strip, Little Nemo, the strip was made up of bizarre dreams. It was McCay's second successful strip, after Little Sammy Sneeze secured him a position on the cartoon staff of the New York Herald. Rarebit Fiend was printed in the Evening Telegram, a newspaper published by the Herald. For contractual reasons, McCay signed the strip with the pen name "Silas". The strip had no continuity or recurring characters. Instead, it had a recurring theme: a character would have a nightmare or other bizarre dream, usually after eating a Welsh rarebit (a cheese-on-toast dish). His editor there thought his highly-skilled cartooning was "serious, not funny", and he was made to give up comic strips to do editorial cartooning. The strip was revived 1923–1925 as Rarebit Reveries, though few examples have survived. Rarebit Fiend was the inspiration for a number of films, including Edwin S. Porter's live-action Dream of a Rarebit Fiend in 1906, and four pioneering animated films by McCay himself: How a Mosquito Operates in 1912, and 1921's Bug Vaudeville, The Pet and The Flying House.

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The fourteen episodes of the thirteenth season of South Park, an American animated television comedy series, originally aired in 2009. The show focuses on the exploits of protagonists Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Kenny and Butters in the fictional Colorado mountain town of South Park. The 13th season satirized such topics as the ACORN scandal, Japanese whaling, piracy in Somalia and the marketing tactics of the Walt Disney Company. Celebrities were spoofed throughout the season, including the Jonas Brothers, Kanye West, Carlos Mencia, Paul Watson and Glenn Beck. The season received mixed reviews: some critics called it one of South Park's strongest seasons, while others claimed the series was starting to decline in quality. The season maintained the average Nielsen rating viewership for the series, around 3 million viewers per episode. The episode "Margaritaville", which satirized the global recession then affecting much of the industrialized world, won the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). "Fatbeard" was praised by the crew of the USS Bainbridge, which was involved in the 2009 rescue of the MV Maersk Alabama from Somalian pirates.

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Bart Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Bart was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. While the rest of the characters were named after Groening's family members, Bart's name was an anagram of the word brat. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family received their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989. He has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons; including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books; and inspired an entire line of merchandise. Hallmarks of the character include his chalkboard gags in the opening sequence; his prank calls to Moe the bartender; and his catchphrases "Eat my shorts", "¡Ay, caramba!", and "Don't have a cow, man!" Nancy Cartwright has won several awards for voicing Bart, including a Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 and an Annie Award in 1995. In 2000, Bart, along with the rest of his family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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"Trapped in the Closet" is the twelfth episode of the ninth season of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on November 16, 2005. The plot of the episode centers on the South Park character Stan Marsh, as he joins Scientology in an attempt to find something "fun and free". After the discovery of his surprisingly high "thetan levels", he is recognized as the reincarnation of the founder of the church, L. Ron Hubbard. Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, quit the show shortly before the start of the tenth season. The reason for his departure, as reported by Matt Stone, was due to his faith in Scientology and this episode, which—despite initially supporting the show's satirical take on several talk shows—he claimed was very offensive. "Trapped in the Closet" was nominated for an Emmy Award in July 2006, in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category in July 2006, but lost to The Simpsons episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story". The episode was featured among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World", spoofed by Conan O'Brien in the opening segment of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, and mentioned in the Scientology critique film, The Bridge.

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The Simpsons

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on the animated sitcom The Simpsons. It was released in North America on September 16, 2003, and in Europe and Japan later in the year. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast. The game follows the Simpson family and the citizens of Springfield, who witness strange incidents in town and discover that two aliens are filming a reality television series about the populace. To make the show more interesting, the aliens release a new version of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola into Springfield's water supply, which causes insanity. With help from Professor Frink, Homer destroys the aliens' spaceship, and Springfield and its inhabitants are returned to normal. The game received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Praise focused on the interpretation of the Simpsons television series as a video game and its parodical take on the game Grand Theft Auto III, while criticism mostly surrounded some aspects of gameplay. The game received the award for Fave Video Game at the 2004 Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards and sold three million copies.

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The Sinking of the Lusitania is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. A work of propaganda, it is a re-creation of the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation to survive. In 1915, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the tragedy, as Hearst was opposed to the US joining World War I. The earlier films were drawn on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.

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Robert Zemeckis, the director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, depicting a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings. Who Framed Roger Rabbit stars Bob Hoskins as a private detective who investigates a murder involving the famous cartoon character, Roger Rabbit. Charles Fleischer co-stars as the titular character's voice, Christopher Lloyd as the villain, Kathleen Turner as the voice of Roger's cartoon wife, and Joanna Cassidy as the detective's girlfriend. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment to help finance the film. However, the film was released with financial success and critical acclaim. Who Framed Roger Rabbit brought a re-emerging interest from the golden age of American animation and became the forefront for the modern era, especially the Disney Renaissance. It also left behind an impact that included a media franchise and the unproduced prequel, Who Discovered Roger Rabbit.

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Transformers is a 2007 American science fiction action film based on the Transformers toy line. The film, which combines computer animation with live action, is directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg. It stars Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a teenager involved in a war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, two factions of alien robots that can disguise themselves by transforming into everyday machinery. The Decepticons desire control of the AllSpark, the object that created their robotic race, with the intention of using it to build an army by giving life to the machines of Earth. Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, Anthony Anderson and John Turturro also star, while actors Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving voice Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively. Transformers was a box-office success, despite mixed critical reaction. Two sequels have been released: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon in 2011.

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"Road to the Multiverse" is the first episode of the eighth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. Directed by Greg Colton and written by Wellesley Wild, the episode originally aired on Fox in the United States on September 27, 2009. In "Road to the Multiverse", two of the show's main characters, baby Stewie and anthropomorphic dog Brian, who are voiced by series creator Seth MacFarlane (pictured), use an "out-of-this-world" remote control to travel through a series of various parallel universes. They eventually end up in a world where dogs rule and humans obey. This causes Brian to become reluctant to return home to his own universe, and he ultimately ends up breaking the remote, much to the dismay of Stewie, who soon seeks a replacement. The "Road to" episodes which have aired throughout various seasons of Family Guy were inspired by the Road to ... comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour, though this episode was not originally conceived as a "Road to" show. Critical responses to the episode were mostly positive; critics praised its storyline, numerous cultural references, and its use of various animation styles.

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"Stark Raving Dad" is the first episode of the third season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 19, 1991. In the episode, main character Homer Simpson is sent to a mental institution, where he shares a room with a large white man named Leon Kompowsky who pretends to be Michael Jackson. Al Jean and Mike Reiss wrote the episode while Rich Moore served as director. Michael Jackson guest starred in the episode as the speaking voice of Leon Kompowsky. For contractual reasons, he was credited as John Jay Smith in the closing credits. Jackson pitched several story ideas for the episode and wrote a song that is featured in the plot. He also stipulated that he would provide Kompowsky's speaking voice, but his singing voice would be performed by a sound-alike (Kipp Lennon) because he wanted to play a joke on his brothers. "Stark Raving Dad" received generally positive reviews from critics, particularly for the writing and Jackson's performance.

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Marjorie "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier) is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Marge was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the character after his mother Margaret Groening. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three seasons, the Simpson family received their own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989. Marge is the well-meaning and extremely patient mother of the Simpson family. With her husband Homer, she has three children: Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Marge is the moralistic force in her family and often provides a grounding voice in the midst of her family's antics by trying to maintain order in the Simpson household. She is often portrayed as a stereotypical television mother and is often included on lists of top "TV moms". She has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons—including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials, and comic books—and inspired an entire line of merchandise.

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"A Rugrats Chanukah" is a special episode of Nickelodeon's animated television series Rugrats. The first episode of the show's fourth season, it tells the story of the Jewish holiday Chanukah through the eyes of the Rugrats, who imagine themselves as the main characters. The idea of a Rugrats Chanukah special was pitched by Nickelodeon executives in 1992, but the concept was revised and became the 1995 special, "A Rugrats Passover". After production of the Passover episode wrapped, the crew returned to the Chanukah idea. Nickelodeon broadcast "A Rugrats Chanukah" on December 4, 1996; the episode received a Nielsen rating of 7.9 and positive reviews from television critics. Along with other Rugrats episodes featuring Grandpa Boris and his wife, the special attracted controversy when the Anti-Defamation League compared the character designs to anti-Semitic drawings from a 1930s Nazi newspaper.

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"North by North Quahog" is the first episode of season four of Family Guy, following the revival of the series three years after its cancellation in 2002. Directed by Peter Shin and written by series creator Seth MacFarlane, the episode was first broadcast on May 1, 2005, on FOX. In "North by North Quahog", the show's main characters Peter and Lois Griffin go on a second honeymoon to spice up their marriage, but are eventually chased by Mel Gibson (pictured in 1990) after Peter steals the sequel to The Passion of the Christ from Gibson's private hotel room. Meanwhile, their anthropomorphic dog Brian and their infant son Stewie take care of their teenage kids Chris and Meg. Family Guy had been canceled in 2002 due to low ratings, but was revived by FOX after reruns on Adult Swim became the network's most watched program, and more than three million DVDs of the show were sold. Much of the plot and many of the technical aspects of the episode, as well as the title, are direct parodies of the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie North by Northwest. The episode was watched by 12 million viewers and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).

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"Starvin' Marvin" is the eighth episode of the first season of the American animated television series South Park. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 19, 1997. In the episode, Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan send money to an African charity hoping to get a sports watch, but are instead sent an Ethiopian child whom they dub Starvin' Marvin. Later, Cartman is accidentally sent to Ethiopia, where he learns activist Sally Struthers (pictured) is hoarding the charity's food for herself. In an accompanying subplot, after genetically engineered turkeys attack South Park residents, Chef rallies the residents to fight back, in a parody of the film Braveheart. "Starvin' Marvin" was the first South Park Thanksgiving special. The episode simultaneously served as a satire on American indifference toward impoverished countries and the humanitarianism industry. The episode received generally positive reviews and several commentators have described it as a classic South Park episode. According to Nielsen Media Research, it was viewed by about 2.2 million households during its original broadcast, which at the time was roughly eight times Comedy Central's average viewership. Parker and Stone said they were unhappy with the turkey subplot, which they wrote only because they felt obligated to include a B story. In addition to Starvin' Marvin, who became a popular minor character, the episode introduced regular characters Kyle's father Gerald Broflovski and Kenny's family members Stuart, Carol and Kevin McCormick.

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"A Streetcar Named Marge" is the second episode of The Simpsons' fourth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 1, 1992. In the episode, Marge wins the role of Blanche DuBois in a musical version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Homer offers little support for his wife's acting pursuits, and Marge begins to see parallels between him and Stanley Kowalski, the play's boorish lead male character. The episode contains a subplot in which Maggie Simpson attempts to retrieve her pacifier from a strict daycare attendant. Jeff Martin wrote the episode (pictured), and Rich Moore served as director. The episode generated controversy for its original song about New Orleans, which contains several unflattering lyrics about the city. One New Orleans newspaper published the lyrics before the episode aired, prompting numerous complaints to the local Fox affiliate. In response, the president of Fox Broadcasting issued an apology to anyone who was offended. Despite the controversial song, the episode was well received by many fans, and show creator Matt Groening has named it one of his favorite episodes.

