Simpsons Season 23 – What to Expect

This lovable cartoon family has been entertaining kids and adults for almost 25 years and has aired on 20^th Century Fox for 22 seasons. Currently, it’s the longest running program on Fox and has been given 27 Emmy awards. In case you’ve been living under a rock the main characters are meant to resemble a modern, blue-collar family. Homer and Marge very much resemble Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Homer is an idiotic, accident prone nuclear power plant worker and Marge is a nagging, stay at home Mom. Their three kids are mischievous Bart and know it all Lisa. There’s also Maggie, the baby in the family who rarely speaks.

They live in Springfield, never mentioning the state it resides in, with a cast of characters as wide and diverse as our world, although unlike here in reality no one in the Simpson family (or any of their friends for that matter) ever ages. The series was created by Matt Groening and James L. Brooks around 1987. It started with a series of short animated cartoons, which aired on the Tracey Ullman Show. Groening modeled the characters after his own family. In 1989 Fox picked the series up and ordered a full season of half-hour shows to air during primetime. 

There are a number of classic sequences that serve as long term running gags on the show. Bart is showed in the opening credits writing on a chalkboard at Springfield Elementary, repeating a different sentence each episode. The opening credits end with the family sitting on the couch, and each episode involves different joke with the couch. The couch might turn into a boat and float away, for example. In more recent episodes the opening also features a billboard which changes each episode.

At the 2011 Comic-Con event in California producers of The Simpsons discussed the upcoming 23^rd season and what fans can expect. They showcased one of the opening sequences which will feature Simpson’s neighbor Ned Flanders and it will be a spoof on the Dexter opening credits set to appear before the annual Halloween episode titled “Treehouse of Horror.” British graffiti artist Banksy will be paid homage to at least twice during the season. Notable celebrities lending their voices to the 23^rdseason include: Kiefer Sutherland, Jane Lynch, Jeremy Irons, and Joan Rivers. The Christmas episode will be set 30 years in the future, which makes sense as it’s written by Futurama writer J. Stewart Burns. Season 23 begins in September 2011 and we can’t wait to see what America’s favorite fictional family has in store for us.