Sitcoms are classic comfort food. They’re not prestige TV shows with complicated plots you need a manual to follow. Episodes usually stand alone, so you can start watching at pretty much any point without getting lost. You can tune in and out as you please, laughing at what’s funny and ignoring the rest. And when it comes to legacy sitcoms like Friends or The Officer, there are a ton of episodes to enjoy.
And no sitcom has more episodes than The Simpsons, which has been running non-stop since 1989. Through all of its ups and downs, The Simpsons is an ongoing legend of a TV show, and Disney+ has nearly 800 episodes to keep you entertained.
The Simpsons is the funniest show TV show yet created by man
Especially in the show’s “golden age”
The Simpsons is most beloved by people of a certain age who watched it growing up and who unconsciously committed the show’s vast glossary of hilarious lines and gags to memory. It’s impossible to give an objective accounting of the show’s best moments, since everyone has their personal favorites, but we can run down some of the highlights:
- Season 4, Episode 12: “Marge vs the Monorail.” The town of Springfield is suckered into building a monorail no one needs. Comes complete with a song-and-dance number penned by Conan O’Brien. “What about us braindead slobs? / You’ll be given cushy jobs!”
- Season 3, Episode 10: “Flaming Moe’s.” Homer Simpson invents a drink only for his friend, bartender Moe Szyslak, to steal it and pass it off as his own. This episode originated the phrase, “It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited,” which I’d completely forgotten was invented by this show.
- Season 6, Episode 4: “Itchy & Scratchy Land.” The Simpsons go to a theme park clearly meant as a parody of Disney World, and it’s still dead-on all these years later. Appropriate since the show is now has a home on Disney+.
- Season 8, Episode 23: “Homer’s Enemy.” In the highest-rated episode of the show, Homer’s new coworker becomes enraged that the patriarch of the Simpson family is able to keep his job despite being catastrophically bad at it. Not even tricking Homer into entering a design contest meant for children can get people to turn on him. “But this was a contest for children!” “Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out!”
Even if you’re not part of the converted masses, the writing on The Simpsons is so sharp and consistent that some joke or other is guaranteed to get past your defenses sooner or later. And with nearly 800 episodes available to watch on Disney+, it’ll have plenty of chances.
The “fall” of The Simpsons
Has The Simpsons declined over the years? Who cares?
The Simpsons recently wrapped its 37th season, with a 38th due to air on Fox last this year. One of the longest-running debates among the fandom is whether or how much the show has dipped in quality over the years, with a lot of old die-hards claiming that only the first several seasons are truly worth watching, with seasons three through eight being the sweet spot.
Even if that’s true, that still gives you over a hundred episodes of perfectly scripted comedy to fall in love with. And not everyone agrees about the show’s slow decline. After all, The Simpsons is the longest-running primetime TV show of all time, so clearly someone’s enjoying it. And there are latter-season episodes that manage to break through. The Season 33 two-parter “A Serious Flanders” parodies prestige TV and was the highest-rated episode in years. The “Treehorse of Horror” anthology episodes regularly become fan favorites, and the most recent season finale, and the Season 36 opener “Bart’s Birthday” makes light of the fact that the show will probably never end, but just reset itself over and over. Meta humor like that tends to go over well in the show’s later seasons.
The Simpsons is already renewed through Season 40, so talk about it going on forever isn’t just idle speculation. The vastness is one of the show’s selling points. Hardcore fans can debate which season or episode is the best, but if you’re just looking for something to entertain you for an hour or two, The Simpsons is nigh-inexhaustible.
For Disney+, The Simpsons is a weapon
The streaming wars rage on
Even if you’ve never watched The Simpsons, you probably at least know what it is, because at this point it’s practically a cultural institution. That’s because it started airing at a time when people had way fewer options when it came to what to watch, and a show like The Simpsons could command attention simply by airing in a well-chosen time slot. That’s way harder to do nowadays, when various streaming services divide the TV-viewing public and platforms like YouTube and TikTok take up a lot more of people’s time.
The Simpsons is a rare breed of show and occupies an important place in the Disney+ library. Every streaming service wants at least one massive, beloved legacy sitcom in its library so people can have something familiar to binge. It’s almost like an arms race. Netflix has Seinfeld, HBO Max has Friends, and Peacock has The Office. With The Simpsons, Disney+ may have them all beat, because nothing else will ever eclipse it when it comes to sheer size and scale.
The Simpsons forever
These hilarious comedy shows deserve way more attention
If you’re looking for some truly underrated comedy shows, I have got the perfect recommendations for you.
You can currently watch seasons 1-36 of The Simpsons on Disney+, although the recently concluded Season 37 won’t be on for a while yet. We may be in the age of streaming, but The Simpsons still airs linearly on Fox, and the powers that be want to give people a little incentive to actually watch live once in a while, if they can remember how.
In addition to more seasons on the way, there’s another Simpsons movie coming in 2027, the first having been released way back in 2007 when the show was already long in the tooth. Who knows what adventures the Simpsons will have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable? If they keep making people laugh, that’s a bridge they may never have to cross.
- Release Date
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December 17, 1989
- Network
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FOX
- Showrunner
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Al Jean
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Dan Castellaneta
Homer Simpson / Abe Simpson / Barney Gumble / Krusty (voice)
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Julie Kavner
Marge Simpson / Patty Bouvier / Selma Bouvier (voice)
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Nancy Cartwright
Bart Simpson / Nelson Muntz / Ralph Wiggum (voice)
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Yeardley Smith
Lisa Simpson (voice)
