The Simpsons
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire
TV Flash files “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” as the hour the catalog opens — The Simpsons (1989–present) on Fox, season 1, episode 1, aired 1989-12-17, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 802 in the The Simpsons guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 1989-12-17 (30 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Bart the Genius” (S01E02). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Christmas 1989: the primetime contract, not a cute origin extra. Pathos is already in the yellow.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Homer's Christmas bonus is canceled and the rainy-day funds are needed to pay for Bart's tattoo removal in the first full-length episode of the subversive animated satire about Springfield's hapless first family.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire sit in the The Simpsons guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 802 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did The Simpsons S01E01 air?
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire aired 1989-12-17 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I am not watching all 800 episodes?
Start with the 1989 Christmas premiere, then a handful of golden-age hours from seasons four through eight. Treat the rest as a library, not a novel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a living joke encyclopedia, not a series you owe from pilot to present. The early years still teach how American satire learned to reset weekly; the later catalog is optional weather. You already speak Springfield. This is how the grammar got written.
The first image is a couch, and then it is not. The Simpsons treats the opening gag as a weekly contract: we will reset the living room, and we will still find a new joke about the country that owns it. Fox put a yellow family on Sunday nights in 1989 after the Tracey Ullman shorts, and the half-hour that followed did not merely popularize adult animation. It installed a shared vocabulary. People who stopped watching still speak Springfield.
Filed against
- Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson
Dan Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson — the yellow everyman who turned “D’oh!” into a global punctuation mark. Decades of The Simpsons mean his throat is half of American cartoon history. TV Flash tips the doughnut to the man behind the…
- Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson
Julie Kavner’s Marge Simpson is the blue-hair patience of Fox’s yellow family — a reference language still adding pages while the country litigates whether the golden age is over. Not a sitcom you finish. On TV Flash she is the…
- Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson
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- Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson
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- Hank Azaria as Moe / Chief Wiggum
Hank Azaria voices Moe and Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons — Springfield as a living joke encyclopedia, bar and badge as two dialects in Fox's yellow reference language. TV Flash files him as the show's vocal furniture: the early years still…
- Harry Shearer as Mr. Burns / Ned Flanders
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