Happy birthday Simpson. Matt Groening's animated family turns 30 today. It was December 17, 1989 when dad Homer, mum Margin, the thug Bart, the nerd Lisa and the baby Maggie debuted in the first half-hour episode broadcast in prime time on the American network Fox.
At the time the drawings were a little different from what we are used to today, but the spirit of the yellow characters with ball eyes was already clear. The Smpsons have inaugurated a new television genre: that of cartoons "for adults", which mock the powerful (from Clinton to Putin, passing through Bush, Gorbachev and many others) and above all mock the cloying myth ofAmerican way of life, proving that the American dream is far more unreal than Springfield, the imaginary city where Homer & Co. live.
Over the years, even more irreverent cartoons have been born (from South Park to Family Guy), but none have left more than the Simpsons his own mark on pop culture of the last generations.
Suffice it to say that on 31 December 1999 the magazine Time hailed the show as “best television series of the century”, while on January 14, 2000, a star was dedicated to the Simpsons in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And if all of this weren't enough evidence of the influence cartoon has had on popular culture, add that Homer's signature exclamation, "D'oh!“, has found citizenship in none other thanOxford English Dictionary.
True icons of the 90s, Groening's characters have transformed over time into one of the longest-running series (animated and not) in history, to the point that last February Fox decided to renew the project for the umpteenth time, also producing seasons number 31 and 32. And fans of the first hour, now navigating middle age, can look forward to more decades of new episodes.
