Pack your bags everyone, the Simpsons are going to Palestine, Swaziland, Azerbaijan, Wilmington, Friendster headquarters, the United States Virgin Islands, the ol’ swimming hole, and finally, TO CABLE, so that you will never, ever leave your house, doomed to spend the rest of your life in peaceful bliss watching “Bart Gets Famous.”
According to TV Guide, Twentieth Television is preparing to shop The Simpsons to cable networks for the first time in the show’s nearly 25-season history. Why has it taken so long?
When The Simpsons was first sold into broadcast syndication in 1993, it was an anomaly: an animated show in a sea of live-action repeats. TV stations, nervous about the prospects, demanded exclusivity from cable as long as new episodes were being made by Fox in primetime. No one involved could have predicted that The Simpsons would still be churning out fresh shows 20 years later.
“There have been additional contracts to add episodes,” says Katz Media vice president and director of programming Bill Carroll. “But the first one signed is still in effect. It was a unique time and place and a unique show, and thus the deals were advantageous to the stations.” (Via)
Considering most Fox syndicates only air episodes from the past five seasons or so (if I have to see “The Scorpion’s Tale” one more time, I’m going to scream), this is terrific news, made all the better by “executives [believing] that Fox’s sister channel FX will likely have first crack at the property.” Here’s why this should happen.
1. Because this episode will be on TV again.
2. And this one.
3. And this one.
4. And this one.
5. And this one.
6. And this one.
7. And this one.
8. And this one.
9. And this one.
10. And this one.
My childhood would have been that much more miserable without golden-era Simpsons episodes in it, and you shouldn’t have to buy DVDs in order to see “Homer Goes to College.” Make this happen, FX.