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"Weight Gain 4000" is the second episode of the American animated television series South Park. In the episode, South Park residents excitedly prepare for a visit by celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford, whom teacher Mr. Garrison plans to assassinate because of a childhood grudge, and Cartman becomes extremely obese after buying a bodybuilding supplement called Weight Gain 4000. The episode was written and directed by Trey Parker (pictured) and Matt Stone. After the pilot episode drew poor test audience results, Comedy Central requested a further script, and "Weight Gain 4000" helped the network decide to pick up the show. It was the first South Park episode created completely using computers rather than construction paper. Although some reviewers criticized the episode for its profanity and other material deemed offensive, others felt "Weight Gain 4000" was a significant improvement over the pilot, particularly for its satirical element regarding American consumerism. The show's portrayal of Kathie Lee Gifford was the first time a celebrity was spoofed in South Park. Cartman's line "Beefcake" became one of the most popular catchphrases from the series.

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"Lisa the Skeptic" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, first aired in November 1997. On an archaeological dig with her class, Lisa discovers a skeleton that resembles an angel. All of the townspeople believe that the skeleton actually came from an angel, but skeptical Lisa attempts to persuade them that there must be a rational scientific explanation, asking the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould to test a sample. After Gould tells Lisa that the tests were inconclusive, she compares the belief in angels to the belief in unicorns and leprechauns and in response, Springfield's religious zealots go on a rampage to destroy all scientific institutions. The episode's writer David X. Cohen (pictured) developed the idea after visiting the American Museum of Natural History, and decided to loosely parallel themes from the Scopes Monkey Trial. The episode received generally positive reviews. It has been discussed in the context of virtual reality, ontology, existentialism, and skepticism; it has also been used in Christian religious education classes to initiate discussion about angels, skepticism, science, and faith.

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The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It combines animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a look more consistent with the rest of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of hobbits, elves, men, dwarves and wizards who form a fellowship. They embark on a quest to destroy the One Ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron, and ensure his destruction. The film features the voices of William Squire, John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox and Anthony Daniels of Star Wars fame. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, based on an earlier draft by Chris Conkling. Director Ralph Bakshi encountered Tolkien's writing early in his career, and had made several attempts to produce The Lord of the Rings as an animated film before being given funding by producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists. Although the film was a financial success, it received a mixed reaction from critics, and the original distributors refused to fund a sequel to cover the remainder of the story. However, the film sparked new interest in Tolkien's writing, inspiring the production of several further adaptations of the story.

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Bryan Konietzko

Aang is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character is created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (pictured) and is voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen. Aang is depicted as the show's main protagonist, and as such has appeared in all but one episode of the show, the exception being "Zuko Alone". Aang also appeared in the pilot episode which has not been aired. Most of Aang's traits, such as vegetarianism, are based on Buddhist and Taoist tradition. Aang is the series' reluctant hero, showing hesitation when joining his friends to save the world from the Fire Nation. The series depict Aang as the last surviving Airbender and a monk of the Air Nomads, the only race of people with the unique ability to manipulate the air around them. As the Avatar, Aang has the ability to control the four classical elements and is tasked with keeping the Four Nations at peace. The show follows Aang's journeys to complete this task, during a war instigated by the Fire Nation when he was frozen. Aang is also depicted as having a lighthearted personality which has been accepted well among critics.

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The Simpsons

The Simpsons Game is an action/platformer video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons, made for the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable. It was developed, published, and distributed by Electronic Arts. Similarly to the show, the game pokes fun at popular culture, other video games, and Electronic Arts, its publisher. In the self-referential plot, the five Simpson family members—Homer, Marge (with Maggie), Bart, and Lisa—discover that they are forced to participate in a video game and are given superpowers to resolve several situations. Eventually, they must save their 8-bit predecessors from Will Wright, the game's antagonist, and the creator of their video game character selves, Matt Groening. Released in 2007, the game received mixed reviews. Game critics praised its visuals and writing, which included many parodies of other video games, but criticized its short length and poor camera system, which did not always function properly. The Simpsons Game received the Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show award at the 2007 Spike Video Game Awards and was nominated for Best Video Game Writing at the 2007 Writers Guild of America Awards.

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"Volcano" is the third episode of the American animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on August 27, 1997. In the episode, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny go on a hunting trip with Stan's uncle Jimbo and his war buddy Ned. While on the trip, Stan is frustrated by his inability to shoot a living creature and Cartman tries to scare the hunting party with tales of a creature named Scuzzlebutt. The episode was written by series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (pictured) and is rated TV-MA in the United States. It was inspired by the 1997 disaster films Volcano and Dante's Peak, both of which Parker and Stone strongly disliked. "Volcano" was the third episode produced, but it was broadcast as the second. "Volcano" received generally positive reviews and was nominated for a 1997 Environmental Media Award. Slightly more than 1 million viewers watched the original broadcast, according to Nielsen ratings. The episode parodied the Duck and Cover educational videos from the 1950s and 1960s that advised people to hide under tables in the event of a nuclear attack.

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The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai, and written by Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Ian Maxtone-Graham, and Matt Selman. It stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress MacNeille and Pamela Hayden and features Albert Brooks in a prominent guest role, as well as Tom Hanks and Green Day in smaller ones. After previous attempts to create a film version of The Simpsons had failed because of script length and lack of staff, production began in 2001. The script was re-written one hundred times continuing after animation had begun. This meant that "two films' worth" of finished material was cut, including cameos from Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver, Erin Brockovich, and Kelsey Grammer. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, which won the right to hold it through a Fox competition. The film was a box office success, and received positive reception from film critics, though some felt the film was too short.

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Coonskin is a 1975 American animated film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi, about an African American rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists and the Mafia. The film, which combines live-action with animation, stars Philip Thomas, Charles Gordone, Barry White and Scat Man Crothers, all of whom appear in both live-action and animated sequences. Coonskin utilizes a number of references to various elements from African American culture, ranging from African folk tales to the work of cartoonist George Herriman, and satirizes racist and other stereotypes, as well as the blaxploitation genre, Song of the South, and The Godfather. Originally produced under the titles Harlem Nights and Coonskin No More..., Coonskin encountered extreme controversy before its original theatrical release when the Congress of Racial Equality strongly criticized the content as being racist, although none of the group's members had seen the film. When the film was finally released, Bryanston gave it limited distribution and initially received negative reviews. Later re-released under the titles Bustin' Out and Street Fight, Coonskin has since been reappraised, with many considering it to be one of Bakshi's finest works.

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Kelsey Grammer voiced for Sideshow Bob.

Sideshow Bob is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Kelsey Grammer (pictured) and first appeared briefly in the episode "The Telltale Head". Bob is a self-proclaimed genius who is a graduate of Yale, a member of the Republican Party, and a champion of high culture. He began his career as a sidekick on Krusty the Clown's television show, but after enduring constant abuse, Bob attempted to frame his employer for armed robbery in "Krusty Gets Busted". The plan was foiled by Bart Simpson, and Sideshow Bob was sent to prison. Bob made his second major appearance in season three's "Black Widower". In each appearance thereafter, Bob has assumed the role on The Simpsons of an evil genius. Episodes in which he is a central character typically involve Sideshow Bob being released from prison and executing an elaborate revenge plan, usually foiled by Bart and Lisa. His plans often involve murder and destruction, usually targeted at Bart or, less often, Krusty, though these plans often involve targeting the entire Simpson family. Sideshow Bob shares some personality traits of Grammer's character Frasier Crane from the sitcoms Cheers and Frasier, and has been described as "Frasier pickled in arsenic". As of 2012, Bob has had speaking appearances in thirteen episodes and been featured in eleven; the most recent of the latter, "The Bob Next Door", aired during the twenty-first season.

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"Interactions" is the second episode of the animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is based on the comic book character Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The episode sees Spider-Man confronting the supervillain Electro, whose body was corrupted with electricity after a freak lab accident. "Interactions" was written by Kevin Hopps, who researched all the available comic books he had that featured Electro, and directed by Troy Adomitis. Electro's appearance in the episode draws on his traditional comic book style, though designer Victor Cook emphasized the color green and removed the character's customary star-shaped mask. His voice actor, Crispin Freeman, sought to reflect the character's declining sanity in his vocal style. "Interactions" first aired March 8, 2008, on the Kids WB! block for The CW network, following the first episode. Its 1.4/4 Nielsen rating was higher than that of the pilot, "Survival of the Fittest". The episode received mixed reviews, with IGN commenting that "[w]hile not as strong as the pilot, the episode had some notable moments."

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Nedward "Ned" Flanders is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally loathed by Homer Simpson. A devout Christian, he is amongst the friendliest and most compassionate Springfield citizens and is generally considered a pillar of the Springfield community. He was one of the first characters outside of the immediate Simpson family to appear on the show, and has since been central to several episodes, the first being season two's "Dead Putting Society". His last name comes from Flanders St. in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening. When he was created, he was intended to just be a neighbor who was very nice, but whom Homer loathed.

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Adult animation is a term used to describe animation that is targeted at adults. Animated films and television shows may be considered adult for a number of reasons. Some productions are noted for experimental storytelling and animation techniques, or sophisticated storytelling. Others may be noted for a use of risqué themes, portrayal of violence, or sexuality in a manner that is unsuitable for younger viewers. Some adult animation is pornographic, although not all adult animated features are pornography. Before the enforcement of the Hays Code, some cartoon shorts contained humor that was aimed at adult audience members rather than children. Following the introduction of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system, independent animation producers attempted to establish an alternative to mainstream animation. Initially, few animation studios in the United States attempted to produce animation for adult audiences, but later examples of animation produced for adults would gain mainstream attention and success.

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"Focus Grill" is the thirteenth episode of the fourth season and the series finale of the American animated sitcom Home Movies, and 52nd episode of the series overall. It originally aired in the United States on Adult Swim on April 4, 2004. In the episode, Brendon, Melissa, and Jason decide to finally film an ending to the first movie they did together. "Focus Grill" was written by Brendon Small and directed by Loren Bouchard. Mike Lazzo, an Adult Swim executive, had informed the staff of the show's cancellation during the start of the fourth season production run, so Small ; he noted, however, that it was actually an optimistic note for the series. The episode concludes with Brendon's camera breaking, which Small believed was a way to get rid of the character's metaphorical crutch that he had had for the whole series. The final episode received a largely positive response, with reviewers praising it for its sentimental, bittersweet way of concluding the show. Small received various e-mails from fans who informed him that they cried while watching "Focus Grill".

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"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and premiered on September 21, 1997 on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney and abandoned outside the World Trade Center complex with numerous parking tickets. Upon arrival, the family tour the city, while Homer attempts to find his car. He discovers it outside the World Trade Center, where a parking officer later arrives to remove the clamp, but leaves as Homer is urinating inside one of the towers. In frustration, Homer decides to drive the car with the clamp attached. He successfully removes it later and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. Because of the World Trade Center's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but has come back into syndication in recent years.

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"Damien" is the eighth episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. In the episode, the boys' class is joined by a new student named Damien, who has been sent by his father Satan to find Jesus and arrange a boxing match between the two. The majority of South Park residents bet on Satan to win the match due to his enormous size and muscular physique, but Satan ultimately throws the fight and reveals he bet on Jesus, thus winning everybody's money. The episode was written by series co-founders Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with writer Brian Graden. The episode serves as a satire on religion, faith and the nature of good and evil, as well as a commentary on commercialism, the cult of celebrity in America and the nature of children. The episode marked the first appearance of Satan, who would become a recurring South Park character, as well as the character of Damien himself, who was inspired by the antagonist of the 1976 horror film, The Omen. Parker and Stone also said the episode introduced several key characteristics of the Cartman character that have endured throughout the rest of the series. Michael Buffer (pictured), the boxing ring announcer best known for the catchphrase, "Let's get ready to rumble!", makes a guest appearance in "Damien" as himself.

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Aladdin is a 1992 American animated musical family film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Aladdin was the 31st animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and was part of the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance. The film was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, and is based on the Arab folktale of Aladdin and the magic lamp from One Thousand and One Nights. The voice cast features Scott Weinger, Jonathan Freeman, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, and Douglas Seale. Aladdin was released on November 25, 1992 to positive reviews, despite some criticism from Arabs who considered the film racist, and was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $217 million in revenue in the United States, and over $504 million worldwide. Aladdin's success led to many material inspired by the film such as two direct-to-video sequels, The Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, an animated television series, toys, video games, spin-offs, and merchandise.

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Pete Docter, director of the film

Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film to do so. The film was director Pete Docter's second film, the first being 2001's Monsters, Inc., and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, and Jordan Nagai. It is Pixar's tenth feature film and the studio's first to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D, and is accompanied in theaters and DVD releases by the short film Partly Cloudy. The film centers on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen and an earnest young Wilderness Explorer named Russell who fly to South America by floating in a house. The film has received positive reviews from critics, with a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes (the best reviewed wide-released film of 2009 on the site), and grossed over $731 million worldwide, making it Pixar's third-most commercially successful film, behind Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3. Up won Golden Globe Awards for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Score from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, making it the second animated film in history to receive such a nomination, following 1991's Beauty and the Beast.

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Cool World is a 1992 American live-action-animated film directed by Ralph Bakshi, and starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, and Brad Pitt. It tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he created, and is seduced by one of his characters, a comic strip vamp who wants to be real. Cool World marked Bakshi's return to feature films after nine years. The film was originally pitched as an animated horror film about an underground cartoonist, who fathers an illegitimate half-human/half-cartoon daughter, who hates herself for what she is and tries to kill him. During production, Bakshi's original screenplay was scrapped by producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. and heavily rewritten by screenwriting duo Michael Grais and Mark Victor, best known for writing Poltergeist and Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and an uncredited Larry Gross. Reviews praised the film's visuals, but criticized the story and characters, as well as the combination of live-action and animation, which some critics felt was unconvincing.

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Ed, Edd n Eddy is an animated television series created by Danny Antonucci (picutred) and produced by Canada–based a.k.a. Cartoon. It premiered on Cartoon Network on January 4, 1999, and ended on November 8, 2009 with the premiere of the series' TV movie finale, Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show. Designed to resemble classic cartoons from the 1940s to the 1970s, the series revolves around three adolescent boys known as "the Eds", who constantly invent schemes to make money from their peers to purchase jawbreakers. Their plans usually fail, leaving them in various predicaments. Before signing a contract with Cartoon Network, Antonucci approached Nickelodeon, but the channel demanded creative control of the show, which Antonucci did not agree to. Several specials, shorts, and video games either based on the series or featuring the series' characters have been produced. Viewed from 31 million households in 29 countries by both children and adults, Ed, Edd n Eddy received positive reviews and several awards and nominations. It remains the longest-running original Cartoon Network series and Canadian-made animated series to date.

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Sesame Street logo

Sesame Street is an educational American children's television series designed for preschoolers and is recognized as a pioneer of the contemporary standard which combines education and entertainment in children's television shows. Sesame Street is well known for the inclusion of the Muppet characters created by the puppeteer Jim Henson. More than 4,000 episodes of the show have been produced in 36 seasons, which distinguishes it as one of the longest-running shows in television history. The program is produced in the United States by non-profit organization Sesame Workshop, founded by Joan Ganz Cooney and Ralph Rogers; the original series has been televised in 120 countries, and more than 20 international versions have been produced, not including dubs. Sesame Street has received 108 Emmy Awards, more than any other series in television history. An estimated 75 million Americans watched the series as children; millions more have watched around the world, or as parents.

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Treasure Planet is a 2002 animated science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on November 27, 2002. The 43rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, the film is a science fiction adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure novel Treasure Island and was the first film to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theaters. The film employs a novel technique of hand-drawn 2D traditional animation set atop 3D computer animation. The film was co-written, co-produced and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, who had pitched the concept for the film at the same time that they pitched The Little Mermaid. Treasure Planet features the voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Martin Short, Roscoe Lee Browne, Emma Thompson, Laurie Metcalf, and Patrick McGoohan. The musical score was composed by James Newton Howard, while the songs were written and performed by John Rzeznik. The film performed poorly in the United States box office, costing $140 million to create while earning $38 million in the United States and Canada and just shy of $110 million worldwide. It was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

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"You Only Move Twice" is the second episode of The Simpsons' eighth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 3, 1996. The episode, based on a story idea by Greg Daniels, has three major concepts: the family moves to a new town; Homer gets a friendly, sympathetic boss; and that boss, unbeknownst to Homer, is a supervillain. Bart, Lisa, and Marge each have individual secondary storylines. It was directed by Mike B. Anderson (pictured) and written by John Swartzwelder. The episode title is a reference to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, and many elements of the episode parody the Bond films, with a character modeled after Bond making a cameo appearance. Setting the second and third acts in a new town, Cypress Creek, required the animators to create entirely new layouts and background designs. Albert Brooks, in his fourth Simpsons appearance, guest stars as the voice of Hank Scorpio, who is one of the most popular one-time characters on The Simpsons. The episode was well received by critics and IGN named "You Only Move Twice" the best episode of the eighth season.

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Yeardley Smith voices Lisa Simpson.

Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening created and designed her while waiting to meet James L. Brooks. Groening had been invited to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic Life in Hell, but instead decided to create a new set of characters. He named the elder Simpson daughter after his younger sister Lisa Groening. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family were moved to their own series on Fox, which debuted on December 17, 1989. At eight years old, Lisa is the second child of Homer and Marge, younger sister of Bart and older sister of Maggie. She is highly intelligent and plays the baritone saxophone. She has been a vegetarian since season 7, converted to Buddhism in season 13 and advocates for a variety of political causes, including the Tibetan independence movement. She has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and inspired a line of merchandise.

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Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. Originally, these recordings documented speedruns—attempts to complete a level as quickly as possible—and multiplayer matches. Machinima has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other styles of filmmaking. Machinima can be filmed by relying on in-game artificial intelligence (AI) or by controlling characters and cameras through digital puppetry. Scenes can be precisely scripted, and can be manipulated during post-production using video editing techniques. Editing, custom software, and creative cinematography may address technical limitations. Game companies have provided software for and have encouraged machinima, but the widespread use of digital assets from copyrighted games has resulted in complex, unresolved legal issues.

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Kevin Conroy in 2009

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a 1993 animated superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, and is a spin-off of the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series. Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm directed the film, which stars Kevin Conroy as Batman (pictured) and Mark Hamill as the Joker, as well as Dana Delany, Hart Bochner, Abe Vigoda, and Stacy Keach. The film's storyline introduces Andrea Beaumont, an old love interest of Bruce Wayne's, who returns to Gotham City, restarting their romance. At the same time, a mysterious killer begins systematically eliminating Gotham's crime bosses, and due to the person's dark appearance, he is mistaken for Batman. Now on the run from the police, Batman must apprehend the killer, clear his name, and deal with the romance between himself and Andrea. Mask of the Phantasm was released with positive critical success, but resulted in poor box office returns due to the decision to release the film in theaters on such short notice. The film has since found cult success through its various VHS and DVD releases.

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Summer Wars is a 2009 Japanese animated science fiction film directed by Mamoru Hosoda, animated by Madhouse and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film's voice cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji and Ayumu Saitō. The film tells the story of Kenji Koiso, a timid eleventh-grade math genius who is taken to Ueda by twelfth-grade student Natsuki Shinohara to celebrate her great-grandmother's 90th birthday. However, he is falsely implicated in the hacking of a virtual world by a sadistic artificial intelligence named Love Machine. After producing The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Madhouse was asked to produce something new. Hosoda and writer Satoko Okudera conceived a story about a social network and a stranger's connection with a family. Summer Wars premiered in Japan on August 1, 2009. It grossed over US$1 million in its opening weekend in 127 theaters and ranked No. 7 at the box office. The film was well received by critics and the general audience and was financially successful, earning $18 million worldwide. It won several awards such as the 2010 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, the 2010 Japan Media Arts Festival's Animation Division Grand Prize, the Anaheim International Film Festival's Audience Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for the 2009 Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival.

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Maggie Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She first appeared on television in the Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Maggie was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. She received her first name from Groening's youngest sister. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family was given their own series on the Fox Broadcasting Company which debuted December 17, 1989. Maggie is the youngest child of Marge and Homer, and sister to Bart and Lisa. She is often seen sucking on her pacifier, and, when she walks, she trips over her clothing and falls on her face. Being an infant, she cannot talk. Therefore, she is the least seen and heard in the Simpson family. Maggie's squeaking and occasional speaking parts are currently provided by Nancy Cartwright (pictured in 2012), but she has also been voiced by guest stars James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Taylor and Jodie Foster. Maggie has appeared in various media relating to The Simpsons – including video games, The Simpsons Movie, The Simpsons Ride, commercials and comic books – and has inspired an entire line of merchandise.

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Diary of a Camper is a short 1996 American film created by United Ranger Films, then a subdivision of a popular group of players, or clan, known as the Rangers. Made using id Software's 1996 first-person shooter computer game Quake and released over the Internet as a non-interactive game demo file, the video is considered the first example of machinima—the art of using real-time, virtual 3-D environments, often game engines, to create animated films. The story centers on a lone camper, a pejorative for a player who waits in a strategic location instead of seeking active battle, who faces five members of the Rangers clan in a deathmatch, a type of multiplayer game whose goal is to kill as many opponents as possible. Although players had previously recorded segments of gameplay, these were usually deathmatches or speedruns, attempts to complete a map as quickly as possible. Diary of a Camper was the first demo to contain a narrative with (text-based) dialogue, instead of merely showing gameplay. Commentators agree that the work itself is primitive, but acknowledge its importance in establishing video games as a medium for filmmaking.

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Kenny McCormick is a character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the main characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his mouth—is provided by co-creator Matt Stone. He debuted on television when South Park first aired on August 13, 1997, after having first appeared in The Spirit of Christmas shorts created by Stone and long-time collaborator Trey Parker in 1992 (Jesus vs. Frosty) and 1995 (Jesus vs. Santa). In a running gag most prevalent during the first five seasons of the series, Kenny would die in many episodes before returning in the next with little or no definitive explanation given. Other characters' accompanying exclamation of "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! ...You bastards!" became a catchphrase. Media commentators have published their interpretations of the many aspects of the running gag from philosophical and societal viewpoints. Since the show began its sixth season in 2002, the practice of killing Kenny in almost every episode has been seldom used by the show's creators. Various episodes have set up the gag, sometimes presenting a number of explanations for Kenny's unacknowledged reappearances.

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"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", also known as "The Simpsons Christmas Special", is the first full-length episode of The Simpsons to air despite originally being the eighth episode produced for season one. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 17, 1989. In the episode, Homer discovers that he will not be getting a Christmas bonus and thus the family has no money to buy Christmas presents. He decides to keep their financial troubles a secret and gets a job as a department store Santa, but later discovers that the job does not pay enough. Desperate for a miracle, Homer and Bart go to the dog racing track on Christmas Eve in hopes of earning some money. The episode was written by Mimi Pond and directed by David Silverman. The title alludes to "The Christmas Song", also known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire". "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" was nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1990, and has received positive reviews from television critics. It was viewed by approximately 13.4 million viewers in its original airing.

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Kyle Broflovski (sometimes spelled Brovlofski) is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman. He debuted on television when South Park first aired on August 13, 1997, after having first appeared in The Spirit of Christmas shorts created by Stone and long-time collaborator Trey Parker in 1992 (Jesus vs. Frosty) and 1995 (Jesus vs. Santa). Kyle is a third- then fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town life in his fictional hometown of South Park, Colorado. Kyle is distinctive as one of the few Jewish children on the show, and because of this, he often feels like an outsider amongst the core group of characters. His portrayal in this role is often dealt with satirically, and has elicited both praise and criticism from Jewish viewers.

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The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 stop motion fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton (pictured). It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to "Christmas Town". Danny Elfman wrote the film score and provided the singing voice of Jack, as well as other minor characters. The remaining principal voice cast includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page and Glenn Shadix. The genesis of The Nightmare Before Christmas started with a poem by Tim Burton as a Disney animator in the early-1980s. With the success of Vincent in 1982, Disney started to consider The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short subject or 30-minute television special. Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, Burton and Disney made a development deal. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco. Walt Disney Pictures decided to release the film under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought Nightmare would be "too dark and scary for kids". The Nightmare Before Christmas has been viewed with critical and financial success. Disney has reissued the film annually under their Disney Digital 3-D format since 2006.

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Thomas Sangster, the voice of Ferb Fletcher

Ferb Fletcher is the deuteragonist from the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The character, voiced by British actor Thomas Sangster (pictured), was created by Phineas and Ferb co-founders Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and first appeared in the show's pilot episode, "Rollercoaster." They are featured in every episode's A-Plot constructing large scale inventions or taking part in other outlandish activities. Ferb, an engineering genius, allows Phineas to do most of the talking for the pair and is "more of a man of action." When Ferb does speak, it is almost always a single sentence. Ferb was named after a set-builder named Frank, whose wife nicknamed him "Ferb". The tool appears to be an exaggerated version of a Swiss Army Knife. Ferb's design is based around a rectangle and also shaped like an "F" and is inspired by the style of late animator Tex Avery. As a character, Ferb has been critically well received and appears in several pieces of Phineas and Ferb merchandise, including toys, t-shirts, and a video game.

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Kang and Kodos are a duo of recurring characters in the animated television series The Simpsons. Kang is voiced by Harry Shearer and Kodos by Dan Castellaneta. They are aliens from the fictional planet Rigel IV and appear almost exclusively in the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes. The duo has appeared in at least one segment of all twenty-three Treehouse of Horror episodes. Sometimes their appearance is the focus of a plot, other times a brief cameo. Kang and Kodos are often bent on the conquest of Earth and are usually seen working on sinister plans to invade and subjugate humanity. The duo first appeared in season two's "Treehouse of Horror". The first drawing of Kang and Kodos came from writers Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky. The finished design was based on an EC Comics issue cover. Kang and Kodos had brief cameo appearances in several non-"Treehouse of Horror" episodes and have appeared as villains in several of The Simpsons video games.

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Crystal Chesney-Thompson directed the episode.

"Proposition Infinity" ("Proposition ∞") is the fourth episode of the sixth season of the animated sitcom Futurama, and originally aired July 8, 2010 on Comedy Central. In the episode, Amy Wong and Bender fall in love and begin a culturally taboo "robosexual" relationship. After facing anti-robosexual sentiments from society, they elect to get married and advocate to legalize robosexual marriage through "Proposition Infinity." The episode was written by Michael Rowe and directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson (pictured). "Proposition Infinity" served as a satire of the controversy over same-sex marriage and California Proposition 8 (generally referred to as "Proposition 8"), which banned same-sex marriage in California in November 2008. The title of the episode is derived from Proposition 8, turning the 8 sideways to create the symbol for infinity (∞), hence "Proposition ∞". Though the episode satirizes arguments for and against same-sex marriage, it leans favorably toward the idea of allowing same-sex marriage. The theme of the episode revisits the social taboo of robosexual relationships presented in earlier episodes "Space Pilot 3000" and "I Dated a Robot". Openly gay actor George Takei of Star Trek fame, who married his partner in California during the debate over Proposition 8, returns as a guest star in the series. "Proposition Infinity" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Co-creator David X. Cohen named it as one of his favorite episodes of the sixth season.

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Andrew Stanton, director of WALL·E

WALL-E is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. He eventually falls in love with another robot named EVE, and follows her into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and humanity. After directing Finding Nemo, Stanton felt Pixar had created believable simulations of underwater physics and was willing to direct a film largely set in space. Most of the characters do not have actual human voices, but instead communicate with body language and robotic sounds, designed by Ben Burtt, that resemble voices. Walt Disney Pictures released it in the United States and Canada on June 27, 2008. The film grossed US$23.1 million on its opening day, and $63 million during its opening weekend in 3,992 theaters, ranking #1 at the box office. Following Pixar tradition, WALL-E was paired with a short film, Presto, for its theatrical release. WALL-E has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews among critics. It grossed $534 million worldwide, won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as well as being nominated for five other Academy Awards at the 81st Academy Awards. WALL-E ranks first in TIME's "Best Movies of the Decade."

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"Donnie Fatso" is the ninth episode of the twenty-second season of the animated comedy series The Simpsons. It first aired on Fox in the United States on December 12, 2010. The plot revolves around an FBI agent, who helps Homer go undercover to infiltrate Fat Tony's mob. Homer agrees to this in hopes of decreasing his sentence after being charged for bribery. This episode is a reference to Goodfellas as well as real-life informant Donnie Brasco. "Donnie Fatso" was written by Chris Cluess and directed by Ralph Sosa. Critics were polarized with the episode, with criticism stemming from its main plot and cultural references. Upon its initial airing, the episode received 7.32 million viewers and attained a 3.2/8 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to Nielson ratings. "Donnie Fatso" featured guest appearances from Jon Hamm and Joe Mantegna, as well as several recurring voice actors and actresses for the series.

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Troy McClure is a fictional character in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He was voiced by Phil Hartman (pictured in 1978) and first appears in the second season episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment". McClure is a washed-up actor, usually shown doing low-level work, such as hosting infomercials and educational films. He appears as the central character in "A Fish Called Selma", in which he marries Selma Bouvier to aid his failing career and quash rumors about his personal life. McClure also 'hosts' "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase". McClure was partially based on B movie actors Troy Donahue and Doug McClure as well as Hartman himself. Following Hartman's murder on May 28, 1998, the character was retired, making his final appearance in the tenth season in "Bart the Mother". McClure is often cited as one of the series' most popular characters; in 2006 IGN ranked him first on their list of the "Top 25 Simpsons Peripheral Characters".

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"Get Away From My Mom" is the pilot episode of the American animated sitcom Home Movies. It originally aired on United Paramount Network on April 26, 1999. In the episode, eight-year-old Brendon Small discovers that his mother, Paula, is set to have a date with Brendon's soccer coach, the lazy, profane alcoholic John McGuirk. Brendon resents McGuirk for this and expresses his outrage throughout the episode. The date goes terrible and McGuirk and Paula decide to not pursue a relationship. Meanwhile, Brendon and his friends Melissa and Jason film a new movie about a rogue police officer. The episode used retroscripting, a process by which the actors completely improvised all their dialogue lines, the first time this technique was used for an animated television production. Certain script material, however, was provided by series co-founder Loren Bouchard (pictured), who also directed the episode. The pilot also utilized the "Squigglevision" style of animation which was used to produce the show for the entirety of its first season. In its original broadcast, "Get Away From My Mom" received a 1.4/2 Nielsen Rating, the lowest UPN had ever received in that time slot. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics, particularly pertaining to its employment of improvisation.

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"The Invisible Hand" is the sixth episode of the animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is based on the comic book character Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The episode follows Spider-Man as he faces the Rhino, who has an indestructible rhino-like suit and super strength. In his personal life, as his alter ego Peter Parker, Spider-Man tries to ask out Daily Bugle worker Betty Brant to the upcoming fall formal at his high school. "The Invisible Hand" was written by Matt Wayne and directed by Dave Bullock. Wayne had written one other episode for The Spectacular Spider-Man before, and Bullock had directed the direct-to-video superhero film Justice League: The New Frontier. Clancy Brown voiced Rhino for the episode and was cast because the creators felt he could gracefully transition between the character's personalities. It originally aired on April 12, 2008, on the Kids WB! block for the CW Network and received generally positive reviews from television critics.

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"The Uncertainty Principle" is the ninth episode of the animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is based on the comic book character Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. It originally aired on the Kids WB! programming block on The CW Network on May 10, 2008, with a TV-Y7-FV parental guidance rating. The episode chronicles Spider-Man on Halloween, as he partakes in his final battle with the villain Green Goblin and finally discovers the villain's true identity. Meanwhile, Air Force Colonel John Jameson attempts to land his badly damaged space craft back on Earth. The episode was written by Kevin Hopps and directed by Dave Bullock. Hopps researched all the available comic books he had that featured Green Goblin in order to prepare his penning of the episode's teleplay. "The Uncertainty Principle" served as a conclusion to the Green Goblin storyline for the first season. The supposed revelation of Goblin's identity in the episode would later be disproved by the second season finale "Final Curtain," which the writers had unplanned since the series began, and were lucky enough to think of the plot twist and created the episode. "The Uncertainty Principle" is available on both the third volume DVD set for the series, as well as the complete season box set. The episode received a generally positive critical response from television critics—reviewers singled out elements such as the Halloween motif and Mary Jane's vampire costume.

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"Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" is the first episode of the American animated television series South Park. It was originally broadcast on Comedy Central in the United States on August 13, 1997. The episode introduces child protagonists Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh and Kenny McCormick, who attempt to rescue Kyle's younger brother Ike from abduction by aliens. At the time of the writing of the episode, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not yet have a series contract with Comedy Central, and Parker later commented that they felt "pressure" to live up to the internet shorts that first made them popular. Short on money, the duo animated the episode using cut paper stop motion techniques. As such, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" remains the only South Park episode animated without the use of computer technology. When the episode was first broadcast in Canada, "objectionable" material was cut; it was later restored in subsequent showings. Initial reviews of the episode were generally negative; critics singled out the gratuitous obscenity of the show for particular scorn and compared South Park unfavorably with what they felt were the more complex and nuanced The Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead.

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"Are You My Mummy?" is the twelfth broadcast episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The episode sees stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb going to an Egyptian-themed theater where they become inspired to befriend a mummy they believe is being kept in the theater basement. They confuse the mummy for their sister Candace, who was accidentally wrapped up in toilet paper. Meanwhile, Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz tries to blow up a beaver dam in order to make his property beachfront. "Are You My Mummy?" was written by series co-founders Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh (pictured), along with Bobby Gaylor and Martin Olson, and directed by Povenmire. It originally aired on February 15, 2008, as part of the month-long marathon event "Phineas and Ferb-urary." Critical reception for the episode was generally favorable. The featured song, "My Undead Mummy and Me," was also well received and became available on the official Phineas and Ferb soundtrack in 2009.

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The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 American animated musical film and the first traditionally animated film produced and released by DreamWorks Animation. The film is an adaptation of the Book of Exodus and follows the life of Moses and from being prince of Egypt to his ultimate destiny to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. The film was directed by Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells and Steve Hickner. The film featured songs written by Stephen Schwartz (pictured) and a score composed by Hans Zimmer. The voice cast featured a number of major Hollywood actors in the speaking roles, while professional singers replaced them for the songs. The exceptions were Michelle Pfeiffer, Ralph Fiennes, Ofra Haza, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, who sang their own parts. The film went on to gross $218,613,188 worldwide in theaters, making it the second traditionally animated feature not released by Disney to gross over $100 million in the U.S. after The Rugrats Movie. The film also remained the highest grossing non-Disney traditionally animated film until 2007, when it was out-grossed by The Simpsons Movie.

Selected article: 81-90

Portal:Animation/Selected article/81

Daniel Powell wrote "Wet Hot Demonic Summer".

"Wet Hot Demonic Summer" is the second season premiere of the American animated television series Ugly Americans, and the fifteenth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on June 30, 2011. In the episode, Leonard Powers is about to retire as the Wizard of Social Services and give the job to his apprentice, Lionel, whom he abandoned fifty years prior. Meanwhile, Twayne Boneraper and Callie Maggotbone must infiltrate the compound where the wizards hold the initiation ritual, but their complicated strategy involves building a summer camp with Mark Lilly as the head counselor. The episode was written by Daniel Powell and directed by Aaron Augenblick. Powell was inspired to write the episode after reading a critic's review of the series; the critic referred to Leonard as having "omnipotence", which spurred an idea involving the character having to take responsibility. "Wet Hot Demonic Summer" parodies the Harry Potter series, particularly the character design of Lionel. The Harry Potter elements were planned nine months in advance to coincide with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, which premiered two weeks after the episode aired. "Wet Hot Demonic Summer" received generally positive reviews from television critics; several commentators praised its cultural references and claimed that it showed similar quality to that of the series' first season. According to Nielsen Media Research, "Wet Hot Demonic Summer" was watched by 1.14 million viewers in its original airing and attracted less viewers than the series' pilot episode.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/82

"Flop Starz" is the first segment for the first official aired episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The episode was originally broadcast on Disney Channel on February 1, 2008. In the episode, Phineas and Ferb become one-hit wonders in the matter of a morning. This is much to the disappointment of Candace, who is trying out for super stardom on a competition show entitled The Next American Pop Teen Idol Star! Meanwhile, Doofenshmirtz converts his building into a giant robot to aid him in his attempt to conquer the tri-state area. The episode's storyboard was written by Sherm Cohen and Antoine Guilbaud, though the story itself was made by the co-creators of the series. The song in the episode, "Gitchee, Gitchee, Goo," was the first song the series had and caused for Disney to want one in every episode. Despite the actual pilot being "Rollercoaster," the episode was broadcast to premiere the series, so a majority of the series' standard humor and plot devices had yet to be established (e.g. Perry and Doofenshmirtz have no involvement in the removal of the boys' evidence [mainly instigated by the boys themselves] and Candace's busting attempts in the A-plot are limited to two). "Flop Starz" carried several references to the music industry and several genres (the title itself is as well a spoof of the phrase "pop stars"), as well as to the talent competition American Idol. The episode was well received by critics and fans alike, gaining 23.5 million viewers in its premiere. The song featured, "Gitchee, Gitchee, Goo," was as well reviewed favorably by critics. "Flop Starz" has been featured in several pieces of merchandise, including a junior novelization by Lara Bergen in 2009.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/83

Glenn Close

Mona J. Simpson is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She has been voiced by several actresses, including Maggie Roswell, Tress MacNeille and most prominently, Glenn Close (pictured). Mona is the estranged wife of Abe Simpson and the mother of Homer Simpson. Homer believed that his mother was dead, a lie his father Abe told him when in reality she was on the run from the law. Mona first appeared in the second season in a flashback in "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". She returned in the seventh season for her first main appearance in "Mother Simpson" and also had a large role in "My Mother the Carjacker". The character appeared again in Season 19's "Mona Leaves-a", but died during the episode. The character is named after writer Richard Appel's ex-wife, the American author Mona Simpson. The personality for the character is based upon Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground. Glenn Close's performances as Mona have been well-received by critics and she was named one of the top 25 guest stars on the show by IGN.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/84

"Raging Bully" is the sixth broadcast episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. In the episode, Phineas Flynn is challenged to a thumb wrestling competition at the mall with the local bully, Buford, after he accidentally embarrasses him in the food court. Meanwhile, the evil Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz tries using a hypnotic contraption to force everyone to celebrate his birthday and clean up their mess after the party. "Raging Bully" was written by series co-founders Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and directed by Povenmire. Heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield (pictured) guest starred as himself, training Phineas for the big thumb-wrestling match. The episode originally broadcast on Disney Channel on February 6, 2008, as part of the month-long special event, "Phineas and Ferb-urary." It received generally positive reviews from television critics and the featured musical number, "He's a Bully," became available on the official Phineas and Ferb soundtrack in 2009.

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"Fatbeard" is the seventh episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 188th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on April 22, 2009 and in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2009. It was the mid-season finale, marking the final South Park episode for six months. In the episode, Cartman misinterprets news reports about Piracy in Somalia to mean the return of the classic era of swashbuckling pirates, and misleads a handful of South Park boys to voyage to Mogadishu to start a pirate crew. The episode was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States for strong to extreme language. "Fatbeard" was a reference to increasing international media attention to Somalian piracy, and the script depicted the pirates in a sympathetic light. The crew of the USS Bainbridge (pictured), the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer which participated in the rescue of the hijacked MV Maersk Alabama, contacted the South Park creators to praise them for the episode. "Fatbeard" received generally positive reviews and was seen by 2.59 million households in its original broadcast, making it the most-watched Comedy Central production the week it aired.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/86

"Reaction" is the eighth episode of the American animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, which is based on the comic book character Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The episode originally broadcast in the United States on the Kids WB! block for The CW on May 3, 2008, where it was rated TV-Y7-FV. The episode details Dr. Otto Octavius as a laboratory incident caused by the Green Goblin merges special mechanical tentacles to his skin and turns him from a timid and weak scientist into the villain Dr. Octopus. "Reaction" was directed by Jennifer Coyle and was the first episode of the series to be written by Randy Jandt. While writing the teleplay, Jandt was challenged with staying true to the original material of Spider-Man, particularly towards that of Dr. Octopus. "Reaction" received generally positive reviews, with television critics singling out Dr. Octopus' portrayal. Octopus's character design was applauded by both the designers and Coyle; the latter noted that his design allowed her to direct them freely in different manners, and the that the arms in particular were particularly well-done. Peter MacNicol voiced the character and used a voice inspired by that of late actor Laird Cregar. It is available on both the third volume DVD set for the series, as well as the complete season box set.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/87

Halo Legends is a collection of seven short anime films set in the Halo science-fiction universe. Financed by Halo franchise overseer 343 Industries, the stories were created by six Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki, creator and director of Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina, serves as the project's creative director. Warner Bros. released Legends on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 16, 2010. The idea for an anime compilation existed for years before there was momentum for the project. 343 creative director Frank O'Connor (pictured) produced story outlines or finished scripts that the production houses animated in a variety of styles.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/88

Ariel is a fictional character and the lead protagonist of Walt Disney Pictures' twenty-eighth animated film The Little Mermaid. She subsequently appears in the film's prequel television series, direct-to-video sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and direct-to-video prequel The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. Ariel is voiced by Jodi Benson (pictured) in all animated appearances and merchandise. She is the fourth Disney Princess and the only one to become a mother. Ariel has a very distinctive appearance, with her long, flowing red hair, blue eyes, greenish-blue tail, and a purple seashell bikini top. In the films and television series she is the youngest daughter of King Triton and Queen Athena. She is often rebellious, and in the first film longs to be a part of the human world. She marries Prince Eric, whom she rescued from a shipwreck, and together they have a daughter, Melody. The character is based on the protagonist of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" story, but was developed into a different personality for the 1989 animated film adaptation. Ariel has received a mixed reception from critics; some publications such as Time criticize her for being too devoted to her man whereas others, such as Empire, praise the character for her rebellious personality, a departure from previous Disney Princesses.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/89

"The Joy of Sect" is the thirteenth episode of The Simpsons' ninth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 8, 1998. In the episode, a cult called the "Movementarians" takes over Springfield, and Homer and the rest of the Simpson family become members. Homer and Bart are initially introduced to a pair of young Movementarian recruiters in an airport. Homer becomes brainwashed, and moves his family into the cult compound. David Mirkin (pictured) had the initial idea for the episode, Steve O'Donnell was the lead writer, and Steven Dean Moore directed. The writers drew on many groups to develop the Movementarians, but were principally influenced by Scientology, Heaven's Gate, the Unification Church and Peoples Temple. The episode was later analyzed from religious, philosophical and psychological perspectives, and books on The Simpsons compared the Movementarians to many of the same groups that the writers had drawn influences from. The show contains many references to popular culture, including the title reference to The Joy of Sex and a gag involving Rover from the television program The Prisoner. USA Today and The A.V. Club featured "The Joy of Sect" in lists of important episodes of The Simpsons.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/90

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, is an American animation studio which creates animated feature films, short films, and television specials for The Walt Disney Company. Founded on October 16, 1923, it is a unit of The Walt Disney Studios. The studio has produced 53 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 to Frozen in 2013. Originally founded as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929, the studio was exclusively dedicated to production of short films until expanding into feature production in 1934. For much of its existence, the studio was recognized as the premier American animation studio; it developed many of the techniques, concepts, and principles which became standard practices of traditional animation. The studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding, which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking.

Selected article: 91-100

Portal:Animation/Selected article/91

"Cape Feare" is the second episode of the fifth season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 7, 1993, and has since been featured on DVD and VHS releases. Written by Jon Vitti and directed by Rich Moore (pictured), "Cape Feare" features the return of guest star Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob, who tries to kill Bart Simpson after getting out of jail. "Cape Feare" is a spoof of the 1962 film Cape Fear and its 1991 remake, and alludes to other horror films such as Psycho. The episode was pitched by Wallace Wolodarsky, who wanted to parody Cape Fear. Originally produced for the fourth season, it was held over to the fifth and was therefore the last episode produced by the show's original writers, most of whom subsequently left. The production crew found it difficult to stretch "Cape Feare" to the standard duration of half an hour, and consequently padded several scenes. In one such sequence, Sideshow Bob continually steps on rakes, the handles of which then hit him in the face; this scene became one of the show's most memorable moments. The episode is generally considered one of the best of the entire series, and the score received an Emmy Award nomination.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/92

"Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together" is the 22nd aired episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. The episode aired originally on the United States Disney Channel on March 8, 2008. The plot concerns an attempt by Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher to reform the band Love Händel for their parents' wedding anniversary. The story was written by Bobby Gaylor and Martin Olson, and storyboarded by Chris Headrick and Chong Lee. It was directed by series co-creator Dan Povenmire. The episode's central characters, the members of Love Händel, are parodies of three of the production staff, Gaylor, Povenmire, and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. Jaret Reddick, Carlos Alazraqui, and Steve Zahn guest starred as the band members themselves. "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together" was well received and is considered a "fan favorite." It has been referred to by the Phineas and Ferb co-creators as one of their favorite episodes in several different interviews. The episode garnered a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the song "I Ain't Got Rhythm" in the category "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics."

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/93

Down and Dirty Duck, promoted under the abbreviated title Dirty Duck, is a 1974 American adult-oriented animated film directed by Charles Swenson and starring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (Flo & Eddie) as the voices of a strait-laced blue collar worker named Willard and an unnamed duck, among other characters. The plot consists of a series of often abstract sequences, including plot material created by stars Kaylan, Volman, Robert Ridgely, and, according to the film's ending credits, various people Swenson encountered during the making of the film. Dirty Duck received mostly negative reviews, with many criticizing it for its crude humor and others seeing the film as an attempt to cash in on the success of Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat. Dirty Duck fared better on home video and is considered a cult film.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/94

Glenn Beck

"Dances with Smurfs" is the thirteenth episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 194th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 11, 2009. In the episode, Cartman becomes the reader of the elementary school announcements, and starts making politically charged accusations against student body president Wendy. The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. "Dances with Smurfs" served as a parody of the political commentary style of Glenn Beck (pictured), a nationally syndicated radio show host and former Fox News Channel pundit. The episode also satirized the 2009 James Cameron film, Avatar, suggesting the plot of that film borrows heavily from the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, and comparing Avatar's blue aliens to the cartoon Smurfs. It also included references to the Tea Party protests, radio personality Casey Kasem, and former-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The episode received generally positive to mixed reviews. According to Nielsen ratings, "Dances with Smurfs" was seen by 1.47 million households among viewers aged between 18 and 34.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/95

Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent-film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combined to make Felix one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world. Felix was the first character from animation to attain a level of popularity sufficient to draw movie audiences based solely on his star power. Felix's origins remain disputed. Australian cartoonist and film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer said that they created Felix. Some historians argue that Messmer ghosted for Sullivan. What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan's studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed unprecedented success and popularity in the 1920s. From 1922, Felix enjoyed sudden, enormous popularity in international popular culture. Felix's success was fading by the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons. In 1929, Sullivan decided to finally make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1930 with Sullivan himself passing away in 1933. Felix saw a brief three cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios. Television would prove the cat's savior. Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned Felix in a new animated series for TV. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in a feature film.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/96

"The Last Temptation of Krust" is the 15th episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and first aired on February 22, 1998. Bart convinces Krusty the Clown to appear at a comedy festival organized by Jay Leno (pictured), but Krusty's old material does not go over well with the audience, and he receives bad reviews. After Krusty goes on a drinking binge, Bart and Jay Leno bathe him at the Simpsons' house, and Krusty decides to announce his retirement. At Krusty's retirement press conference, the audience finds his tirade against modern comedy hysterical, and he returns to comedy with a new style where he complains about commercialism. He later agrees to a deal with marketing executives in return for a new "Canyonero" – a spoof on sport utility vehicles, and markets products during his next comedy appearance. The episode ends with an extended Canyonero sequence, with a background song sung by Hank Williams, Jr. The writing staff initially had trouble getting Krusty's offensive bad jokes through network censors, but convinced them this was simply a way to emphasize his old and dated comedic material. The episode was highlighted by USA Today in a review of the season's episodes, and received positive reviews in The Washington Times, the Evening Herald, and in books on The Simpsons.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/97

"Deep Space Homer" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season and first aired on February 24, 1994. The episode was directed by Carlos Baeza and was the only episode of The Simpsons written by David Mirkin, who was also the executive producer at the time. The episode follows Homer becoming an astronaut, and the ensuing chaos when the navigation system on his space shuttle is destroyed. Buzz Aldrin and James Taylor both guest starred as themselves. The critically acclaimed episode became the source of the Overlord meme, and features numerous film parodies, mostly referencing The Right Stuff and 2001: A Space Odyssey. A copy of the episode is available for astronauts to watch at the International Space Station.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/98

Krazy Kat is a comic strip created by George Herriman that appeared in weekday and Sunday U.S. newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It was first published in William Randolph Hearst's New York Evening Journal. Set against a dreamlike portrayal of Herriman's vacation home of Coconino County, Arizona, Krazy Kat's mixture of surrealism, innocent playfulness, and poetic language have made it a favorite of comics aficionados and art critics for more than eighty years. The strip focuses on the relationship triangle between its title character, a carefree and innocent cat of indeterminate gender (but often referred to in prose as female), her antagonist Ignatz Mouse, and the protective police-dog Officer Bull Pupp. Krazy nurses an unrequited love for the mouse, but Ignatz despises her and constantly schemes to throw a brick at her head; for unknown reasons, Krazy takes this as a sign of affection. Officer Pupp, as Coconino County's administrator of law and order, makes it his unwavering mission to interfere with Ignatz's brick-tossing plans and lock the mouse in the county jail.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/99

"Homer's Enemy" is the 23rd episode of the eighth season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 4, 1997. The plot of the episode centers on the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's hiring of a new employee named Frank Grimes. Homer attempts to befriend Grimes; however, Grimes takes an instant dislike to Homer, angered by his laziness and incompetence, and eventually declares himself Homer's enemy. The episode was directed by Jim Reardon and the script was written by John Swartzwelder, based on an idea pitched by executive producer Bill Oakley. The episode explores the comic possibilities of a realistic character with a strong work ethic placed alongside Homer in a work environment. The show's staff worked hard to perfect the character of Frank Grimes. He was partially modeled after Michael Douglas as he appeared in the film Falling Down. Hank Azaria provided the voice of Frank Grimes, and based some of the character's mannerisms on actor William H. Macy (pictured). "Homer's Enemy" is considered to be one of the darkest episodes of The Simpsons and is a favorite of several members of the production staff. Although Grimes makes his only appearance in this episode, he was later named one of the "Top 25 Simpsons Peripheral characters" by IGN.

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Michael Dante DiMartino at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International

The Legend of Korra is an American animated television series that premiered on the Nickelodeon television network in 2012. It was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko as a sequel to their series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. Several people involved with creating Avatar, including designer Joaquim Dos Santos and composers Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn, returned to work on The Legend of Korra. The series is set in a fictional universe where some people can manipulate, or "bend", the elements of water, earth, fire, or air. Only one person, the "Avatar", can bend all four elements, and the Avatar is responsible for maintaining balance in the world. The series follows Avatar Korra as she travels to the metropolis of Republic City to learn airbending and face an anti-bender revolutionary group called the "Equalists." The series, whose style is strongly influenced by Japanese animation, has been a critical and commercial success. It obtained the highest audience total for an animated series in the U.S. in 2012, and it was praised by reviewers for its high production values and for addressing difficult sociopolitical issues such as social unrest and terrorism. It was initially conceived as a miniseries of 12 episodes, but it is now set to run for 52 episodes separated into four "books," each of which tells a separate story.

Selected article: 101-110

Portal:Animation/Selected article/101

Trey Parker, the voice of Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman is a fictional character on the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is often portrayed as the series' main anti-hero and in opposition to his friends, who commonly refer to him by his last name. He debuted on television when South Park first aired on August 13, 1997; he had earlier appeared in The Spirit of Christmas shorts created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in 1992 (Jesus vs. Frosty) and 1995 (Jesus vs. Santa). Voiced by Trey Parker, Cartman is an overweight, immature, spoiled, lazy, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited, racist, sexist, anti-semitic, sociopathic, narcissistic, and ill-tempered third- then fourth-grader living with his mother in the fictional town of South Park, Colorado, where he routinely has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town life. Cartman is one of the most popular characters on the show, and has remained one of the most recognizable television characters ever since South Park became a hit during its first season. Parker and Stone describe the character as "a little Archie Bunker", and state that he is their favorite character, and the one with whom they most identify. During its fifteen seasons, South Park has received both praise and criticism for Cartman's tendency to be politically incorrect and shockingly profane. Prominent publications and television channels have included Cartman on their lists of the most iconic television and cartoon characters of all time.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/102

Stan Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. (pictured in 2013) Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman. He debuted on television when South Park first aired on August 13, 1997, after having first appeared in The Spirit of Christmas shorts created by Parker and long-time collaborator Matt Stone in 1992 (Jesus vs. Frosty) and 1995 (Jesus vs. Santa). Stan is a third- then fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town life in his fictional hometown of South Park, Colorado. Stan is generally friendly, down-to-earth, knowledgeable, helpful, laid back, and often shares with Kyle a leadership role as the main protagonist of the show. Stan is unreserved in verbally expressing his distinct lack of esteem for adults and their influences, as adult South Park residents rarely make use of their critical faculties. Stan is animated by computer in a way to emulate the show's original method of cutout animation. He also appears in the 1999 full-length feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, as well as South Park-related media and merchandise. While Parker and Stone portray Stan as having common childlike tendencies, his dialogue is often intended to reflect stances and views on more adult-oriented issues, and has been frequently cited in numerous publications by experts in the fields of politics, religion, popular culture and philosophy.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/103

Ron Howard in 2011

Willow is a 1988 American fantasy film directed by Ron Howard (pictured), produced and with a story by George Lucas, and starring Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Jean Marsh, and Billy Barty. Davis plays the eponymous lead character and hero: a reluctant farmer who plays a critical role in protecting a special baby from a tyrannical queen in a sword and sorcery setting. Lucas conceived the idea for Willow in 1972, approaching Howard to direct during the post-production phase of Cocoon in 1985. Bob Dolman was brought in to write the screenplay, coming up with seven drafts before finishing in late 1986. Willow was then set up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and principal photography began in April 1987, finishing the following October. The majority of filming took place at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England, as well as Wales and New Zealand. Industrial Light & Magic created the visual effects sequences, which led to a revolutionary breakthrough with digital morphing technology. Willow was released in 1988 to mixed reviews from critics, but was a modest financial success and received two Academy Award nominations.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/104

The Care Bears Movie is a 1985 animated adventure film, the second feature production from the Toronto animation studio Nelvana. One of the first films based directly on a toy line, it introduced the Care Bears characters and their companions, the Care Bear Cousins. The group consists of different species, such as monkeys, elephants and penguins. In the film, orphanage owners tell a story about the Care Bears, who live in a cloud-filled land called Care-a-lot. The film premiered on March 24, 1985, in Washington, D.C. and entered wide release in around 1,000 North American theatres five days later. The Care Bears Movie received mixed reviews from the outset; critics raised concern over its potential as a full-length advertisement for the title characters, among many other aspects. The movie's success saved Nelvana from closing, helped revive films aimed at children in the U.S. market, and has been cited as inspiring a spate of toy-based animated and live-action features. Nelvana produced two sequels in the next two years, A New Generation (1986) and Adventure in Wonderland (1987); neither surpassed the original financially or critically.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/105

Lena Dunham guest starred as Betty in the episode

"Betty" is the forty-eighth episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series Adventure Time. It was written and storyboarded by Ako Castuera and Jesse Moynihan, from a story by Kent Osborne, Pendleton Ward, Jack Pendarvis, Adam Muto, and Moynihan. It originally aired on Cartoon Network on February 24, 2014. The episode guest stars Lena Dunham (pictured) as the eponymous character, Betty. The entry also saw the return of Miguel Ferrer, Steve Agee, Duncan Trussell, and Maurice LaMarche as various characters. In this episode, the Ice King reverts to Simon (both voiced by Tom Kenny) after being exposed to an anti-magic being named Bella Noche, and gets help from Finn, Jake, and Marceline in order to get Betty, his former fiancée, back. Once he succeeds in bring her back, however, he begins to die, forcing Betty herself to defeat Belle Noche. An episode centered around Betty had been promised by the crew at San Diego Comic-Con International in 2012. Due to the subject matter and length of the episode, several scenes had to be cut or trimmed for time, since so much was being placed in the episode. A review by Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club was complimentary towards the story, and Sava also applauded Dunham's voice acting.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/106

Presto is a 2008 American Pixar computer-animated short film shown in theaters before their feature length film WALL-E. The short is about a magician trying to perform a show with his uncooperative rabbit and is a gag-filled homage to classic cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. Presto was directed by veteran Pixar animator Doug Sweetland, in his directorial debut. The original idea for the short was a magician who incorporated a rabbit into his act who suffered from stage fright. This was considered to be too long and complicated, and the idea was reworked. To design the theater featured in Presto, the filmmakers visited several Opera Houses and theaters for set design ideas. Problems arose when trying to animate the theater's audience of 2,500 patrons—which was deemed too expensive—and was solved by showing the back of the audience. Reaction to the short was very positive, and reviewers of WALL-E's home media release considered it to be an enjoyable special feature. One critic called Presto a "winner through and through", while another found it to be "a short and hilarious animated film". Presto was nominated for an Annie Award and Academy Award. It was included in the Animation Show of Shows in 2008.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/107

"A Canterlot Wedding" is the collective name for the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth episodes of the second season of the Canadian-American animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the fifty-first and fifty-second episodes of the series overall. "A Canterlot Wedding" was directed by James Wootton and written by Meghan McCarthy, premiered on The Hub on April 21, 2012, with both parts airing as an hour-long event. In the episodes, Twilight Sparkle learns that her brother Shining Armor will be marrying Princess Celestia's niece, Princess Cadance. The premiere of "A Canterlot Wedding" was preceded by a major marketing campaign by the channel, which featured interactive content on the network's web site, promotional events, and a print advertisement taking the form of a formal wedding announcement in The New York Times newspaper. The episode debuted to excellent ratings and was positively received by critics, who felt that the hour-long special was highly ambitious for a children's program, and a further justification for the Brony community that the Friendship Is Magic series has developed. The first half of the episode was watched by over 483,000 viewers and the second half was watched by over 475,000.

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Vincent Martella, the voice actor of Phineas Flynn

Phineas Flynn is the main protagonist of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. Voiced by Vincent Martella and created and designed by Dan Povenmire, Phineas first appeared along with the rest of the series' main characters in the pilot episode "Rollercoaster." Phineas, along with his stepbrother Ferb Fletcher, star in each A-Plot of every episode. The series concerns Phineas's attempts to avoid boredom by finding something new to do every day of the summer vacation. His sister's name is Candace Flynn, who tries to reveal their outrageous creations, but to no avail. It is also said in Phineas and Ferb's "Quantum Boogaloo" that he had won the nobel prize, as he was in Switzerland at the time for the "award ceremony". Phineas comes from a blended family. The creators chose this arrangement because they considered it underused in children's programming as well as from Marsh's past experiences in one. As a character, Phineas has received a positive critical response, with one reviewer describing him and his brother as a "comical pairing." Phineas appears in Phineas and Ferb merchandise, including plush toys, t-shirts, and a video game.

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Aaron Augenblick co-directed "Ride Me to Hell".

"Ride Me to Hell" is the third episode of the second season of the American animated television series Ugly Americans, and the seventeenth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 14, 2011. In the episode, Grimes is outraged by the unsatisfying ending of his favorite television series, and Mark helps him unravel his attachment to the series while uncovering several deep-seated memories. Meanwhile, Callie is expected to take over as the leader of Hell from her father, but is unwilling to do so. The episode was written by Mike Rowe and directed by Aaron Augenblick and series creator Devin Clark. While the series' first season mainly referenced horror films, "Ride Me to Hell" pays homage to 1970s cop shows. Clark used Grimes unleashing his memories from the 1970s as an opportunity to parody cop shows such as CHiPs and Starsky and Hutch. According to Nielsen Media Research, "Ride Me to Hell" was watched by 814,000 viewers in its original airing, a slight drop in total viewership when compared to previous episodes. The episode received positive reviews.

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Dee Bradley Baker, the voice of Perry the Platypus

Perry the Platypus is an anthropomorphic platypus from the animated television series Phineas and Ferb. Perry is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker and created by the series' co-founders, Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh. He first appeared along with the majority of the main cast in the pilot episode "Rollercoaster." Perry is featured as the star of the B-Plot for every episode of the series, alongside his arch-nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Perry is featured as the star of the B-Plot for every episode of the series, alongside his arch-nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Perry is the pet platypus for the blended Flynn-Fletcher family, who is perceived as mindless and domesticated. In secret, however, he lives a double life as a member of an all-animal espionage organization referred to as The O.W.C.A. ("Organization Without a Cool Acronym"). Perry was made a platypus because of the animal's striking appearance and the lack of public knowledge of the animal, which allows the writers to make things up about the species. Critical reception for the character from both professionals and fans have been considerably positive. Merchandising of the character include plush toys and t-shirts, along with appearances in literature and a 2009 video game for the Nintendo DS.

Selected article: 111-120

Portal:Animation/Selected article/111

Giant Panda in 2006

"It's About Time!" is the twenty-first broadcast episode of the animated television series Phineas and Ferb's first season. It originally aired on Disney Channel on March 1, 2008. The episode concerns stepbrothers Phineas and Ferb fixing a time machine on display in a museum and using it to travel back to prehistoric times. Meanwhile, Perry the Platypus deals with being replaced with a panda bear as the nemesis of the mad scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. "It's About Time!" was written and directed by series co-founder Dan Povenmire, and storyboards were constructed by multiple artists in the show's production staff. The writers purposely left the time machine available to the boys at the end of the episode in order to reuse it later in the series, which they did in the season 2 episode "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo." Critical reception was generally positive, and multiple reviewers applauded Perry and Doofenshmirtz's relationship in the episode, which they noted was portrayed with possible homosexual subtext.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/112

The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated science fiction film produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. Brad Bird directed the film, which stars a voice cast of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald and John Mahoney. The film tells the story of a lonely boy named Hogarth raised by his widowed mother, discovering a giant iron man which fell from space. Hogarth, with the help of a beatnik named Dean, has to stop the U.S. military and a federal agent from finding and destroying the Giant. The Iron Giant takes place during the height of the Cold War (1957). Development phase for the film started around 1994, though the project finally started taking root once Bird signed on as director, and Bird's hiring of Tim McCanlies to write the screenplay in 1996. The script was given approval by Ted Hughes, author of the original novel, and production struggled through difficulties. The Iron Giant was released with high critical praise, when released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the summer of 1999. It was nominated for awards that most notably included the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Nebula Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (pictured), creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most expensive video game-inspired film ever made. It features the voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin and Steve Buscemi. The Spirits Within follows scientists Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free a post-apocalyptic Earth from a mysterious and deadly alien race known as the Phantoms, which has driven the remnants of humanity into "barrier cities". They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to use more violent means to end the conflict. Square Pictures rendered the film using some of the most advanced processing capabilities available for film animating at the time. A render farm consisting of 960 workstations was tasked with rendering each of the film's 141,964 frames. It took a staff of 200 and some four years to complete the film. Square intended to make the character of Aki Ross into the world's first photorealistic computer-animated actress, with plans for appearances in multiple films in different roles. The Spirits Within debuted to mixed critical reception, but was widely praised for the realism of the computer-animated characters. Due to rising costs, the film greatly exceeded its original budget towards the end of production, reaching a final cost of $137 million, of which it made back only $85 million at the box office. The film has been called a box office bomb, and is blamed for the demise of Square Pictures.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/114

Episode composer Tim Kiefer used a Game Boy to make some of the percussion loops heard in the episode.

"What Was Missing" is the tenth episode of the third season of the American animated television series Adventure Time. The episode was written and storyboarded by Adam Muto and Rebecca Sugar, from a story by Mark Banker, Kent Osborne, Patrick McHale, and series creator Pendleton Ward. It originally aired on Cartoon Network on September 26, 2011. The series follows the adventures of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a dog with magical powers to change shape and grow and shrink at will. In this episode, Finn, Jake, Princess Bubblegum, and Marcelline form a band in order to defeat the Door Lord and recover what the creature had stolen from them. Sugar noted that while the episode may appear to be about friendship, it is really about the power of telling the truth, as exemplified by the episode's songs. Episode composer Tim Kiefer played all of the conventional instruments himself, and used unique instruments, like a Game Boy (pictured), to make some of the loops heard in the episode. The episode was watched by 2.185 million people and caused a minor controversy due to the revelation of an intimate (and possibly romantic) history between Marceline and Bubblegum, a fact that also garnered praise for the episode from several LGBTQ-oriented review sites.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/115

The animated television series Rugrats has been noted for its portrayal of Judaism, a dynamic rarely portrayed in American animated programming during the series' broadcast run (1991–2004). Two episodes of the series are devoted to Jewish holidays and explaining their history, and the Pickles family is shown to be part-Jewish. The first Rugrats Jewish holiday special was suggested to the production staff in 1992 by Nickelodeon executives as a special devoted to Hanukkah. Germain instead refashioned it into a Passover episode and the series did not explore a Hanukkah special until 1996. Critical reaction to Jewish themes in Rugrats was largely positive. Each holiday special achieved high viewing numbers according to Nielsen Media Research and received positive reviews. However, Jewish character Grandpa Boris' portrayal in a 1998 Rugrats comic strip was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for apparent antisemitism.

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A Seattle 7-Eleven store transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart.

The Kwik-E-Mart is a fictional chain of convenience stores in the animated television series The Simpsons. It is a parody of American convenience store chains, like 7-Eleven and Circle K and represents many myths and stereotypes of them. It is notorious for its high prices and the poor quality of its merchandise. The operator of the Springfield branch is an Indian-American named Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. It was first seen in the episode "The Telltale Head" and since become a common setting in several episodes. In July 2007, eleven 7-Eleven locations in the United States and one in Canada were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts as part of a special promotion for the The Simpsons Movie. For a limited time, 7-Elevens across North America also sold various Simpsons products, such as "Squishees", "Buzz Cola" and "Krusty-Os cereal". Also in 2007, a gift stores named the "Kwik-E-Mart" was opened in Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood, where they will be a companion to the upcoming "The Simpsons Ride".

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"The Coon" is the second episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 183rd overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 18, 2009. In the episode, Cartman poses as a superhero vigilante named "The Coon", who grows increasingly jealous of the popularity and success of a rival superhero named "Mysterion". The episode was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It was originally conceived as an episode about the economic recession, but those elements were later adapted into the future episode, "Margaritaville". "The Coon" generated a great deal of speculation about the true identity of Mysterion. Parker and Stone originally said there was no specific answer to the question. The episode parodied several dark-toned comic book films that had been recently released at the time, including The Spirit, Watchmen and The Dark Knight. It received generally positive reviews and, according to Nielsen Media Research, was seen by 3.27 million households the week it aired. Comedian Bruce Vilanch, who is mocked in the episode, sent a thank you card to Parker and Stone after the episode aired. "The Coon" was released on DVD and Blu-ray along with the rest of the thirteenth season on March 16, 2010. "The Coon" was also released on DVD of The Little Box of Butters on September 28, 2010. "The Coon" was re-released once more on DVD and Blu-ray as a "bonus episode" with the complete fourteenth season.

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The Itchy & Scratchy Show is a show within a show in the animated television series The Simpsons. It usually appears as a part of The Krusty the Clown Show, watched regularly by Bart and Lisa Simpson. Itself an animated cartoon, The Itchy & Scratchy Show depicts an anthropomorphic blue mouse, Itchy (voiced by Dan Castellaneta), who repeatedly kills an anthropomorphic black cat, Scratchy (voiced by Harry Shearer). The cartoon first appeared in the Tracey Ullman Show short "The Bart Simpson Show", which originally aired November 20, 1988. The cartoon's first appearance in The Simpsons was in the 1990 episode "There's No Disgrace Like Home". Typically presented as 15-60 second-long cartoons, the show is filled with over-the-top violence. Itchy and Scratchy are based on the cartoons Tom and Jerry and Herman and Katnip, and their names were inspired by "Pixie and Dixie", who were mice on the cartoon show Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks. The cartoons have since become popular among the show's writers and animators and are often added when an episode needs expanding. As the shorts became popular with fans, the writers decided to have full episodes that centered around the production of The Itchy & Scratchy Show and featured multiple shorts.

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Portal:Animation/Selected article/119

"A Rugrats Passover" is the 23rd episode of the third season of the American animated television series Rugrats, and its 62nd episode overall. It was broadcast originally on April 13, 1995, on the cable network Nickelodeon. The plot follows series regulars Grandpa Boris and the babies as they become trapped in the attic on Passover; to pass the time, Boris tells the Jewish story of the Exodus. "A Rugrats Passover" was directed by Jim Duffy, Steve Socki, and Jeff McGrath from the script by Peter Gaffney, Paul Germain, Rachel Lipman, and Jonathon Greenberg. The episode was conceived in 1992 when Germain responded to a Nickelodeon request for a Rugrats Hannukah special by creating a Passover episode instead. The episode scored a 3.1 Nielsen Rating, making it "the highest-rated show in Nickelodeon's history", and received overwhelmingly positive reviews, including from Jewish community publications. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, an Annie Award, and a CableACE Award. The episode also, however, attracted controversy, when the Anti-Defamation League compared the artistic design of the older characters to anti-Semitic drawings from a 1930s Nazi newspaper. The episode made Rugrats one of the first animated series to focus on a Jewish holiday; its success precipitated the creation of another special, "A Rugrats Chanukah", which also attracted critical acclaim.

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The Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpsons are a nuclear family consisting of the married couple Homer and Marge and their three children Bart, Lisa and Maggie. They live at 742 Evergreen Terrace in the fictional town of Springfield, USA. They were created by cartoonist Matt Groening who conceived the idea while waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. He named the characters after his own family members, substituting "Bart" for his own name. The family debuted April 19, 1987 in the The Tracey Ullman Show show short "Good Night" and were later spun off into their own series which debuted on December 17, 1989. Alongside the five main family members, there are a number of other major and minor characters in their family. The most commonly recurring characters are Homer's father Abraham Simpson; Marge's sisters Patty and Selma Bouvier; and the family's two pets, Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. Other family members include Homer's mother Mona Simpson, Homer's "Vegas wife" Amber, Marge's mother Jacqueline Bouvier, and a whole range of minor relatives.

Selected article: 121-130

Portal:Animation/Selected article/121

"Ricardio the Heart Guy" is the seventh episode of the first season of the American animated television series Adventure Time. The episode was written and storyboarded by Bert Youn and Sean Jimenez, from a story by Merriwether Williams, Tim McKeon, and Adam Muto. It originally aired on Cartoon Network on April 26, 2010. The episode guest stars George Takei (pictured) as the titular character, Ricardio. In this episode, Finn believes that Princess Bubblegum's (voiced by Hynden Walch) new friend, a heart named Ricardio, is evil, and is proven right after learning that Ricardio is the heart of the Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny). Ricardio reveals that he wants to "make out" with Bubblegum's heart, but he is defeated by Finn and Jake. Ricardio would become a minor recurring villain, reappearing in the fourth season entry "Lady & Peebles". After the episode aired, series composed Casey James Basichis posted a video explaining his inspiration and the method in which he produced the music featured in the episode. Basichis largely scored the episode with opera music, because he felt the genre suited Ricardio. "Ricardio the Heart Guy" was watched by 1.91 million people and received largely positive critical attention, with many reviews praising Takei's voice work.

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"The Return of Harmony" is the collective name for the first and second episodes of the second season of the American animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the 27th and 28th episodes of the series overall. Both episodes were written by M. A. Larson and directed by series director James Wootton. Part one of the episode aired in the United States on September 17, 2011 on The Hub network. Part two aired the following week, on September 24. The episode received a Nielsen household rating of 0.2 and was viewed by over 339,000 viewers, making it the highest-rated episode ever broadcast by The Hub at that point. This is also the last My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode to be produced by Studio B Productions. The show follows a studious unicorn pony named Twilight Sparkle as her mentor Princess Celestia guides her to learn about friendship in the town of Ponyville. Twilight becomes close friends with five other ponies: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. In the first part of the episode, an ancient evil known as Discord escapes from his stone prison, and Twilight and her friends discover that the Elements of Harmony have been stolen. They need to retrieve them in order to save Equestria from eternal chaos, but first have to contend with Discord's sinister mind games. In part two, Twilight is determined to find the Elements of Harmony after her friends are hypnotically brainwashed by Discord and all of Equestria begins to fall into disarray.

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The Treehouse of Horror episodes are the annual Halloween specials in the animated series The Simpsons. Each episode consists of three separate, self-contained segments, which usually involve the Simpson family in some horror, science fiction, or supernatural setting. Considered non-canon, they always take place outside the normal continuity of the show and completely abandon any pretense of being realistic. The first Treehouse of Horror episode aired on October 25, 1990 as part of the second season and was inspired by EC Comics horror tales. The episodes are known for being far more violent and much darker than an average Simpsons episode. As of 2008, there are 18 Treehouse of Horror episodes, with one airing every year, and the newest episode, "Treehouse of Horror XIX", is scheduled to air on November 2. Episodes contain several trademarks, including the alien characters Kang and Kodos, "scary names" in the credits, a special version of the opening sequence, and parodies of horror and science fiction films. The show's staff regard the Treehouse of Horror as being particularly difficult to produce as the scripts often go through many rewrites, and the animators typically have to design new characters and backgrounds.

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Tiny Tim

"Help Wanted" is the series premiere episode of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. It originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on May 1, 1999, following the television airing of the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards. The episode follows the main protagonist, an anthropomorphic sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants attempts to get a job at the local restaurant called the Krusty Krab, but is tasked to find a seemingly non-existent high-caliber spatula because the owner, Mr. Krabs, considers him unqualified for the position. Series creator Stephen Hillenburg initially conceived the show in 1984 and began to work on it shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. To voice the character of SpongeBob, Hillenburg approached Tom Kenny, who had worked with him on Rocko's Modern Life. For the series pitch, Hillenburg originally wanted the idea of having SpongeBob and Squidward on a road trip, inspired by the 1989 film Powwow Highway. Hillenburg gave up the idea, and started anew with the idea he and Derek Drymon came up for "Help Wanted" based on an experience Hillenburg had in the Boy Scouts. The episode was written by Hillenburg, Derek Drymon, and Tim Hill, and the animation director was Alan Smart. "Help Wanted" features a musical performance from Tiny Tim (pictured) singing his song called "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight". "Help Wanted" was excluded in the series first season DVD release because Nickelodeon did not want to pay Tim's estate for the DVD rights. It had since been released as a bonus feature to various series DVDs. "Help Wanted" gained an average of 6.9 million views, receiving positive reviews from media critics.

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Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 American computer-animated family-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 52nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film was directed by Rich Moore, who has directed episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama, and the screenplay was written by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston from a story by Moore, Johnston and Jim Reardon. John Lasseter served as the executive producer. The film features the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch. The film tells the story of the eponymous arcade game villain who rebels against his role and dreams of becoming a hero. He travels between games in the arcade, and ultimately must eliminate a dire threat that could affect the entire arcade, and one that Ralph himself inadvertently started. Wreck-It Ralph premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on October 29, 2012, and went into general release on November 2. The film has earned $471 million in worldwide box office revenue, $189 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada; it was met with critical and commercial success, winning the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and receiving nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

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"Adventure Time" is an animated short created by Pendleton Ward (pictured), as well as the pilot to the Cartoon Network series of the same name. In this episode, Pen and Jake have to rescue Princess Bubblegum (voiced by Paige Moss) from the antagonistic Ice King (voiced by John Kassir). "Adventure Time" first aired as a stand-alone short on Nicktoons Network in January 2007, after which it subsequently went viral on the internet; as of April 2008, the pilot has had over 3,000,000 views. It was then re-aired as part of Nicktoons Network's Random! Cartoons series showcase on December 7, 2008, subsequently leading to the creation of the animated series. It was nominated for an Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject. The short and the later-produced television series share elements, but the two differ slightly in setting, conception and continuity, especially in regard to the post-apocalyptic setting, which is only featured in the television series.

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Blue's Clues is an American children's television show that premiered on September 8, 1996, on the cable television network Nickelodeon, and ran for a decade, until August 6, 2006. Producers Angela Santomero, Todd Kessler, and Traci Paige Johnson combined concepts from child development and early-childhood education with innovative animation and production techniques that helped their viewers learn. It was hosted originally by Steve Burns, who although a crucial factor in its success, left in 2002 to pursue a music career, and was replaced by Donovan Patton. The show follows an animated blue-spotted dog named Blue as she plays a game with the host and the viewers. They used research about child development and young children's viewing habits that had been conducted in the thirty years since the debut of Sesame Street in the U.S., and revolutionized the genre by inviting their viewers' involvement. Research was part of the creative and decision-making process in the production of the show, and was integrated into all aspects and stages of the creative process. By 2002, Blue's Clues had received several awards for excellence in children's programming, educational software, and licensing, and had been nominated for nine Emmy Awards. Versions of the show have been produced in other countries, and it has been syndicated in 120 countries and translated into 15 languages. It was one of the first preschool shows to incorporate American Sign Language into its content.

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The World of Strawberry Shortcake is a 1980 animated television special written by Romeo Muller, directed by Charles Swenson, and produced by Swenson, Muller and Fred Wolf. Starring the voices of Romeo Muller, Russi Taylor, Julie McWhirter and Joan Gerber, it was made by animators from Murakami-Wolf-Swenson in the United States and by Toei Doga in Japan. The music was written and performed by Flo & Eddie of the rock group, The Turtles. The titular character, Strawberry Shortcake, lives in a fictional place called Strawberryland. In the special, narrated by Romeo Muller (as Mr. Sun), she and her friends celebrate her sixth birthday. While preparations for her party are underway, a villain called the Peculiar Purple Pieman plots to steal the berries from Strawberry's home in order to make his pies. Produced and sponsored by the Kenner toy company, The World of Strawberry Shortcake was the first special to feature the American Greetings character, Strawberry Shortcake. Bypassing network television, it debuted on March 28, 1980 in syndication across more than 90 U.S. cities, and was later released on 16 mm film, VHS, Beta and DVD. The special received generally favorable reviews in the School Library Journal, which reviewed it in 1983 and 2007.

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Alex Chan

The French Democracy is a short 2005 French political film made by Alex Chan (pictured) using computer animation from Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game The Movies. The plot centers on three Moroccan men who turn to rioting after facing different forms of discrimination. Chan, a French native of Chinese descent, created the film to convey his view that racism caused the riots of the 2005 civil unrest in France. Although Chan was restricted by shortcomings and technical limitations in The Movies, he finished the film after four days of production. The film was uploaded to The Movies Online, Lionhead's website for user-created videos, on 22 November 2005 and was soon covered by American and French press. Although real-time-rendered, three-dimensional computer animation (machinima) had been used in earlier political films, The French Democracy attained an unprecedented level of mainstream attention for political machinima. While acknowledging the film's flaws, such as the grammatically poor English subtitles, commentators praised its clear political message and compared it to films such as La Haine and Do the Right Thing. The French Democracy inspired other politically conscious machinima works and fueled discussion about the art form's potential for political expression. Some raised concerns that video game companies would use their copyrights to control the content of derivative machinima films.

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Flipnote Studio 3D, known in Japan as Moving Notepad 3D (うごくメモ帳 3D, Ugoku Memochō Surī Dī) and originally announced as Flipnote Memo, is a free downloadable animation application launched in 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS. Developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo, this successor to Flipnote Studio allows users to use three separate layers to create stereoscopic 3D animations, which can be exported into GIF or AVI format. Flipnote Studio 3D was launched with two online communities: Flipnote Gallery: Friends, and Flipnote Gallery: World. The application was released in Japan on July 24, 2013. It was set for an August 2013 release in North America and Europe, but due to "unexpectedly high" usage of the online services in Japan, the application's release was delayed for both regions.

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